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Abstract
This article presents a solution for the sustained use of a legacy database by means of data curation based on the example of a research project undertaken by the German Center for Art History Paris (DFK Paris). The wave of digitization of the 1990s and early 2000s gave rise to a large number of databases that are, today, becoming obsolete by lack of technical support. This means that the research data, as a slice of academic history, is in danger of being lost. This article’s contribution describes a possible form of recontextualization within a data curation project that takes the example of a database that originated at DFK Paris between 1999 and 2006: the project “Deutsch-französische Kunstvermittlung 1870–1940 und 1945–1960” (Art discourse between France and Germany 1870–1940 and 1945–1960). In three stages, the authors examine the semantic enrichment of the data, the historical context of the project and, employing mediaarchaeological and other methods, the reconstruction of the original data structure. The data’s character as an artifact is taken into consideration throughout, and a restructuring of the data ruled out. The historicity of the database “Deutsch-französische Kunstvermittlung” is also reflected in its new user interface.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/dahj.2023.9.90936
AuthorS
Anne Klammt
is an archaeologist by training who participated in fieldwork in Austria, Egypt, Germany, and Ukraine before she focused for some years on the application of GIS in researching settlement structures of the medieval period in Germany. From there, she left to become the managing director of the Mainz Centre for Digitality in Humanities and Cultural Studies. After other positions, such as at the DFK Paris, she has been responsible for Digital Humanities, Digital Publishing and Knowledge Transfer at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, Dresden, since 2023.
Klara Niemann
studied art history in Brunswick and Cologne. During an internship at the German Center for Art History (DFK Paris) in 2021 she became part of the project “Deutsch-Französische Kunstvermittlung 1870-1940 und 1945-1960”. Afterwards she was involved in the launch of the database in 2022 and represented the project at the conference of the association “Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum” DHd 2023. She is currently working on the preservation and research of the estate of photojournalist Angela Neuke at the LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn.
Deborah Schlauch
is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Marburg, researching the role of French painting in England around 1700. She is currently a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and has been working as a research assistant at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel since 2023, where she is involved in a digital edition project. From 2021 to 2023, she was a research assistant for digital humanities at the DFK Paris, working mainly on the database project “Deutsch-Französische Kunstvermittlung 1870–1940 und 1945–1960”. She studied Art History, Classical Archaeology and Digital Humanities at the University of Göttingen.