BrokenBooks.org allows users to build Manifests that reassemble manuscripts that have been cut apart and sold in parts around the world. The images and reassembly is accomplished, but the good reference to the actual holders of the objects is difficult because many Canvas URIs are not dereferencable.
Variation(s)
Broken Books is designed for dispersed manuscripts, but could also be used for misordered manuscripts, alternative sequences, virtual collections, or other applications where a new Manifest is needed to present remote resources in a new way.
related stories: #53 #54 #55
Proposed Solutions
Right now, the process generates new Canvases for every new contribution and then asks for the image resource that will be annotated onto it. These Canvases are hosted locally to Broken Books, but they serve only as an attachment for the image and the annotationLists generated. Academic rigor applies metadata through annotation, acknowledging the hosting repository and the owner of the document itself, but it would be much better if the hosted Canvas could be referenced directly. The problem is that if this Canvas URI is not dereferencable, the Canvas can only be a fork from the original, as the original Manifest which sequenced it is not recorded.
Canvases MUST be identified by a URI and it must be an HTTP(s) URI.
…
Canvases MAY be dereferenced separately from the manifest via their URIs
If the MAY becomes a SHOULD or if institutions are just better at providing access to their Canvas objects, this will "just work."
Additional Background
The benefit for the hosting institutions is that by providing a dereferencable Canvas URI, they also know where to look for annotationLists that describe their objects. The graph now holds a list of metadata and relationship information about the new Broken Books Manifest that also sequences this same canvas. Better photography or description can help both Manifests. If Harvard has one quire in a Manifest, but their Canvas URIs are pointed at by Broken Books, it is immediately possible to point to the sequence that orders the quire within the full(er) object.
Description
BrokenBooks.org allows users to build Manifests that reassemble manuscripts that have been cut apart and sold in parts around the world. The images and reassembly is accomplished, but the good reference to the actual holders of the objects is difficult because many Canvas URIs are not dereferencable.
Variation(s)
Broken Books is designed for dispersed manuscripts, but could also be used for misordered manuscripts, alternative sequences, virtual collections, or other applications where a new Manifest is needed to present remote resources in a new way.
related stories: #53 #54 #55
Proposed Solutions
Right now, the process generates new Canvases for every new contribution and then asks for the image resource that will be annotated onto it. These Canvases are hosted locally to Broken Books, but they serve only as an attachment for the image and the annotationLists generated. Academic rigor applies metadata through annotation, acknowledging the hosting repository and the owner of the document itself, but it would be much better if the hosted Canvas could be referenced directly. The problem is that if this Canvas URI is not dereferencable, the Canvas can only be a fork from the original, as the original Manifest which sequenced it is not recorded.
The standard already has an opinion about dereferencable Canvas URIs:
If the MAY becomes a SHOULD or if institutions are just better at providing access to their Canvas objects, this will "just work."
Additional Background
The benefit for the hosting institutions is that by providing a dereferencable Canvas URI, they also know where to look for annotationLists that describe their objects. The graph now holds a list of metadata and relationship information about the new Broken Books Manifest that also sequences this same canvas. Better photography or description can help both Manifests. If Harvard has one quire in a Manifest, but their Canvas URIs are pointed at by Broken Books, it is immediately possible to point to the sequence that orders the quire within the full(er) object.