Where Keywords Fail: Using Metadata to Facilitate Digital Humanities Scholarship

摘要

Primary sources are foundational to digital humanities re-search. Their study is a valuable part of developing critical thinking skills in students. Enhancing access to these "hidden" resources through digiti-zation is a valuable service to scholars, students, and educators. However, merely scanning and providing full-text keyword searchability may not fully meet the needs of digital humanities scholars. Abbreviations, obsolete and regional word usage, idioms, misspellings and alternate spellings, and omis-sions in primary sources make keyword searching difficult. The addition of metadata in the form of normalized name headings and topics greatly en-hances the research experience and saves the time of users.