Building Bridges between Islands of Data - An Investigation into Distributed Data Management in the Humanities

Ancient documents represent a primary source for research in the humanities. A substantial body of digital material has evolved containing information about these documents. Unfortunately these digital resources are often held within myriad locations, owned by a range of groups or individuals, are held within a diverse range of formats and are either unavailable or are available only in isolation. This paper describes a successful investigation into using the OGSA-DAI distributed data management software to build bridges between these islands of data and so to facilitate navigation across a larger data space than is otherwise achievable. An overview of a proof-of-concept that was developed is given along with the technical challenges encountered. Discussion from researchers in the humanities about such an architecture reveals the possibility of creating virtual data centres for the coordinated sharing of such resources. It also raises important questions as to how distributed data resources can be meaningfully federated and queried.