Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall Correspondence: FAIRification and Expansion Workflow

The correspondence of Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856) represents a key source for the history of Oriental Studies and serves as a remarkable testimony to his extensive scholarly dialogue. The letters document the development of the discipline and reflect the international scientific networks of the 19th century. Spanning Europe, the USA, and India, the correspondence offers valuable insights into cultural and academic exchange processes of the time. 

This project focuses on creating a digital edition of the correspondence to make it accessible as a FAIR research resource. The aim is to convert previously published volumes into a TEI/XML edition, enrich them with standardised metadata and authority data, and integrate new correspondence pieces. By digitally processing the letters, the project ensures their accessibility to the international research community while preserving them for future academic work. 

About the Project 

The initiative involves several key steps, addressing both the technical implementation and the scholarly exploration of the correspondence. Innovative digital methods are employed to structure, link, and visualise the letters: 

• FAIRification of data: Letters are enriched with authority data such as GND (Integrated Authority File) for persons and GeoNames for locations. These data enable precise linking and facilitate reuse through aggregation services like Europeana, Kulturpool, CLARIN-VLO, and CorrespSearch. Over 900 individuals and organisations as well as more than 350 locations have already been recorded and linked to authority data. These authority data form a crucial basis for disseminating the letters through international aggregation services and enhancing the visibility of Austrian sources. 

• Expansion workflow: A new workflow for the inclusion and processing of additional correspondence pieces has been designed and tested. This workflow supports the integration of new letters, whether already archived or newly discovered. Editing is carried out in a native XML format, supported by comprehensive documentation of editorial guidelines and a guide for common use cases. The editorial guidelines were specifically developed for this project and document the project-specific adjustments to ensure consistent and sustainable data processing. 

• Publication and archiving: The data is published under a Creative Commons BY-NC license in the Humanities Asset Management System (GAMS) at the University of Graz. The platform offers a user-friendly interface with diverse search options, indices for persons and places, and spatio-temporal visualisation of the letters via the DARIAH GeoBrowser. The digital edition ensures persistent citability of the letters and makes them available to the international research community. 

The digital edition of the correspondence not only advances scholarly exploration but also contributes to the development of research infrastructures. It supports the dissemination of Austrian sources in international aggregations and provides a foundation for further studies in Digital Humanities and Oriental Studies.