The Historical Thesaurus of English

The University of Glasgow’s Historical Thesaurus of English is a unique resource charting the development of meaning in the huge and varied vocabulary of English. It consists of almost every recorded word in English from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, all arranged into detailed hierarchies of meaning. Find out more

Interactive Map of Burns Suppers Worldwide

Featuring more than 1000 Burns Suppers across all 7 continents and in 75 countries around the world, this resource seeks to record, illustrate, and offer new insights into the ways in which the tradition of the Burns Supper continues to be maintained, adapted and reimagined in the 21^st century. Find out more

James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was a major figure in 19th century printmaking and created 490 etchings. Over 9500 impressions of these prints have been located and investigated during the project, which completes a series of catalogues raisonnés of Whistler's oeuvre. Find out more

Bess of Hardwick's Letters

Bess of Hardwick's Letters brings together, for the first time, the remarkable letters written to and from Bess of Hardwick (c.1521/2 or 1527-1608), one of Elizabethan England's most famous figures. Find out more

People of Medieval Scotland 1093-1371

A database of all known people of Scotland between 1093 and 1314 mentioned in over 8600 contemporary documents. It is also being extended to 1371 to include all those lands, peoples and relationships mentioned in royal charters between 1314 and 1371. Find out more

Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue

The Digital Catalogue documents, visually and textually, the first ten years of Andy Goldsworthy's ephemeral, outdoor practice. It replicates Goldsworthy's Slide Cabinet Index, and includes previously unpublished material from Goldsworthy's Sketchbook Diaries. Find out more

The Berwickshire Place-Name Resource

The resource includes historical research for all Berwickshire place-names on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger map, including more than 1,600 place-names and 7,000 historical forms presented via a series of interactive maps. Find out more

The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler: A Catalogue Raisonné

The online catalogue includes some 550 oil paintings and over 1700 works on paper dating from ca 1850 to 1903. The evolution of each painting from sketch to final oil is described and illustrated. Find out more

Curious Travellers

The project explores Romantic-period accounts of journeys into Wales and Scotland with a focus on the writings of the Flintshire naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), whose published Tours of both countries did so much to awaken public interest in the ‘peripheries’ of Britain. Find out more

Seeing speech

The resource provides ultrasound tongue imaging (UTI) and lip video of speech, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) video of speech, and 2D midsagittal head animations based on MRI and UTI data. Find out more

Week Beginning 16th December 2024

Posted on23rd December 202423rd December 2024Authorbaitken

I was unfortunately off work sick from Monday to Wednesday this week, although I still managed to keep up with my emails and respond to queries regarding the new Nairnshire place-names project, the DSL, Garrick Allen’s new proposal, Matthew Creasy’s new proposal and to update Deven Parker on the continued lack of a response from IT Services regarding the allocation of server space for her playbills project.

I returned to work on Thursday and split most of my time between VARICS and the application of my new ‘map first’ interface to the Kirkcudbrightshire place-names resource. For VARICS I began planning the new ‘lookup’ feature, that will allow a speech therapist to select a measurement, input some details about their patient (age, sex and specific details of what is being measured, such as the duration of a feature of speech). I worked with the sample data and information I’d been sent, plus my notes from last week’s meeting, to begin considering the requirements for such a resource. This involved a further email conversation with project RA Mridhula, as several questions arose as I familiarised myself with the data. I have a much clearer understanding of what is actually required now, and I have begun to set up a mockup by importing the data into our online database. I’m hoping to have the time next Monday to continue with this.

For the place-names project I adapted my ‘map first’ place-names interface that I originally developed for the Iona project, and that I’ve subsequently applied to Ayrshire and Nairnshire, to the Place-Names of Kirkcudbrightshire resource (also known as the Place-Names of the Galloway Glens project – https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk). None of the resources have yet to be made publicly available, and this is the first resource that already has a live place-names interface, with the current version available here: https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk/place-names/. This means that when we do launch the new interface I’ll need to ensure there are redirects from all of the old pages to the new ones, which will take some time to sort out. For example, the URL for a search results page on the currently live site will need to redirect to the corresponding search results page in the new interface. This might prove to be slightly tricky, and it’s something I will still need to tackle when we’re ready to launch.

In order to set up the new interface I needed to create a new version of the API, as the current API is not set up to process the requests the new interface requires. With this in place I could then copy the new interface code from one of the other projects and adapt it to work with the new area. This involved updating the citation details, creating a new resource logo and a few other relatively minor tweaks.

One issue that did crop up when setting up the new resource is that the map was centring on a place far from the actual area of study. It took a bit of investigation to understand why this should be, and the issue turned out to be some erroneously located data. There are seven place-names situated in the wrong place, all of them in a vertical line off the coast of Aberystwyth, as the following screenshot demonstrates:

I’m not sure what’s going on with these so I’ve asked the researchers to take a look. There is also the place-name ‘Knockmurray’ that is currently located between Gartcosh and Coatbridge to the north of Glasgow that needs repositioned. These are causing problems because the new map interface positions the map to fit in all of the visible data, but the map has a minimum zoom level. Due to these errors the visible data is spread over a huge area and fitting them all on screen would require the map to be zoomed out further than the zoom level limits allow, meaning the map ends up showing a random area somewhere between the extremities of the data (currently the Isle of Man). Once the map markers are repositioned this issue will automatically correct itself.

I managed to complete the new interface on Friday, including adding in LiDAR data that covers about 80% of the area of study, which I’m sure will be useful to some people. Also on Friday I helped Ophira Gamliel with an issue she was having with a license for the Oxygen XML editor.

I will be working on Monday next week and then I’ll be off for the Christmas holidays.