Die kleinen Leute und ihre Briefe
Herausforderungen & Chancen einer Bereitstellung von verlinkten offenen Normdaten für alle

“Farvel og skriv snart”

Annika Rockenberger, Ph.D., Universitätsbibliothek Oslo

Common People and Their Letters
Challenges and Opportunities of Linked Open Authority Data for Everyone

“Farvel og skriv snart”

Annika Rockenberger, Ph.D., University Library of Oslo

Download the Presentation from Zenodo

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15647975

Introduction

  • From Norway to America
     
  • America Letters
     
  • Editions and Digitised Letters I
     
  • Editions and Digitised Letters II

From Norway to America

A painting of the Norwegian sloop "Restauration". The image shows a one-mast sail boat with blowing sails under the Norwegian flag. It is sailing on open water, a breeze curling the surface into waves. The sky is lightly clouded.

Source: http://www.wheelerfolk.org/sloop/s_photos/Restauration_by_Geir_lg.jpg.
The sloop "Restauration" painted by Norwegian artist Geir Bjoergum

America Letters

Left side: Page 1 of a letter from 1853. Unknown sender, writing to their sister and brother-in-law, Søren Christensen Ringi in Kristiana (Oslo), Norway.
 

Right upper side: Envelope of a letter from a citizen, sending a private collection of 'America Letters' to the National Archives.
 

Right lower side: Letter by Per Johannessen accompanying the historical letters from his collection, donated to the National Archives.

https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/209281/7

https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/209281/3

https://media.digitalarkivet.no/view/209281/5

Editions and Digitised Letters

From America to Norway. Letters of Norwegian Emigrants. Vol. I–VII.
Ed. by Orm Øverland and Steinar Kjærheim. 1992–2011.

Photo taken by Annika Rockenberger

Editions and Digitised Letters

Screenshot of the main page of the Norwegian Local History Wiki (https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/wiki/Lokalhistoriewiki:Hovedside)

Norwegian Correspondences
NorKorr

  • Correspondence Metadata Aggregator
     
  • Mass Digitisation in Norway

NorKorr – Correspondence Metadata Aggregator

An early concept of the NorKorr Metadata Aggregator. The image is part of the poster, presented at the DHN2019 conference in Copenhagen. The poster is archived on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4322351

>500.000 Briefe

Mass Digitisation in Norway

Von Holger Uwe Schmitt - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50667492

Magnetic tapes that store Norway's digital and digitised cultural heritage in the mountain halls of Mo i Rana. Photo credit by the National Library (https://www.nb.no/samlingen/nettarkivet/om-nettarkivet/)

Metadata and Authority Data

  • Data: Metadata, Authority Data, Linked Data
     
  • Challenges of Linked Authority Data in NorKorr
     
  • America Letters in NorKorr

Data:
Metadata, Authority Data, Linked Data

Elise Tvede

Elise Amalie Tvede

Elise Wærenskjold

Taale Andreas Gjestvang

?

VIAF ID: 77588632

Authority Data

=

Elise Tvede

Challenges of Linked Data in NorKorr

Edvard Munch Correspondence

America Letters

Norwegian Letters

Camilla Collet's Letters

Source of image: https://www.istockphoto.com/de/vektor/gruppe-von-menschen-personen-crowd-icons-gesch%C3%A4ftsleute-team-benutzer-piktogramm-gm1472023771-502484816

"The Many Unknown"

America Letters in NorKorr

Screenshot from CorrespSearch showing results from the edition "Norgesbrev". On the right side panel, where additional information is displayed for authority data, the results for "persons" are empty, since there are not authority data links. https://correspsearch.net/en/search.html?e=ca6da774-7f80-427d-b9fb-78aad2854bf4&t=norkorr&x=1&w=0

Opportunities with
Linked Open Data

  • The Historical Population Register
     
  • Opportunities

The Historical Population Register

The landing page of the Historical Population Register https://histreg.no/index.php/home (in Norwegian).

Opportunities

Source: https://histreg.no/index.php/home – using the surname Taale Andreas and the family name Gjestvang retrieves a list of hits. These persons share the same name, but may not be the same person. A key indicator is the year of birth. The displayed PFIDs are automatically assigned to each person named in an archival authority source, like the census. HBR will consolidate PFIDs into one HBR-ID for all mentions of the same person across sources.

Conclusion

  • Citizen Science
  • Metadata Sprints
  • Slow Loris Approach

Get In Touch

Annika Rockenberger, Ph.D. (she/they)

University of Oslo Library
 

📧 annika.rockenberger@ub.uio.no

🐘 https://fedihum.org/@arockenberger

 

NorKorr https://norkorr.hypotheses.org/

Credits

  • All text, unless directly quoted from sources or literature, is written by Annika Rockenberger and licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
  • Generative AI has not been used for creating texts or images.
  • The NorKorr design, used for slide backgrounds and colour scheme, was created by Sofie Gilbert for the NorKorr project. All rights reserved.
  • License information for each image can be found in the list below.
Slide no. Image License information
5 The sloop "Restauration". Painted by Geir Bjoergum All rights reserved
6 Samlinger til kildeutgivelse, Amerikabrevene, AV/RA-EA-4057/F/L0046: Amerikabrev, originaler og kopier., s. 3, 5, 7
Brukslenke for sidevisning: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db60136961000007
Owner. The National Archives of Norway
Left side (7): Public Domain
Right upper side (3): Some rights reserved
Right lower side (5): Some rights reserved
7 Photo of Vols. 1–7 of "Fra Amerika til Norge", ed. by Orm Øverland and Steinar Kjærheim.. Taken by Annika Rockenberger CC-BY 4.0
 
8 Screenshot of the main page of the Norwegian Local History Wiki (https://lokalhistoriewiki.no/wiki/Lokalhistoriewiki:Hovedside) Content on website licensed under CC-BY SA 

Credits

Slide no. Image License information
10 An early concept of the NorKorr Metadata Aggregator. The image is part of the poster, presented at the DHN2019 conference in Copenhagen. The poster is archived on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4322351 All rights reserved
11 Magnetic tapes that store Norway's digital and digitised cultural heritage in the mountain halls of Mo i Rana. Photo credit by the National Library (https://www.nb.no/samlingen/nettarkivet/om-nettarkivet/)

Nidarosdom, photo by Holger Uwe Schmitt , https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50667492
Large image of magnetic tapes: All rights reserved

Smaller image of Nidarosdom: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 Icon for crowd. Source of image: https://www.istockphoto.com/de/vektor/gruppe-von-menschen-personen-crowd-icons-gesch%C3%A4ftsleute-team-benutzer-piktogramm-gm1472023771-502484816 All rights reserved
 
15 Screenshot from CorrespSearch showing results from the edition "Norgesbrev". https://correspsearch.net/en/search.html?e=ca6da774-7f80-427d-b9fb-78aad2854bf4&t=norkorr&x=1&w=0 CorrespSearch licensed under CC-BY SA
Data licensed under CC0

Credits

Slide no. Image License information
18 Screenshot taken by Annika Rockenberger. Source: https://histreg.no/index.php/home – using the surname Taale Andreas and the family name Gjestvang Historical Population Register: no known license. Open data CC0. Web presentation most likely all rights reserved.
19 Photo by Gunay M.E. - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66156375 CC BY-SA 4.0

Common People and Their Letters Challenges and Opportunities of Linked Open Authority Data for Everyone

By Annika Rockenberger

Common People and Their Letters Challenges and Opportunities of Linked Open Authority Data for Everyone

Vortrag anlässlich der Tagung Briefkulturen, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin/Deutschland, 16.-17. Juni 2025. Annika Rockenberger. CC-BY 4.0. Some images all rights reserved. See credits on last slide.

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