Words on the Street: the Uses of a Digital Literary Cityscape

爱丁堡有一个独特的文学城市景观。长期以来，它一直与沃尔特·斯科特、罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂芬森和穆里尔·斯帕克等作家联系在一起；最近，它对欧文·威尔士、伊恩·兰金和亚历山大·麦考尔·史密斯等作家来说是非常强大的存在。它的文学遗产体现在这座城市对游客和游客以及居民的自我展示上，2004年，它是联合国教科文组织授予的第一座被联合国教科文组织命名为“世界文学之城”的城市。2014-15年，“Palimpsest”项目进行了一次独特的实验。使用文本挖掘和地理定位技术，我们搜索了数百万本数字化书籍，将以爱丁堡为背景的叙事作品汇集在一起。这些技术产生了来自500多个标题的4.7万个摘录的数据集，每个标题都以使用地理参考爱丁堡地名为中心。通过这种方式，文学城市的景观以新的方式变得可见--它可以被绘制，也可以阅读，作品和地点之间的新联系和比较可以被看到或比较。我们对《Palimpsest》的研究通过网站litLong.org和几个探索性的地图可视化公开。这项工作的出版也清楚地表明，学术界以外的人对我们的数据感兴趣，也对我们创新的数字重组爱丁堡的文学城市景观感兴趣。苏格兰首府文化经济中的两个重要参与者--爱丁堡联合国教科文组织世界文学之城信托基金和爱丁堡国际图书节--已经表示有兴趣大量利用这一资源，并同意与我们合作开发它。然而，它对我们这些机构的效用取决于创建一种新的直观和互动的资源，这种资源是专门为学术界以外的用户设计的，并根据外部利益攸关方的需求和他们寻求服务的不同社区而创建。这一合作项目将侧重于设计和开发这样一个界面，可以在线访问，可以通过手机和平板电脑访问，也可以通过文化场馆的大触摸屏访问。其目的是创造一种创新的文学体验，帮助我们的项目合作伙伴促进和培育爱丁堡的文学遗产和当前的声誉。此外，该项目将开创一种新的合作形式，与苏格兰独立出版公司Birlinn Ltd。我们将使用为Palimpsest项目创建的工作流程，从该公司的Polygon印记中挖掘和地理参考相关作品，将它们纳入我们的数据集中，并通过界面提供地理参考摘录。通过这种方式，我们将以一种新的方式将公司的出版物带给新的读者，帮助推广它们，并鼓励读者阅读爱丁堡的新文学作品。我们将与我们的项目合作伙伴合作，开发特别适合他们合作的特定专业用户社区的新界面的使用方法，包括教师、旅游业专业人员、图书馆管理员、在校学生、访问者和难以接触到的群体。开发的资源将在项目网站上公布，并向其他潜在受益者免费提供。我们还将通过界面收集用户反应，结合量化数据，让我们深入了解用户对展出的文学作品的喜好和价值。我们将在新界面推出的同时，在爱丁堡各地选定的地点开展照明装置活动，字面上把文字放在街上。其目的将是促进尽可能广泛地利用资源，提高其对项目伙伴和其他受益者的有用性。我们希望，这种与地方文学互动的方式可以为其他地方的创意经济提供一个模式，也许是在更大的范围内。

Edinburgh has a unique literary cityscape. It has long been associated with authors such as Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stephenson, and Muriel Spark; more recently, it is a very strong presence for writers including Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith. Its literary heritage features in the city's self-presentation to visitors and tourists as well as to residents, and in 2004 it was the first ever city to be granted the UNESCO title of 'World City of Literature'.In 2014-15, the 'Palimpsest' project undertook a singular experiment. Using textmining and geolocation techniques, we searched millions of digitised books to bring together narrative works which made use of Edinburgh as a setting. These techniques generated a dataset of 47,000 extracts from more than 500 titles, each one centred around the use of a georeferenced Edinburgh place name. In this way, the literary cityscape becomes visible in new ways - it can be mapped, as well as read, and new connections and comparisons between works and places can be seen or made.Our research for 'Palimpsest' was made public via a website, LitLong.org, and through a couple of exploratory cartographic visualisations. The publication of the work has also made clear that there is substantial interest in our data beyond academia, and in our innovative digital reorganisation Edinburgh's literary cityscape. Two significant players in the cultural economy of Scotland's capital city, the Edinburgh UNESCO World City of Literature Trust and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, have shown interest in making substantial use of the resource, and have agreed to work with us to develop it. However, its utility for our these institutions is conditional on the creation of a new intuitive and interactive resource, specifically designed for users outside academia and created in accordance with the needs of external stakeholders and the diverse communities they seek to serve. This collaborative project will focus on the design and development of such an interface, accessible online, via mobile phones and tablets, and via large touchscreens in cultural venues. The aim is to create an innovative literary experience which will assist our project partners in the promotion and cultivation of Edinburgh's literary heritage and current reputation.In addition, the project will pioneer a new form of collaboration with an independent Scottish publishing company, Birlinn Ltd. We will use the workflow pipeline created for the 'Palimpsest' project to text-mine and georeference relevant works from the company's Polygon imprint, incorporating them into our dataset and making georeferenced extracts available via the interface. In this way, we will be bringing the company's publications to new readers in a new way, helping to promote them and to encourage readership of new Edinburgh-set literature.We will collaborate with our project partners to develop ways of using the new interface that are particularly suitable for specific professional user communities with which they work, including teachers, tourist industry professionals, librarians, school students, visitors, and hard-to-reach groups. The resources developed will be published on the project website, and made freely available to other potential beneficiaries. We will also be gathering user responses via the interface, which will combine with quantitative data to give us insights into what users like and value about the literary works on show.We will accompany the launch of the new interface with a campaign of illuminated installations at selected sites throughout Edinburgh, literally putting the words on the street. The aim will be to foster the widest possible uptake of the resource, enhancing its usefulness to project partners and other beneficiaries. We hope to establish that this way of interacting with the literature of place can offer a model for creative economies elsewhere, and perhaps on a larger scale.