The aim of the National Library of Estonia's Digilab is to make the data held by libraries more digitally accessible and usable, promote data enrichment, research, and innovation. In Digilab, cultural heritage and information technology converge in the form of data, providing new opportunities for humanities and social scientists, data scientists, as well as students and scholars.
The main datasets of Digilab originate from the digital archive DIGAR, the digitized Estonian articles database DEA, the Estonian national bibliography ENB, and the Estonian thesaurus EMS. Digilab also encompasses data related to legal bibliography, the bibliography of Estonian presidents, parliamentarianism, and reproductions.
In Digilab, there are tools available to aid in data processing, enabling queries and visualization of the content within collections. These tools allow for aggregating subsets of datasets or presenting an overview of books published in Estonia through interactive timelines, for example. Both the tools and datasets are continuously evolving and expanding.
Digilab also provides case studies that showcase the possibilities of digital methods in cultural heritage research. Additionally, Digilab helps to keep a finger on the pulse of events and news related to digital humanities.
For collaboration ideas, data requests, or any other inquiries, you can reach out to Digilab at digilab@rara.ee.
When using open data, you agree to the license terms noted at each dataset's page.
With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Urmas Sinisalu
Head of the Library Services Development Center
urmas.sinisalu@rara.ee
With over 25 years of experience in library IT, I began as a programmer and progressed through various engaging roles within the IT domain, ranging from an analyst to an IT architect. Along the way, I've taken on numerous challenging opportunities in project management, public procurement, and EU projects, including leadership positions in the IT department at the National Library.
Peeter Tinits
Digital Humanities Chief Specialist
peeter.tinits@rara.ee
I work with data in the fields of linguistics and cultural heritage, with a focus on text corpora. My work involves data cleaning, refining, and analysis, aiming to assist interested parties in creating new value using the National Library's data. Additionally, I work as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Tartu.
Krister Kruusmaa
Data Scientist
krister.kruusmaa@rara.ee
I received a master's degree in digital humanities at the Ecole Nationale des Chartes. I have researched the development of environmental awareness and the formation of historical communication networks using machine learning and language technology methods.
Laura Nemvalts
Digital Humanities Specialist
laura.nemvalts@rara.ee
I hold a master's degree in Digital Humanities from Linnaeus University. In my master's thesis, I studied Estonian exile newspapers using text and spatial analysis and experimented with improving OCR.
Opportunities, Limitations, and Risks of Text and Data Mining on National Library's Digital Content: Intellectual Property and Personal Data Protection Perspective.
The task of the virtual lab RaRa is to make RaRa datasets easily accessible to users, provide a centralized hub for tools and guides, assist in data usage, and support the community through calls to action, resources, and networking. To achieve this, it requires not only a web-based environment but also a comprehensive support service with a capable team.
You can contact us via email at digilab@rara.ee or through the contact forms available on our website.
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