Manfred Thaller

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Manfred Thaller (born March 18, 1950 ) is a retired professor for historical and cultural information processing at the University of Cologne .

Originally as a historian, over the past 40 years he has developed possible solutions in computer science for questions from the humanities, there frequently - but not exclusively - historical questions.

biography

Manfred Thaller studied history and oriental antiquity at the University of Graz from 1970 . In 1975 he was there with the dissertation “Studies on the European image of America. Presentation and assessment of the politics and internal development of the United States of America in Germany, Great Britain and Austria between 1840 and 1941 in comparison ”in modern history.

He then specialized as a postdoctoral fellow in (empirical) sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, also on historical mobility studies. At the same time he was involved in research projects on the history of the family, everyday life in the Middle Ages and the links between supervisory boards in German and Austrian companies.

From 1978 he worked in Göttingen as a research assistant and research officer at the Max Planck Institute for History . There he was responsible for the design and implementation of a general database-oriented programming system for historians, which became popular among experts under the name "kleio" and which became the basis for a number of research projects. At the same time he researched general methods of historical computer science.

From 1991 to 1994 he was President of the Association for History and Computing .

In 1995 he was a part-time professor at the University of Bergen in Norway, where he was responsible for teaching "historical computer science". From September 1997 to February 2000 he was founding director, then permanent director of the “Humanities Information Technology Research Program” and the affiliated research center of the University of Bergen. There he was a professor in the humanities faculty.

From March 2000 he was professor of the "Historically Cultural Information Processing" at the University of Cologne. As part of this professorship, he has long been involved in research projects on digitization and long-term archiving of (historical) documents. In recent years he has increased his focus on the area of digital humanities . He retired in July 2015.

In addition, he was a member of the Library Committee of the DFG from 2002–2008 and a member of the Strategy board of the eHumanities initiative at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 2010–2014 .

Selected research interests, projects and publications

Research interests

Projects

Project participation in the European digital library

Publications

  • From History to Applied Computer Science in the Humanities, ed. By Manfred Thaller, HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • The Digital Archive NRW in Practice, ed. By Manfred Thaller, Hamburg 2013
  • Controversies around the Digital Humanities, ed. By Manfred Thaller = Special Issue in Historical Social Research. Vol. 37 (2012), No. 3
  • Manfred Thaller, Simone Görl, Johanna Puhl: Recommendations for the further development of the scientific information supply of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, epubli: Berlin 2011
  • The eXtensible Characterization Languages ​​- XCL, ed. By Manfred Thaller, Hamburg 2009

Varia

Visiting professorships

Project management

  • "WORM's as an edition medium for historical databases", 1987–1988 (funded by IBM Germany)
  • «Development of subject-specific software for the historical sciences», 1988–1992 (VW Foundation)
  • "Digital Archives", 1996–1999 (VW Foundation)
  • “European Cultural Heritage Technician”, 1998–2000 (European Union, DG XXII).
  • "Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis" 2000–2004 (DFG)
  • "Evaluation of German Digitization Activities" 2004–2005 (DFG)
  • "Distributed Digital Incunabula Library" 2004–2006 (DFG)

Project coordination

  • «Securing the archives in Auschwitz», 1991–1997 (various sponsors)
  • "Autumn School for New Historical Methods at the Moscow State University", 1992–1996
  • "Technology, Skills and Resources for Historians of the Former Soviet Union", 1995/96.

Evaluating and advisory projects

  • Evaluation of German funding programs for digitization, Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) 2004/2005 and repeated 2011/2012
  • Strategy development for the NRW Ministry of Research, 2009/2010

Others

  • 1991–1994 President of the international association “Association for History and Computing”.
  • 2000–2002 member of the committee on document delivery systems at the German Research Association (DFG).
  • 2002–2008 Member of the Library Committee of the DFG (Committees: Information Management (2002–2004); Information Systems for the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (2002–2004); Cultural Heritage (2002–2008))

Teaching activities

In addition to the above-mentioned visiting professorships, Thaller regularly taught historical information processing in Göttingen (since 1984) and Munich (since 1985) in the 1980s and 1990s. He also gave courses and seminars at the universities of Graz, Hamburg, Salzburg, Siegen and Vienna. An intensive teaching activity followed, mainly dealing with various software packages, at the Universities of Budapest (CEU), Freiburg, Cologne, Odense, Utrecht and Westfield College, London.

1979–1999 Thaller took part as a teacher in the summer school “New Methods in History”; originally at the University of Linz, later at the University of Salzburg, since 1994 at the universities of Bergen and Salzburg.

1987–1992 as well as 1994 and 1997 he was the organizer of a summer school on source-oriented data processing in Göttingen.

International teaching activities

  • until 2014: Local coordinator of the European joint study program European MA "EuroMACHS" for Cologne (partner universities: Coimbra, Portugal; Cologne, Germany; Lecce, Italy; Turku, Finland)
  • Lecturer at preservation summer schools at universities in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Glasgow; London; Rome.

Publications

  • «DESCRIPTOR. Problems of the development of a program system for the computer-aided evaluation of medieval image sources », in: Europäische Sachkultur des Mittelalters , Vienna 1980 (= publications of the Institute for Medieval Realienkunde Austria 4 = meeting reports of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, phil. Hist. Class 374).
  • «Automation on Parnassus. CLIO - A Database Oriented System for Historians », in: Historical Social Research / Historical Social Research 15 (July 1980). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017) .
  • "Database-oriented procedures in the machine-supported evaluation of historical source material", in: Thomas Kneser (Ed.): Datenverarbeitung in den Geisteswissenschaften , Göttingen, 1980 (= GWDG report 19).
  • "Practical problems in the interdisciplinary investigation of communities of 'long duration'", in: Gerhard A. Ritter and Rudolf Vierhaus (Edd.): Aspects of historical research in France and Germany , Göttingen, 1981 (= publications of the Max Planck Institute for story 69).
  • Numerical data processing for historians , Vienna-Cologne 1982 (= materials for historical social science 1).
  • "On the formalizability of hermeneutic understanding in history", in: Mentalities and living conditions , Göttingen, 1982.
  • "Classification requirements for the analysis of historical sources using formal procedures", in: Peter Ihm and Ingetraut Dahlberg (Ed.): Numerical and non-numerical classification between theory and practice , Frankfurt 1982 (= studies on classification 10).
  • "Recycling the Drudgery. On the Integration of Software Supporting Secondary Analysis if Machine-Readable Texts into a DBMS », in: Linguistica Computazionale 3 (1983) Supplement.
  • “A new input device: The Kurzweil Data Entry Machine”, in: Nachrichten für Documentation 34/6 (1983).
  • "Medieval Realienkunde und EDV", in: The research of everyday life and material culture of the Middle Ages , Vienna 1984 (= publications of the Institute for Medieval Realienkunde Austria 6 = meeting reports of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, phil. Hist. Class 433).
  • "Database-oriented procedures in historical science", in: Report on the 15th Austrian. Historikertag in Salzburg 1981 , Vienna 1984 (= published by the Association of Austrian Historical Societies 23).
  • "Approximate accuracy: Theoretical foundations and practical possibilities of formulating historical sources as products of 'fuzzy' systems", in: Herta Nagl and Franz Wimmer (Ed.): New approaches in historical science. A philosophical-historical conference , Vienna 1984 (= Conceptus Studies 1). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • «Beyond Collecting. On the Design and Implementation of CLIO, a DBMS for the Historical Sciences, in: Robert F. Allen (Ed.): Data Bases in the Humanities and the Social Sciences 2 , Osprey, Flo. 1985.
  • Together with Konrad Jarausch and Gerhard Arminger: Quantitative Methods in History , Darmstadt 1985.
  • «Possiamo permetterci di usare il computer? Possiamo permetterci di non usarlo? », In: Quaderni Storici 60 (1985).
  • «Can We Afford to Use the Computer; Can We Afford not to Use it? " In: H. Millet (Ed.) Informatique et Prosopographie , Paris 1986.
  • "A Draft Proposal for the Coding of Machine Readable Sources", in: Historical Social Research / Historical Social Research 40 (October 1986).
  • "Methods and Techniques of Historical Computation", in: Peter Denley and Deian Hopkin (Edd.): History and Computing , Manchester 1987.
  • "Towards a standard for machine-readable sources", in: Friedrich Hausmann et al. (Edd.): Data networks for the historical sciences? , Graz 1987.
  • "The Daily Life of the Middle Ages, Editions of Sources and Data Processing", in: Medium Aevum Quotidianum 10 (1987).
  • «Secundum Manus. On the data processing of multi-layer editions », in: Günther Cerwinka et al. (Ed.): Contributions to history and its foundations , Festschrift Friedrich Hausmann on the occasion of his 70th birthday, Graz 1987.
  • «From receipt to term. The contribution of data processing to the solution of terminology problems », in: GM Dienes et al. (Edd.): Ut populus ad historiam trahatur , Graz 1988.
  • «Is there a subject-specific data processing in the historical sciences? Source banking techniques in historical science », in: H. Kaufhold and J. Schneider (Edd.): History and electronic data processing , Wiesbaden 1988.
  • “A Draft Proposal for a Format Exchange Program.”, In: Jean-Philippe Genet (Ed.): Standardization et \ 'echange des bases de donnèes historiques , Actes de la troisème Table Ronde internationale tenue au LISH (CNRS), Paris 1988 .
  • "What is 'advanced knowledge' in formal procedures for historians?", In: Manfred Thaller, Gerhard Botz et al. (Edd.): Quality and Quantity. On the practice of methods of historical social science , Frankfurt / New York 1988.
  • “Against the Guru”, in: Manfred Thaller, Gerhard Botz et al. (Edd.): Quality and Quantity. On the practice of methods of historical social science , Frankfurt / New York 1988.
  • Kleio. A database system St. Katharinen 1989 and later editions (= half-gray series on historical specialist informatics B 1).
  • Query Net I / O St. Katharinen 1989, (= half-gray series on historical specialist informatics B 2).
  • "Have Very Large Data Bases Methodological Relevance?", In: Otto Opitz (Ed.): Conceptual and Numerical Analysis of Data , Berlin 1989.
  • «Why do the historical sciences need subject-specific data technology solutions? The example of context-sensitive databases », in: Manfred Thaller and Albert Müller (Edd.): Computers in der Geisteswissenschaften. Concepts and reports , Frankfurt a. Main 1989 (= Studies in Historical Social Science 7).
  • "The Need for a Theory of Historical Computing", in: Peter Denley et al. (Edd.): History and Computing II , Manchester and New York 1989.
  • "Geographical information in a historical database.", In: Eratosthene-Sphragide 2 (1990).
  • "Databases and Expert Systems as Complementary Tools for Historical Research", in: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 103 (1990).
  • «Disenchantments. The development of subject-specific historical data processing in the Federal Republic », in: W. Prinz and P. Weingart (Edd.): The so-called humanities: interior views , Frankfurt a. Main 1990. Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • “The Need for Standards: Data Modeling and Exchange”, in: Daniel Greenstein (Ed.): Modeling Historical Data , St. Katharinen 1991 (= half-gray series on historical specialist informatics A 11). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • "The Historical Workstation Project", in: Historical Social Research / Historical Social Research Vol. 16 (1991) No. 4 .
  • "The Historical Workstation Project", in: Computers and the Humanities 25 (1991).
  • "The Historical Workstation Project", in: Josef Smets (Ed.): Histoire et Informatique , Montpellier 1992.
  • "The Processing of Manuscripts", in: Manfred Thaller (Ed.) Images and Manuscripts in Historical Computing , St. Katharinen 1992 (= half-gray series on historical specialist computer science A 14).
  • «Image analysis in historical science», in: W. Neubauer and K.-H. Meier (Edd.): Deutscher Dokumentartag 1991. Proceedings , Frankfurt a. Main 1992.
  • "On the Conception, Training and Employment of Historical Data and Knowledge Daemons", in: Jan Oldervoll (Ed.): Eden or Babylon? , St. Katharinen 1992.
  • "On the misunderstanding of the obvious", in: Rudolf Vierhaus et al. (Edd.): Early modern times - early modern times. Research on the complexity of transition processes , Göttingen 1992 (= publisher of the MPI for history 104). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • Kleio. A Database System , St. Katharinen 1993 (= half-gray series on historical specialist computer science B 11).
  • "The archive on the top of your desk? On Self-Documenting Image Files », in: Jurij Fikfak and Gerhart Jaritz (Edd.): Image Processing in History: towards Open Systems , St. Katharinen 1993 (= half-gray series on historical specialist informatics A 16). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • «Historical Information Science: Is there such a thing? New Comments on an Old Idea », in: Tito Orlandi (Edd.): Seminario discipline umanistiche e informatica. Il problema dell 'integrazione , Roma 1993 (= Contributi Del Centor Linceo Interdisciplinare' Beniamo Segre '87). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • “Source Oriented Data Processing”, in: Informatik Forum 8 (1994).
  • "The challenge of large corpora of unstructured texts", in: Max Planck Society reports and communications 1/1994 .
  • "Pictures and manuscripts as objects of computer-aided processing", in: EDV-Tage Theuern 1993. Colloquium report , Munich 1994.
  • "Source-Oriented Data Processing and Quantification: Distrustful Brothers", in: Manfred Thaller et al. (Edd): Statistics for Historians: Standard Packages and Specific Historical Software , St. Katharinen 1995 (= half-gray series on historical specialist computer science A 26). Full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017)
  • "The Archive on Top of Your Desk: An Introduction to Self-Documenting Image Files", in: Historical Methods 28 (1995).
  • "Inventories and research systems: two sides of a coin or different currencies?", In: EDV-Tage Theuern 1995. Colloquium report , Munich 1996.
  • "L'immagine del passato: archiviare ed accedere a fonti culturali visive", in: Schede Umanistiche 11 (1997).
  • «Virtual (contemporary) history? A discipline between popularity, postmodernism and post-post-positivism. », In: Gertraud Diendorfer et al. (Edd): Zeitgeschichte im Wandel , Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 1998.
  • “Image databases on the Internet”, in: EDV-Tage Theuern 1997. Colloquium report , Munich 1998.
  • "Digital Archives: Technology and Methods", in: Hans-Heinrich Ebeling and Manfred Thaller (Edd): Digital Archives , Göttingen 1999, pp. 125–162.
  • "Historical databases. Advantages and problems", in: Geschichte und Informatik 11 (2000), 7 25.
  • "On the vanishing difference between databases and texts: Consequences of newer WWW technologies using the example of databases close to museums.", In: EDV-Tage Theuern 2000. Colloquium report, Munich, 2001.
  • "The manuscript library of Cologne Cathedral on the Internet", in: Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis. A mediaeval cathedral library in digital form, Göttingen, 2001, 21–39.
  • "From the Digitized to the Digital Library", in: D-Lib Magazine February 2001, URL: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february01/thaller/02thaller.html Also full text access to the reprint in HSR Supplement 29 ( 2017)
  • "Historical specialist information & historical specialist IT difficult relationships", in: Information in Wissenschaft und Praxis, 6/2003, 325 329.
  • "Culture and IT, tension and symbiosis", in: Eva Moser and Rainser S. Elkar (Eds.): Perspektiven der Wissensgesellschaft, Munich 2003.
  • "Texts, Databases, Kleio: A Note on the Architecture of Computer Systems for the Humanities", in: Dino Buzzetti, Giuliano Pancaldi, Harold Short (Eds.): Digital Tools for the History of Ideas (= Office for Humanities Communication series 17 ), London 2004, 49-76.
  • "Digital Manuscripts as base line for dynamic editions", in: Digital Technology and Philological Disciplines , eds. Andrea Bozzi, Laura Cignoni, Jean-Louis Lebrave, in: Linguistica Computazionale XX-XXI (2004), 489-511.
  • "Reproduction, indexing, edition, interpretation: Your relationships in a digital world", in: Brigitte Merta, Andrea Sommerlechner and Herwig Weigl (Edd.): From the benefit of editing, Vienna, 2005 (= MIÖG Erg. Volume 47), 205 -227. Reprint in HSR Supplement 29 (2017) .
  • "Historical IT" - A Cologne Model, in: Daniel Burckhardt, Rüdiger Hohls and Vera Ziegeldorf (Edd.): .Hist 2003 History and New Media, Berlin, 2005 (= Historisches Forum 7, 2005) Part I. Persistent URL: http : //edoc.hu-berlin.de/e_histfor/7_I/ or http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/e_histfor/7_I/PDF/HistFor_7-2005-I.pdf

As editor

  • 1981–1984 software editor for: Historical Social Research. = Historical social research.
  • 1989–1999: Semi-gray series on historical IT.
  • 2008–2013: Cologne contributions to a humanities computer science.
  • The practice of quantification in Austrian historical research. Documents from the working group “Quantification in Austrian Historical Research” at the Austrian Historians' Day 1984 in Krems ad Donau. Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Sciences, Göttingen et al. 1984.
  • Databases and data management systems as tools for historical research (= historical-social science research. Vol. 20). Scripta-Mercaturae-Verlag, St. Katharinen 1986, ISBN 3-922661-30-0 .
  • with Ursula Klenk and Peter Scherber: computational linguistics and philological data processing. = Linguistic data processing in the humanities (= linguistic data processing. 7). Contributions to the annual conference of the Society for Linguistic Data Processing 1986 in Göttingen. Olms et al., Hildesheim et al. 1987, ISBN 3-487-07945-3 .
  • with Gerhard Botz , Christian Fleck and Albert Müller: “Quality and Quantity”. On the practice of the methods of historical social science (= studies on historical social science. Vol. 10). Campus, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-593-33880-7 .
  • with Albert Müller: Computers in the humanities. Concepts and reports (= studies on historical social science. Vol. 7). Campus, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1989, ISBN 3-593-33881-5 .
  • with Heino Best and Ekkehard Mochmann: Computers in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Achievements of the 1980s, Prospects for the 1990s. Proceedings of the Cologne Computer Conference 1988 Uses of the Computer in the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of Cologne, September 1988. Saur, Munich et al. 1991, ISBN 3-598-11041-3 .
  • Images and Manuscripts in Historical Computing (= half-gray series on historical specialist informatics. Series A: Historische Quellenkunden. 14 = Medium Aevum Quotidianum. 26). Scripta-Mercaturae-Verlag, St. Katharinen 1992, ISBN 3-928134-53-1 .
  • with Leonid Borodkin and John Turner: Statistics for Historians. Standard Packages and Specific Historical Software (= half-gray series on historical IT. Series A: Historical source customers . 26). Scripta-Mercaturae-Verlag, St. Katharinen 1995, ISBN 3-928134-90-6 .
  • with Hans-Heinrich Ebeling: Digital Archives. The indexing and digitization of the Duderstadt city archive. Max Planck Institute for History, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-9806681-0-X .
  • Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis. A medieval cathedral library in digital form (= Fundus. Forum for history and its sources. Supplement 1). Duehrkohp and Radicke, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89744-178-0 .
  • Digital modules for research in the humanities (= fund. Forum for history and its sources. Supplement 5). Duehrkohp and Radicke, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89744-220-5 .
  • Retrospective digitization of library holdings. Evaluation report on a funding priority of the DFG. University of Cologne, Cologne 2005, ( online (PDF; 1.64 MB) ).
  • Controversies around the Digital Humanities ( Historical Social Research. Vol. 37, No. 3 = No. 141, 2012, ISSN  0172-6404 ). GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georgios Chatzoudis: Humanities scholars can change the network . Interview with Manfred Thaller. In: LISA - the science portal of the Gerda Henkel Foundation from October 10, 2011
  2. ↑ Manfred Thaller on the website of the Historical-Cultural Studies Information Processing at the University of Cologne ( Memento from September 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20130603204750/http://www.hki.uni-koeln.de/kleio/old.website/
  4. ↑ Dhd Blog: Perspektiven der Digital Humanities: An Interview with Manfred Thaller In: Digital Humanities in German-speaking countries e. V. of May 19, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Thaller, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1950