SIstory 5.0: The Flow of the Past, Upgraded at Last

The portal History of Slovenia – SIstory [1] is a platform for publications and sources on historical and cultural heritage, which has been in operation since 2008 and is an integral part of the Research Infrastructure for Slovenian History at the Institute of Contemporary History within the national research infrastructure DARIAH (DARIAH-SI). The portal is primarily aimed at researchers in the field of history and other related disciplines (especially the humanities and social sciences) to support their research work. While the portal mainly refers to publications and textual sources, several extensive databases have also been compiled and published as part of the portal (e.g. the list of victims of World War I and II and censuses).

The portal has undergone several changes over the course of its existence, from minor updates (e.g. moving from unstructured metadata to a custom metadata application profile) to major updates of the entire portal. However, the most recent update served as a complete redesign from the ground up, prompting us to re-evaluate the fundamentals of the system, taking into account the legacy issues and solutions from previous versions of the portal, in order to improve the functionality of the system on the one hand and provide the familiar user experience on the other. The development of the new version took place through a series of discussions and feedback from various stakeholders involved in the process of acquisition and classification of the materials, librarians, data owners and, most importantly, users of the portal. Based on their feedback, we have focused on the key features that will improve the usability and overall user experience of the portal.

This poster will therefore present the infrastructural view of the SIstory portal, focusing on the workflows that are an integral part of the portal and its development. It will highlight not only the content that the portal reflects but also the life cycle of the data within the portal (which includes several steps from the initial acquisition and valorization of the documents, digitization, (meta)data processing to the first publication of the documents on the SIstory portal).

In addition, we would like to emphasize the above-mentioned upgrade and the general design workflow related to the reconstruction of such a system, which at the time of writing contains more than 55.000 publications and other sources (excluding the additional databases), as well as smaller, more technical workflows within the upgrade (e.g. narrowing the metadata application profile or providing a metadata crosswalk to improve interoperability) to illustrate the importance of addressing the challenges encountered during the redesign process and emphasizing the need for a balance between improved system functionality and maintaining user familiarity. By providing insight into the intricacies of this major upgrade, we hope to provide a valuable perspective for future efforts to improve digital platforms for historical research and ultimately promote the accessibility and utility of historical data within the academic community and beyond.

References: 

[1] SIstory - History of Slovenia. https://sistory.si/