Nomisma.org as a Community-Driven Infrastructure: Developments, Challenges, and Benefits

Nomisma.org as a Community-Driven Infrastructure: Developments, Challenges, and Benefits

Our presentation will outline the recent developments and current status of Nomisma.org, with a particular focus on the opportunities and challenges inherent in maintaining a community-based digital infrastructure. In addition to reporting on progress in terms of content and technology, we address a number of internal and less visible issues that are nonetheless central to the long-term sustainability and scholarly usefulness of Nomisma.org. The paper will focus on the following key aspects:

●        Expanding in different directions: While Nomisma.org started mainly with Greek and Roman numismatics – where we will also present the most recent developments – it has  increasingly incorporated other fields, such as Celtic as well as medieval and modern European numismatics, and forgeries. At the same time, there is a growing emphasis on linking numismatic objects more closely to their archaeological contexts, thereby strengthening connections between numismatics and material culture research more broadly.

●        Handling of visual aspects: This includes symbols, monograms, and other visual elements on numismatic objects, and the question of how such features can be described and shared across different projects. In this context, the Imagines Nummorum project (https://www.imagines-nummorum.eu/en) is developing a hierarchical iconographic thesaurus for Greek numismatics, providing a more fine-grained semantic framework for the description and analysis of coin imagery.

●        Handling of uncertain and vague statements: While this is a general aspect and not bound to numismatics, it is particularly relevant to the field. Nomisma.org has been developing and discussing approaches to and solutions for this problem for more than a decade. Collaborations with other initiatives, such as the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) in Germany, especially NFDI4Objects (https://www.nfdi4objects.net/en/about/), aim to further refine these solutions and ensure interoperability with related data infrastructures.

●        Internal restructuring efforts: The expansion into multiple numismatic subfields has led to a growing number of concepts within the Nomisma.org ID namespace (vocabulary), often with terms whose meanings vary across scholarly traditions. For example, the word 'stater' carries different meanings in  Greek and Celtic numismatics. Because of this, Nomisma.org provides two different IDs for it. In parallel, the ontology has been extended over time with additional properties, prompting a recent reorganisation to improve clarity and usability.

Increasing need for documentation and training: In response to the growing complexity of the infrastructure, there is an increasing demand to develop enhanced documentation and training materials for the utilisation of Nomisma.org. This endeavour is undertaken within the framework of the Nomisma.org Cookbook (https://nomisma.hypotheses.org/nomisma-org/the-nomisma-org-cookbook), which serves as a compendium of best practices and practical guide for users and contributors.