Gaelic Song and Digital Archives Workshop

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Are you curious about Gaelic songs or digital cultural resources? Join us for an engaging two-day workshop (May 9-10) dedicated to exploring Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o’ Riches and the Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index!

This hands-on workshop will guide you through the ins and outs of these incredible resources. Learn how to search for hidden treasures, uncover fascinating songs, and get an introduction to cutting-edge digital archive technologies. Topics include:

• Linked Data: Discover how to connect information across digital resources seamlessly.
• Music Encoding: Learn how to make musical sounds – not just text – searchable and more accessible.
• Data Cleaning: Help ensure that metadata is accurate, consistent, and free of errors.

We also want to hear from you! Share your thoughts on how these resources can be improved and let us know what digital tools or features you’d love to see in the future.

Whether you’re a Gaelic language learner, teacher, singer, historian, archivist, librarian, or simply passionate about preserving culture, this workshop has something for you. Come and be part of the conversation that’s shaping the future of Gaelic cultural preservation!

Schedule

May 9, morning: Making Connections: The Semantic Web for Humanities Scholars
May 9, afternoon: Music Encoding Initiative: Encoding Melodic and Lyric Data
May 10, morning: Data Cleaning with Open Refine
May 10, morning and afternoon: Tobar an Dualchais and Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index community assessment 

Making Connections: The Semantic Web for Humanities Scholars

This workshop provides a conceptual overview of Linked Open Data (LOD)—a set of standards and practices that enable data to be structured, connected, and shared as part of the Semantic Web. Unlike the traditional web, which primarily connects via documents, the Semantic Web links data, creating a decentralized and more interoperable system for information discovery. Participants will gain both theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills into: workflows for data cleaning, creation, and publication; methods for interacting with LOD through browsing, querying, and visualization tools; followed by examples of real-world LOD projects and applications. At the end of the workshop, participants will have the skills to effectively navigate, utilize, and contribute to Linked Open Data initiatives. No previous experience is required.

This workshop is led by Dr. Stacy Allison-Cassin, a professor in the Department of Information Science at Dalhousie University and member of the Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship (LINCS) project. 

Music Encoding Initiative: Encoding Melodic and Lyric Data

This workshop will introduce participants to the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), a system for representing music notation and lyrics in a structured, machine-readable format. MEI has practical applications for research, teaching, electronic publishing, and digital collection management. Key topics will include: the history and core functions of MEI; an overview of MEI workflows; XML (Extensible Markup Language) and how it encodes music notation; and an exploration of tools for creating and editing MEI data, such as Verovio. No prior experience is required.

This workshop is led by Dr. Andrew Hankinson who holds a PhD in Music Information Retrieval (McGill University) and is a scientific collaborator for the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) Digital Center in Bern, Switzerland.

Data Cleaning with Open Refine 

This workshop introduces people to working with data in the open source software OpenRefine. OpenRefine is a powerful yet user friendly tool that can standardize, clean, and manipulate tabular data efficiently across files. At the conclusion of the lesson, participants will understand the basic capabilities of OpenRefine and how to use it to work with data files. No previous experience is required.

This workshop is led by Megan Landry, MLIS, the humanities and social sciences research consultant for ACENET.