Mediterranean kaleidoscopes

Giving the book a new form

"Observation of the resources disseminated in the humanities and social sciences shows that it is still a tradition stemming from the book based on the rhetorical art of discourse, transposed with digital formats, that largely dominates electronic publications (books or articles). "¹ 

In other words, in the humanities and social sciences, the norm is still very often to publish academic works following a lengthy research process, without fully integrating digital or multimedia, which could nonetheless help make the whole thing more accessible. This is why, in 2018, the MMSH wanted to encourage the emergence of a publishing model that goes beyond the book-inspired publication format to explore all the potential offered by digital through the call for projects Création de publication scientifique numérique. The Matérialités citoyennes project emerged as the winner in 2019, alongside a second project. They were then brought together under the Kaléidoscopes méditerranéens collection when they went online.

A new scientific reading method

Kaleidoscopes méditerranéens is first and foremost a portal that brings together written publishing projects that have been enriched by multimedia. The portal offers entries by research project, with each project then represented in its own space on the portal. After a brief overall presentation of the project, authors can build their site as they see fit. Published projects are made up of a variety of research data and media, and offer several levels of presentation, for example by thematic collections. Each collection provides a further key to understanding the research team's investigation. 

Photographs, objects, drawings, figures, plans, manuscripts, engravings... There are many types of content. Each piece of content is referenced and dated to enable different browsing modes (thematic, cartographic, alphabetical, etc.). The aim? To create a new, innovative and dynamic way of reading scientific content, accessible to a wider range of audiences.

Making research and its data accessible

In keeping with the principles of open science, which seeks to make scientific research and the data it produces accessible to all, at all levels of society, all documents presented on the websites can be cited and accompanied by a notice, as well as their metadata. 

The aim is no longer to report solely on the results of the research carried out, but to represent the whole of the work carried out by making the various elements of the research (materials, results, analyses, working methods, etc.) available to visitors.

An innovative collaboration

To carry out this project, Sylvia Girel, then in charge of the "Innovation and Digital" mission, worked in collaboration with the researchers behind the winning project(Matérialités citoyennes), in particular Jean-Baptiste Xambo, and with INIST. The MMSH was able to benefit from the technical support of the INIST team, while at the same time proposing its own choices for design, sections, etc. For their part, the INIST team found an opportunity to use innovative digital humanities projects to test and implement new technical functionalities. This collaborative effort has resulted in the creation of a model that can be reused by any researcher or team interested in publishing in this multimedia format.

Two projects currently online

The Kaléidoscopes méditerranéens portal is designed to encourage institutional and non-institutional partnerships, and to enrich the digital collection. Two research projects are currently available online:

• Matérialités citoyennes
• Food for thought Jean-François Séguier (1703-1784)

Interview with Thomas Glesener and Isabelle Grangaud from the Matérialités citoyennes project

Can you tell us a little about your project?

Our project brings together a number of different investigations into citizenship. Our definition of citizenship focuses on the rights of access to the resources of a given place (be it the right to use the common goods of that place, to live or work there, to be assisted, etc.). And the investigations, rather than focusing on / or illustrating concepts, are embodied in objects, statuses, places, human and non-human beings. This explains the project's title "Matérialités citoyennes" (Citizen materials). 

By considering the long term (from the 16th century to the present day) as well as all the shores of the Mediterranean, we challenge the common idea that citizenship is a quality peculiar to Europe and/or the contemporary period. On the contrary, the reason for such an interactive project lies in the possibility of putting into perspective sometimes unexpected proximities across time and space. The project is both interdisciplinary and comparative, and the navigation between the surveys and their materials is designed to show tangible perspectives.

Why did you choose to submit it to the Kaléidoscopes méditerranéens portal?

"Matérialités citoyennes" wasn't just placed on the portal, it was co-constructed, since it was chosen to be the portal's pilot project. So it was a shared experience between us and the MMSH publishing house. What's more, the resources made available by the Institut de l'information scientifique et technique (INIST-CNRS) enabled us to develop a project that at first sight seemed complex, since it mobilized several media (writing, images, video, databases) and an interactive cartographic representation of the survey sites. 

What advantages do you see in the use of digital technology and the incorporation of multimedia in the presentation of your research? 

Surveys are presented in short notes, to which various types of related material are added. Transposing the surveys onto a digital medium gave us the opportunity to imagine the consultation experience. In the course of our research, a number of familiar resemblances emerged between the different fields, and it was no simple matter to reproduce them all in a written demonstration. Unlike a book, which retranscribes a project in a static way, computer technology has enabled us to bring the sites closer together through navigation, making the whole thing much more interactive. What's more, by comparing the texts with the documents from which they were drawn, we can reconstruct the environments of each survey. Finally, the platform is an open tool that can be upgraded as technical innovations become available, and that we can implement as our work progresses. Ultimately, our ambition is to bring the project to life like a scientific journal, with calls for papers, solicitations and online postings, and to make it the support of a research community on issues of citizenship in the Mediterranean.

Interview with François Pugniere from the Matières à penser project Jean-François Séguier (1703-1784)
 

Can you tell us a little about your project?

Jean-François Séguier was a botanist and antiquarian from Nîmes, who traveled throughout Europe and lived in Verona for 23 years. We've been transcribing his correspondence since 2010. This corresponds to a scholarly archive of over 3,000 letters. This project is an extension of this transcription and indexing work. The idea of making this content accessible online is to bring the user into the heart of the development of scholarly work. Eventually, this could be enriched by a virtual cabinet. The project is not yet closed, and we intend to add to it gradually. We'd like it to become a multimodal space, a sort of hub. 

Why did you choose to place it on the Kaléidoscopes méditerranéens portal?

It was an opportunity to work in a different way, in addition to our usual editorial work. It's a meeting place where you can find first-hand scientific information that's not tied down by time. Unlike a book, we can keep it up to date. In the long term, we'd like, for example, to make versions of original texts available via a download tool. 

What advantages do you see in using digital technology and incorporating multimedia into the presentation of your research? 

Quite often, in history, the image is seen simply as an illustration of the subject. By associating texts and images on this platform, we can get them to talk to each other, and rethink our relationship with images and their meaning, by confronting deliberately concise information with pictorial input. The task of synthesizing all this is difficult, but exciting!