Specific Objectives Definition

Jakub Deml

Three Main Objectives of the Network of Letters (NETLET) Project: 

  1. Development and implementation of digital tools to process, analyse and visualise large amounts of correspondence data sets.
  2. Building a base for an online national data repository collecting metadata and data of large collections of the Bohemian and Czech intellectual elites’ correspondence from three broadly perceived crucial periods of national and universal history (1580–1670, 1870–1939 and 1939–1989).
  3. Examination of the collected metadata (circa several thousands) of three correspondence collections using network analysis methods and their visualisation using the developed visualisation tools in order to define the position of Czech lands and its intellectual elites within national, European and global communication networks.

Objectives will be met through following activities:

  1. Creating an online interface to enable digital visualisation of different aspects of correspondence networks
  2. Network analysis of correspondence collections metadata
  3. Semi-automated metadata creation from selected printed editions of correspondence using a newly developed tool
  4. Creating an online database of correspondence of selected personalities from three crucial periods of Czech history 
  5. Creating a new version of the HIKO software, enhanced with new features
  6. Publications of scholarly studies

Tools:

  • The database will become a starting point for comparing correspondence networks of important intellectuals (Jan Amos Comenius, Amandus Polanus of Polansdorf, Philipp Jacob Sachs of Löwenheim, Johannes Marcus Marci of Kronland, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, Alois Musil, Otokar Březina, Jakub Deml, Jan Patočka, Robert Kalivoda, Josef Neumann, Milada Blekastad-Topičová et al.) using the software tools NETLET Analysis and Visualisation (network analysis and digital visualisation) developed within the project
  • NETLET Edition Converter (creating metadata from printed editions of correspondence)
  • NETLET Czech Correspondence Online (database)
  • NETLET HIKO (open source software for database operation, taking into account the needs of a project in terms of advanced correspondence data analysis)