We first looked at the initial classification of the dataset and found that it was classified by Ballads topic.These English ballads with culture-specific slangs and tongues depict the love and hatred, joys and sorrows for British folk, showing the unique and hoary stories to the world. However, a new problem on accessibility and cultural continuity also arose. As rich metadata stored on the web, people realized that this digital heritage would be lost because of its usable form for many users who cannot access it through the Internet and unattractive medium as jumbled manuscripts.
Besides, although most of these broadside ballads use straightforward language to complete descriptive or narrative literary creation. But due to the differences in context and incomprehension of local dialects, It's still hard for those readers who are not familiar with these cultural heritages to fully understand. Compared with the pattern of cultural heritage narrative in the museum, the lack of interpretation of metadata creates a barrier to the historical empathy of the broad audience.
In history and museology, people have been emphasizing that cognitive and emotional participation is beneficial for audiences to build empathy, which is conducive to understanding cultural heritage. Therefore, we think modifying the presentation of data to stimulate imagination can make this collection glow with new vitality.
Comments