ASCluster (Anglo-Saxon Cluster)

Overview
The Anglo-Saxon Cluster project aimed to explore issues in integrating disparate Anglo-Saxon sources and to bring together four existing online publications. The project builds on research carried out on four other projects involving the Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) at King's College London - PASE, LangScape, eSawyer and ASChart - which collectively provide models for digitising prosopographic data, boundary clauses, charter catalogues and the diplomatic discourse of the charters themselves. It was carried out entirely at DDH and was funded by JISC.

DDH has developed a new web-based digital resource articulated around the Anglo-Saxon charters as core material, through which the data and the corresponding metadata embodied in each of the component projects have become available together in a thematic cluster. The Anglo-Saxon Cluster serves as a unified point of entry into the individual resources, allowing users to see contextually appropriate data from each project in juxtaposition and to access union indexes generated across the data in each resource. This in turn serves as a platform for exploring different approaches to cross-searching.

The aggregation of data is dynamic, taking into account the fact that the component resources will continue to be updated and evolve. The project has had a dual impact: in the development of a technical framework for the integration of disparate resources; and as a possible model for gathering textual and contextual information around medieval charters.

The project also comprises a report on challenges and potentials in integrating digital resources:

P.A. Stokes and G. Noël, ASCluster Project Report (London, 2010). http://www.ascluster.org/techinfo/index.html

Status
Completed (2009)

Project Team

 * Project Manager: Paul Spence (King's College London)
 * Technical Research Director: Paul Vetch (KCL)
 * Technical project officers: Geoffroy Noel and Peter Stokes (KCL)