The ELMCIP Knowledge Base

Abstract

This chapter documents the conceptual model of the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base, the development process that led to its development, and its technical implementation. It should be of interest to digital humanities researchers interested in the process of developing research infrastructure for the documentation of a field of research. Developed as part of an international, digital-humanities project, Developing a Networked-Based Creative Community: Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP), the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base is an open-access, online database tracing activity in and around the field of electronic literature and the digital literary arts. Inspired by Ted Nelson’s (1981) vision of literature, broadly understood as “an ongoing system of interconnecting documents,” the Knowledge Base is collecting and connecting bibliographic information and archival materials about the literary production in this field. As this information is linked and cross-referenced in various records in the Knowledge Base, the relations between objects and actors in the field of electronic literature become explicit, perceptible, recognizable, and communicable. Together these relations comprise the field. In the Knowledge Base, they are defined through content types that include authors, creative works, critical writing, events, organizations, publishers, teaching resources, and databases and archives. The Knowledge Base now includes more than 9,000 cross-referenced records in these primary content types.