2024-2025 Faculty Research Grant
Terry Robertson (James White Library) and Paul Ray (Old Testament).
Hisban Interactive Archive Project (HIAP-2).
The proposed second phase of the Hisban Interactive Archive Project or HIAP2 will add an estimated 2000 OCR-enabled pdf scans of images such as photographs, maps, and field drawings to the more than 750 OCR-enabled pdfs of MPP-related published articles scanned during Phase I. This phase will be more complicated and will require more labor, as each image will need to be accompanied by a written text or caption identifying it following established protocols. For this reason, it will only deal with images from Tall Hisban. Paul Ray, Acting Curator of the Horn Archaeological Museum, will provide essential expertise in retrieving the archived images (includes negatives, slides, prints, drawings, and digital files), setting the protocols for consistent representation for optimized research purposes, and first-hand knowledge of the site. There is also some urgency with this project as the generation of scholars who produced these images, many of whom we must contact for help with image identification during HIAP2, are now either approaching retirement or already retired.