DI-ÖSS: Digital infrastructure for the ecosystem of South Tyrolean language data and services.

A digital platform to exchange language data, texts and services. Towards south tyrolean digital cultural heritage of the region.

DI-ÖSS is a digital infrastructure project directed by the language technology group of the Institute for Applied Linguistics at Eurac Research. It aims at building a prototype of a digital infrastructure to connect language data and services in South Tyrol. DI-ÖSS works with local partners in the city of Bolzano, establishing connection and exchange of expertise between different institutions with different aims. In particular, the main partners involved in the project are: the Landesbibliothek Dr. Friedrich Tessmann (library), Sprachstelle in the Südtiroler Kulturinstitut (language unit of the cultural center), and Salto.bz (publishing house and news portal). Libraries, cultural institutes and publishing houses have different aims in their daily workflow, but they mostly deal with a similar process (collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of the material). DI-ÖSS wants to optimize the work process of the partner institutions via an exchange of expertise, data and services. For example: the main objective of a research institute is that of processing and analyzing data, but in order to do that it needs first to catalogue the material; while libraries´ first aim is that of cataloguing books and texts. If they share their expertise both work processes could be faster and more thorough, libraries can help research institutes to catalogue, and research institute could help libraries e.g to improve search techniques in their collections. With this project, Eurac research wants to foster an optimization of competences via collaboration, in order to improve the quality of the results for all the partners. In order to address every institution according to their needs, specific use cases will be addressed for every partner. A use case serves the genuine aim of the institution; it should allow a synergy with the other partners in order to foster an exchange of expertise in both directions; it should be reusable in other similar situations; and finally it should allow an infrastructure to support it. These are the steps needed to set the basis of the infrastructure, which will be running in prototypical stage before 2020. Finally yet importantly, the ultimate aim of DI-ÖSS is that of setting the basis for the South Tyrolean digital cultural heritage: Start local, think big.