Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities facts for kids
The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) is a special research center at the University of Virginia in the United States. It helps people who study the humanities use cool technology in their work. The humanities include subjects like history, literature, and philosophy.
What IATH Does
IATH was started in 1992 with money from a big computer company called IBM. Its main goal is to find new ways to use computers and digital tools to explore and understand human culture and history. This means they help researchers use technology to study old books, historical documents, and other important materials.
The SNAC Database
One of the big projects IATH created is called the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) database. They developed this in 2010. Imagine a giant online address book, but for historical figures and important people!
How SNAC Helps
The SNAC database helps researchers keep track of information about people. It uses something called authority control. This means each person in the database gets a special, unique number, like a digital ID. This helps make sure everyone is talking about the same person, even if their name is spelled differently in different places.
The database also lists what other people have written about each person. It even tells you which libraries or archives have those writings. This makes it much easier for students and historians to find the information they need for their projects. By 2016, the SNAC database had information on about 2.5 million people!
