Page 143 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

142 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.13, 2021

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as an engine to enhance humanities research . The construction of digital humanities based on
big data, data management or digital technology, as well as the strengthening of the training of
humanists in the application of digital humanities technologies, tools and methods in all subfields
of the humanities, can enable more humanities scholars to enter this field, and also enable those
who enter the field to produce results that cannot be obtained by traditional research methods.

1.2 Development stages of digital humanities

Digital humanities originated from researchers exploring and solving the problem of how to use
computers to input text automatically. In 1949, Roberto Busa, an Italian Jesuit scholar, collaborated
with IBM to develop the lndex Thomisticus using automation technology, and compiled the
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first computer-generated Corpus Thomisticum . This index pioneered the use of computers in
the humanities field and also laid a professional foundation for library participation in digital
humanities research.
It shows that scholars accidentally combined computer technology with literature arrangement
concept of library science, producing the initial form and results of digital humanities. With the
development of society and the continuous updating of knowledge, the number of literature and
information generated in various industries is increasing. Information technology is widely applied
to the arrangement and research of literature in the field of humanities, and is constantly updated
and upgraded with the changes of the concept of arrangement.
In the field of humanities, the literature arrangement has evolved from original manual
classification, indexing, shelving, compilation, etc., to machine readable cataloging, digitization
of paper materials, and the establishment of thematic repositories, and further developed into data-
driven textual repositories. The utilization of humanities information has evolved from initial
manual retrieval to computer automatic retrieval, further developed to digitization and full-text
retrieval, and then developed to current text analysis and mining, intelligent analysis and calculation,
and so on. With the digital transformation, the humanities field is also constantly exploring new
research fields, such as the digital preservation of cultural heritage, data assets and the like. From
the perspective of development process, digital humanities can be divided into three stages.
(1) Primary stage: building digital humanities infrastructure and completing the construction of
basic data and platforms according to different humanities themes.
This is the foundation for the construction and research of digital humanities. The lndex
Thomisticus aforementioned required comprehensive and accurate basic data for computer
automatic compilation. Otherwise, the correct index could not be compiled.
This stage was also divided into different periods. In the earlier period, the main focus was on
developing platforms to complete the digitization and data organization of paper resources. With the
deepening of digital transformation of the whole society, it was also necessary to collect and sort
out the original digital humanities resources, constantly increasing the amount of humanistic data