The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) is delighted to announce that the project “CDLI Framework Update” has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities through its Digital Humanities Advancement Grants program, with generous support from the University of California, Los Angeles’s Humanities Division. This project aims to ensure the longevity of CDLI’s files and applications, and to increase access, usability, and accessibility to the data it manages.

The CDLI is a twenty year strong international cooperation that curates cuneiform text artifacts in the interest of open access research. Our core files, in the form of artifact catalogue, images and text annotation, have expanded through numerous sub-projects carried on by different collaborators and staff over time. To support this work, a wide array of technologies were adopted to provide software support and grow the unrestricted services we offer through the Web. CDLI Framework will integrate current features of the project in a logical infrastructure, and will prepare new data displays, including machine readable outputs, to enhance knowledge diffusion. This update will strengthen CDLI’s digital footprint, facilitating maintenance and future developments, and increasing access of actual and prospective audiences to information about ancient Mesopotamia.

Outcomes that will directly impact the usability of CDLI services include a unified interface for the project website, more powerful search capabilities, more internal links to navigate the catalogue, and intuitive displays for calendars, glossaries, bibliographies, etc. 

The project, directed by Robert K. Englund and managed by Émilie Pagé-Perron, will concentrate its activities at UCLA and at the University of Toronto. Our efforts will be coordinated with those of the “Machine Translation and Automated Analysis of Cuneiform Languages” project (MTAAC) recently funded by the German Research Foundation, the US National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

NEH Press release