Since the acquisition of the holdings of the School of Philosophy and Theology, the University Library has been in possession of a unique collection of historical weather records. The Observationes meteorologicae are handwritten records made between 1792 and 1827 in the Regensburg monastery of St Emmeram. They are among the oldest continuous weather records in Europe.
The complete cataloguing and making available of the records is a worthwhile project of the Regensburg University Library, as the data represents an interdisciplinary research object. They make it possible to reconstruct meteorological snapshots in order to identify the societal effects and consequences of climate change. Regional and economic history archives can also be complemented by the weather data. The interaction of these different collections can in turn be used to analyse local historical developments and events. In the spirit of digital humanities, computer-aided methods will help to generate and analyse digital research data from the analogue collections.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to transform optical patterns in digital images into machine-readable texts in order to make the digitised written sources accessible. The Observationes meteorologicae pose particular challenges for recognition due to the handwritten text and the heterogeneous page layout. However, advances in artificial intelligence should promote layout and text recognition in order to make the tabular, handwritten data accessible.
Through the user-centred development of a transcription tool, which is designed more for first-time and occasional users than for experts, the 53 volumes with over 21,000 pages are to be computer-aided indexed. Once the data has been processed in a standardised way, it will be made available for research into the holdings. In addition to a digital edition, the data will also be presented and visualised for specific purposes.