About the Project

The Bibliotheca Diocesis Macaonensis is a long-term digital humanities research project, with an initial three-year implementation period, intended to comprehensively investigate the history of Catholic missions in East and Southeast Asia. This project adopts a multidisciplinary perspective, underpinned by a robust infrastructure for historical research that leverages computerized data analysis facilitated by Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Machine Learning technologies.

Vision

To be an essential research database for the study of the history of the Diocese of Macau and Catholic Missions in East and Southeast Asia.

Objective

The goal of this project is to implement a comprehensive History Research Information System (HRSI) supported by Artificial Intelligence, Big-Data and Machine Learning solutions to foster and support the data collection and analysis of a massive amount of multi-language historical documents that are scattered around the world.

The extensive volume, global dissemination, and linguistic diversity of historical documents pertinent to the Diocese of Macau and the Catholic missions in Asia have historically posed significant challenges for researchers, complicating efforts to achieve a holistic understanding of these primary sources.

To address these challenges, the project implements extensive methodologies for the cataloging, classification, indexing, transcription, and abstracting of historical documents. These efforts are supported by cutting-edge technical infrastructure tailored for historical research and are guided by the latest advancements in theoretical frameworks, ontological considerations, and hermeneutical approaches within the realm of Digital Humanities.

Advisory Board (under development)

Institutional Partners (under development)

Registration

The database is publicly available to the general public, and many third party documents are freely available online, however to access extended features and a significant number of full text documents, transcriptions, etc, you are required to register as “Guest Researcher of the Bibliotheca Diocesis Macaonensis”.

Some of the benefits of registering as “Guest Researcher”:

  1. Access to the core database through the Zotero research management system which facilitates referencing and citation, creating bibliographies, etc.
  2. Full access to all documents of the “Bibliotheca Diocesis Macaonensis” project.
  3. Complimentary access to our USJ Library collections and selected electronic resources.
  4. Additional research support
  5. Member of a worldwide community of researchers about Catholic Missions in Asia
  6. Access to our e-Scriptorium, and automated text recognition system.

Register here https://bdm-files.usj.edu.mo/apps/registration/. After registration you will receive a confirmation link and we will contact for further information. Registration is free but requires that you comply with the regulations, code of conduct and ethics.