Digital Library and Bibliography of Literature in Translation and Adaptation

System architecture

In the present context of translations and their reception documents, the entire system architecture of the DLBT has been adapted to the particularities of dealing with these documents and their metadata. This applies not only to source and target languages, but also to metadata categories such as the translator and the parent-child relationships of datasets. 

Additionally, the DLBT is based on various data sources, and this data has undergone numerous changes and expansions since its inclusion in the DLBT. Finally, the DLBT's architecture should not be confused with that of the long-term repository PHAIDRA, in which data is stored. For more information, see https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/phaidra.html.

The DLBT is based on a relational database, which organises data items into tables. Relationships can be defined between data in one table and data in one or more other tables. You can query the data in the tables and rearrange it in various ways without altering the data in the tables themselves. This querying is done using MySQL (Structured Query Language). The main table in the DLBT structure is the ‘refs’ (references) table. This table contains most of the structured information (metadata) on the stored translations, adaptations, and reception documents. The primary key in this table is the unique identifier for each metadata set.

Each reference (metadataset) use the (common) information stored in the following tables:

  1. Names (stores the information on persons and their roles)
  2. Places (places and their geodata)
  3. Types (provides the different types of the metadatasets)
  4. Genres (provides the different genres)
  5. Statuses (provides the different types of status)
  6. Languages (provides the different languages for source and target language)
  7. Styles (provides the different styles for views)
  8. Formats (provides the different formats for import and export

The information on related identifiers and digitized media is stored in the following tables

  1. Identifiers (contains the information on the identifiers and their types)
  2.  Files (contains the information on the assets in the filesystem (on the server) of the DLBT

Hierarchical relationships between different datasets are stored in the table child_parent.

Users: The table-structure users stores and provides the information of the users, their roles and their groups)

Further tables:

Shelf_books (contains the information on the files (txt, pdf, html, tei) in the bookshelf.

Comments (contains the information on the comments on the metadatasets)

This structure ensures data is organized, relationships are clear, and redundancy is minimized.