Copernico intentionally removes the separation between low-threshold knowledge transfer and scientifically sound data models and focuses in particular on technical interoperability and sustainability. The “Historical Thesaurus”, a new thesaurus for the historical humanities and cultural sciences, plays an important role here.
To ensure the sustainability and connectivity of its data, the Copernico portal not only draws on data standards and formats established in the cultural heritage sector, but also on a broader database architecture. Several interconnected databases and knowledge organization systems thus ensure multilingual additions, enhancements and contextualization of the portal content. These additional data resources include a geographical vocabulary (gazetteer) and databases for the management of bibliographical references, metadata of persons and organizations, as well as controlled vocabularies, in particular a separate conceptual thesaurus, the “Historical Thesaurus”. It's design and objectives were developed from 2019 onwards in conjunction with the creation of the portal.
The “Historical Thesaurus” provides a solution for missing historical vocabularies and builds a bridge between the world of historical collections and historical research. The aim is to bring together all types of terms that are needed to index or annotate text and image sources, collection objects, research contributions and datasets and content with a historical reference aimed at the general public - a range that corresponds to the breadth of the institutions involved in the portal and their topics and fields of activity.
The groups of terms covered include, for example
- Theoretical and research terms
- Disciplines, methods, fields of research
- Ideological terms
- Epochs and time periods
- Historical events
- Genres
- Types of objects and works
- Material terms
- Topics and motifs
- Types of organizations
- Groups and movements
- Roles/actors (without individual persons)
- Practices, technologies and procedures
- Popular history terms
Many of the concepts that have so far been included in the thesaurus via the indexing of portal content were not previously available for authority control. The thesaurus is regularly available in four languages and contains terms in German, English, Polish and French; terms in other languages are added selectively and depending on the relevance of the content.
A separate thesaurus viewer on Copernico, which will also enable thesaurus-based searches for portal content, is in preparation. At the beginning of 2025, the thesaurus was also given an online presence at www.historischer-thesaurus.de, which provides the most important information on the thesaurus, its integration and use, and the latest news on technical developments.