Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from UTL’s Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship. Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of and future creative contributions to the growing fields of digital scholarship.
This post was written by Sojeong Ryoo, the Global Studies Digital Projects GRA at Perry-Castañeda Library and a current graduate student at the School of Information.
Sometimes, an ordinary personal diary can be an extraordinary historical resource that provides a glimpse into the times. The Jiam Diary Digital Humanities Project, led by Professor JiYoung Jung at Ewha Womans University, is based on the nearly eight years (95 months) of journals kept by Yun Yi-hu (pen name: Jiam), a yangban (nobleman) of the Joseon dynasty in the late 17th century.
Between 1692 and 1699, Yun Yi-hu — a retired nobleman in the Honam region — kept a meticulous diary of his daily life. Known as Jiam Ilgi, the three-volume, 920-page record captures everything from farming, fishing, and travel to visits with friends, political events, and even the activities of household slaves. It offers a vivid portrait of both personal routines and the broader social world of 17th-century Korea.
The Jiam Diary Digital Humanities Project transforms this rich historical source into searchable, visualized data. More than 80,000 pieces of semantic information have been extracted and organized into interactive maps, timelines, and relationship networks, enabling users to explore the people, places, events, and lifestyles mentioned in the diary. This digital approach opens a new window into the everyday life of a Joseon noble.
On the site, you can explore data visualizations in five themes: Lifestyle, Person, Place, Event, and Slave.
Lifestyle visualization is designed to help users explore lifestyle-related data. The eight-year calendar is arranged vertically by year and horizontally by month, with original and translated diary entries for each day appearing in the blank space on the right. Clicking the small square menu box in the upper left allows you to choose from over 80 lifestyle categories and view related records. Examples of lifestyle categories include: family, returning home, visiting, slaves, bathing, private punishment, guests, lodging, prison, transactions, architecture, capital affairs, civil service examinations, weather, farming, theft, literature, unusual events, funerals, hunting, fishing, arts, entertainment, medicine, disease, and slave hunting.
Person visualization highlights people mentioned in the diary. Yun Yi-hu’s family, kinship ties, and political connections are shown as an interactive network. Clicking a person icon allows you to filter and view the diary text for the date the person was mentioned.
Place visualization displays a map of Korea, marking locations mentioned in the diary. Places can be categorized by type — administrative districts, buildings, roads, mountains, fields, rivers, and islands — and filtered using the menu on the bottom left. Clicking on a place reveals diary entries linked to that location. For example, selecting Seoul — the capital of the Joseon dynasty — returns an impressive 455 entries. Clicking on a diary date on the right reveals the original and translated text of the diary entries that mention “Seoul.”
Event visualization organizes events from the diary along a timeline, making it easy to see which major events Yun Yi-hu experienced and how long they lasted. Clicking on an event box shows the relevant diary entry, with entries displayed chronologically below.
Slave visualization examines the nobi (slave). The slave system existed during the Joseon dynasty. As a nobleman, Yun Yi-hu owned many household slaves. The visualization links each slave in the center to the lifestyle activities associated with them, displayed around the outside. This allows us to examine the roles played by specific slaves in Yun Yi-hu’s life.
Looking into the records of Yun Yi-hu, a man who lived centuries ago, we see him interacting with family and friends, traveling, rejoicing, and grieving — experiences not so different from our own lives today. The Jiam Diary Digital Humanities Project brings this rich life to light through diverse visualizations of his diary, offering deep insight and inspiration.
To learn more about the Joseon dynasty or Korea in general, check out these resources in the UT Libraries’ collections:
Kang, M. (2010). Chosŏn p’ungsoksa / Kang Myŏng-gwan. (Ch’op’an.). P’urŭn Yŏksa.