The Sacred Harp Minutes Research Data project has received a $4,775 grant from the Atlanta Interdisciplinary AI Network to support experiments incorporating AI-related methods into the parsing of minutes data. “New Pathways into Sacred Harp’s Past: AI and the Minutes of Sacred Harp Singings” will include:
- A semester-long collaboration between project team members Jesse P. Karlsberg and Mark T. Godfrey, staff at Emory’s Center for AI Learning, and a group of Emory University undergraduate computer science majors who will experiment with ways that AI could contribute to the parsing of minutes data via approaches such as natural language processing and name recognition.
- Intensive manual correction of data from the “Big Minutes” for 1992, 1993, and 1994, led by Erin Fulton, to supplement the born digital minutes data from 1995–present with additional minutes data that can support analysis of Sacred Harp singings during the period when the 1991 Edition was in use and serve as a proof of concept for future work.
This project will begin in 2025 and will conclude in early 2026. Throughout the project we plan to share experiments and seek feedback from members of the Sacred Harp singing community to ensure that our decisions about experiments with AI are grounded in community members’ priorities and concerns.
We anticipate sharing the results of this work with The AIAI Network community at the Network’s 2025 Fall Kickoff and with the Sacred Harp singing community at the Camp Fasola Singing School in 2026.