The Document Database is the digital version of the so-called WBÖ paper slip catalogue of the “Dictionary of Historical Bavarian Dialects in Austria and South Tyrol (WBÖ)”, which was collected in the 20th century and is available in the form of small-format paper slips. The Document Database comprises the full-text digitized copies of the analogue paper slip catalogue from the letter D onwards and, with around 2.4 million entries, covers approximately 85% of the entire inventory.
Since 2020, the Document Database has been publicly accessible via the Lexical Information System Austria (LIÖ).
The origins of the Document Database date back to the 1990s. In order to speed up lexicographical work processes (searching for and classifying documents and their meanings etc.), the former Institute for Lexicography of Austrian Dialects and Names (DINAMLEX) began in 1993 to convert the paper slip catalogue from letter D onwards into an electronic version based on the TUSTEP (TUebinger System von TExtverarbeitungs-Programmen) program package. This work on data typification took almost two decades and was completed in 2011.
With the resumption and complete conceptual reorganization of the WBÖ long-term project in 2016, the data basis was also reorganized and revised. Thus, the transfer of the digital paper slip catalogue from TUSTEP to the platform-independent XML/TEI format was initiated. The first result still contained a large number of errors, which were mainly due to previous incorrect entries of the document slips in TUSTEP that were not compatible with the internal coding rules. These errors were corrected in a complex and lengthy process, so that a version of the WBÖ database in XML/TEI format that largely matches the original paper slips has been available since fall 2018. This database is used by the WBÖ team for lexicographical work but is also available to external users via the LIÖ platform for various search queries and research purposes.
Since 2024, as part of the digitization of the paper slips, the parts of the WBÖ paper slip catalogue that have not yet been included in the document database – the letter sections A to C – have been integrated into the database using an AI-supported digitization workflow.