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Project launch—OMNIKA

Project launch—OMNIKA

Posted by CRS Staff on March 13, 2019 for the OMNIKA project

The CRS is proud to announce the launch of its first project: OMNIKA. OMNIKAαlpha lets you search the world's mythological stories through summaries, artifacts, and translations. This project will hopefully accomplish a few research objectives. First, we hope to understand the mentality of humanity's first written records. Second, by taking a structured data approach, we will be able to analyze these powerful stories from a quantitative standpoint—something that has probably never been done before (to our extent). Third, we hope to promote further research and analysis by the scholarly community. Collecting all of this data will likely take several years. At some point, and in line with the project's mission, OMNIKA will hopefully become the world's largest digital library of world mythology. Because of the sensitive nature of this project's content, we have decided to firmly establish core operating guidelines to ensure that our work is used for good.

Project page Visit OMNIKA

Goal and social purpose

OMNIKA's goal is to organize the world's mythological stories as structured data. This includes compiling relevant data about belief systems, deities, artifacts, and scholarly translations. By collecting this information and organizing it carefully, we hope to learn more about the mentality of mankind as language was being developed. As a part of our commitment to avoiding bias and prejudice, the project is committing to only include cited scholarship and no primary analysis of the texts. Additionally, a major focus of our efforts will be on cultural stories that are underrepresented in existing scholarship.

The social purpose of OMNIKA will be to make freely available all the world's mythological stories. All cultures and belief systems will be represented evenly, regardless of era, religion, or other factors. Our early research findings showed that all cultures, past and present, have powerful creation myths and related narratives; however, some of these are incredibly difficult to locate. We hope to organize all of these hard to find narratives so that anyone with a basic internet connection can read them and make their own assessment. By showcasing cultural stories in an unbiased way, we hope to bring the world closer together.