TEI, LOD and URI’s or the future of historical research
How, when and why do you opt for a digital approach in your historical research? Annemieke Romein and colleagues published in the journal History about the current state of Digital History.
Computing and the use of digital sources and resources is a daily and essential practice in today’s academic science. With the article ‘State of the Field: Digital History’ in History. The Journal of the Historical Association gives Annemieke Romein a concise overview of approaches and methods within digital historical science. Together with her colleagues Max Kemman, Julie Birkholz, James Baker, Michel de Gruijter, Albert Meroño-Peñuela, Thorsten Ries, Ruben Ros and Stefania Scagliola she answers the question ‘How did the digital humanities develop and what did that mean for the history sciences?
The article begins by discussing techniques in which data is generated and machine searchable, such as OCR / HTR, born-digital archives, computer vision, scientific editions and linked data. The second part gives examples of how data is made more accessible through quantitative text and network analysis. The third part deals with the need for hermeneutics and data awareness in digital historical science.
The selection of technologies described in this article have a varying effect on historical science, mostly in indirect ways. With this article, the authors wanted to take stock of the digital approaches and methods used in historical science in order to provide starting points for scientists who want to understand the digital turn in the field and how and when such approaches should be implemented in their work.
