Digital Methods and Tools for Historical Research

Organization: Luís Espinha da Silveira and Daniel Alves

Presentation:

With this initiative we intend to discuss the implications of using digital technologies in the production and dissemination of knowledge in History. We seek to understand how a set of digital methodologies has influenced historical research, to discuss its advantages and disadvantages, as well as to identify innovative ways of linking the future of the digital world to the study of the past. On the first day, the meeting goes around four thematic sessions dedicated to the presentation and discussion of different methodologies (relational databases; geographic information systems; text encoding; digitization and preservation of digital memory). The program of that day closes with a conference on the significance of historical research in a digital environment. The second day will be filled with three workshops devoted to relevant digital tools for historical research, including GIS, text encoding, and reference management software. We expect this conference stimulates discussion about the interaction between History and Information Technology, and encourages its use by the academic community, especially young researchers.

Web: http://digital-methods-and-tools-for-history.blogspot.com/

Dates: 2011, November, 18th-19th (free attendance)

Location: I&D building, 4th floor, room 2 (FCSH, Av. de Berna, 26-C, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal)

Program:

Friday (18th) (Room 2, 4th floor, I&D building, FCSH)

9:00 – Opening

9:30 – 1st session: Primary sources and relational databases

• John Bradley (King's College London), Silk purses and sow's ears: in what ways can structured data deal with historical sources?
• Joaquim de Carvalho (Universidade de Coimbra), Combining source oriented and person oriented data models in prosopographical database design
• moderator: Daniel Alves (IHC, FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

11:00 – coffee break

11:15 – 2nd session: Interaction of space and time: GIS and History

• Paul Ell (Queen's University Belfast), Humanities Geographical Information Systems: texts, images, maps
• Luís Espinha da Silveira (IHC, FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa), GIS and historical research: promises, achievements and pitfalls
• moderator: Marco Painho (ISEGI - Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

12:45 – Lunch

14:30 – 3rd session: Decoding historical sources: Text Encoding

• Malte Rehbein (Universität Würzburg), Text Encoding: a historian's perspective
• Rita Marquilhas (Centro de Linguística - Universidade de Lisboa), The automatic research of digital editions
• moderator: Andreia Martins (FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa and King’s College London)

16:00 – coffee break

16:15 – 4th session: Internet, digitization and digital preservation

• Melissa Terras (University College London), Exploring the potential of Digital Humanities with the Transcribe Bentham project
• Daniel Gomes (Portuguese Web Archive – Fundação de Cálculo Científico Nacional), Web archiving
• moderator: José Borbinha (Instituto Superior Técnico)

17:45 – coffee break

18:00 – Closing conference

Peter Doorn (Data Archiving and Networked Services, Nederland), Computational history among e-science, digital humanities and research infrastructures: accomplishments and challenges

Saturday (19th) (Room T8, Tower B, FCSH)

Workshops (11:00 - 13:00):

A – Historical GIS (Luís Silveira and Ana Alcântara, FCSH-UNL)

B – Zotero (Daniel Alves, FCSH-UNL)

Workshops (14:30 - 17:30):

C – Text Encoding (Julianne Nyhan, University College London)

D – Atlas.ti (Pedro Sousa, FCSH-UNL)