My colleague David Thomas has asked me to post this news to the list:

 

 

Historians are set to benefit from a new online project, funded by JISC, which will revolutionise the way we search for historical sources on the internet.

 

The 'Connected Histories' project, which is a partnership between the Universities of Sheffield and Hertfordshire, the Institute of Historical Research, and King's College London, will create an innovative search engine for a wide range of electronic resources relating to early modern and nineteenth century British history.

 

This period of British history has one of the largest collections of digital sources available on the web, including not only digitised books, but also newspapers, manuscripts, genealogical records, and even maps and images. These sources, created by both academic and commercial organisations, are accessed by hundreds of thousands of individuals every day, across the world. Until now, there has been no single starting place to search through these sources.

 

Alastair Dunning, programme manager for online content at JISC, said: "JISC has been involved in the digitisation of many crucial primary resources for the study of history, helping create a wealth of digitised materials, such as newspapers, pamphlets and images. The next stage of work is to knit such resources together - identifying the people, places and events that surface in multiple historical resources and making the links between them."

 

The new facility will allow searching across a full range of chosen sources by names, places and dates, as well as keywords and phrases, even when this information has not been separately identified in the existing source.  Users will also be provided with background information on search results and the facility to save and export results for further analysis. An online collaborative workspace will also allow users to document connections between sources.

 

Professor Robert Shoemaker, from the University of Sheffield's Department of History and co-director of the project, said: "This new search facility will bring many benefits to those wishing to use historical sources on the internet - whether it's an interested member of the public looking into their family history, or students and academics carrying out their research.  In total the Connected Histories project will provide integrated access to over 3 million pages of text, maps and images, shedding light on all aspects of British history between 1500 and 1900. The project is expandable into other areas of history, and as new digital resources become available."

 

Professor Miles Taylor, Director of the Institute of Historical Research, said: "Connected Histories will transform the way in which researchers use online source material for the early modern period and the 19th century. Amidst so much digital resource creation there has been a noticeable "silo effect", arising from distributed and unconnected databases and websites with differing access mechanisms, and this project is a significant step towards solving the problem. The project combines the expertise of several of the UK's key players in digital research for the humanities, and the IHR is delighted to be involved."

 

Co-director Professor Tim Hitchcock, from the University of Hertfordshire said: "Connected Histories will simply change the way we go about researching and teaching the British past.  Rather than formulating a project around a specific archive, or directing our students to a single source, this project will allow both academic historians and students to search multiple archives for a  person, or place, or concept, and in the process will help us to develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding."

 

The website will be fully launched in March 2011, but for more information see www.connectedhistories.org. Please don’t send questions to me!

 

 

 

Susan Healy
Information Policy Consultant and Data Protection Officer
The National Archives
Tel 020 8392 5330 ext 2305
Email [log in to unmask]
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

 

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