Digital History seminar

Institute of Historical Research

Does the Digital change anything?

Valerie Johnson and David Thomas

(TNA)

Digital preservation is a hot topic in the world of archiving – just how do you preserve the digital record? What do you keep? What do you ignore? These issues have always been crucial for archivists attempting to judge what will be useful for future researchers. However, the digital poses specific problems as well. For born-digital records when do you consider them complete? A website (for example) can change regularly but still be considered complete – how do you archive something like that? These are issues that David Thomas and Valerie Johnson from the National Archives tackle head-on. David Thomas notes the American National Archives attempt to preserve US digital material on a scale beyond anything achievable in Britain. However, does the scale necessarily matter? Thomas believes that the concern over digital materials becoming unusable due to format changes have, for the most part, proved unfounded. Most projects, for instance, can still be accessible. The issue is one more of survivability. Of JISC and AHRC funded projects, Thomas believes around 10% have vanished entirely since the beginning of the dot.com boom.

Valerie Johnson looks at the archive itself in more detail. What should be kept and in what way? How should archived digital materials be searchable? What is the way forward? There are hurdles still to overcome, and a recognition in the archive industry that digital materials will be scaling up over the coming decade and that means to catalogue and organise those materials are still required if those preserved materials are to be of any use to future researchers. So does the digital change anything? The answer here appears to be yes, but also no.

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

'From Which to Taste a Vicarious Holiday'; railway marketing, digital history and collaboration

Matt Thompson

(York)

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Text Mining the Old Bailey Proceedings

Professor Tim Hitchcock

(Hertfordshire)

The Old Bailey Online is probably one of the most successful web-based projects produced in Britain thus far. Based on the proceedings from London’s central criminal court this is a fully searchable edition containing some 197,745 criminal trails detailing the lives of non-elite people. One of the originators of the project, Tim Hitchcock is looking at how to use text mining tools to examine the proceedings and discover new things about them. Text mining is the derivation of meaningful data from a large body of unstructured data, using automated methods to reveal structure and associations. Through text mining Hitchcock is able to compare patterns of persecution over time and further examine changes in court behaviour and procedure.

Did you know, for instance, that the shortest trial on the Old Bailey proceedings is just eight words in length whilst the longest is 320 pages and over 150,000 words? Hitchcock believes that previous attempts to average trial lengths per year to show trends disguises the mix of long and short trials contained within each year and also the fact that the accounts are not entirely complete, that some trials are purposefully reduced in length for very interesting reasons. Through text mining Hitchcock shows that changes in the nature of the jury trial (and which trials would reach a jury) are vital to understanding the trends especially when looking also as the number of non-guilty verses guilty pleas and verdicts. Hitchcock argues that plea-bargaining became increasingly important.

At the heart of Hitchcock’s paper is an argument that data/text mining represents the beginning of a new methodology for historians studying data and that we are very much at the beginning of an exciting process of using digital tools for new historical research. All we have to do is rise to the challenge.

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Text Mining the Old Bailey Proceedings

Discussion

Professor Tim Hitchcock

(Hertfordshire)

The Old Bailey Online is probably one of the most successful web-based projects produced in Britain thus far. Based on the proceedings from London’s central criminal court this is a fully searchable edition containing some 197,745 criminal trails detailing the lives of non-elite people. One of the originators of the project, Tim Hitchcock is looking at how to use text mining tools to examine the proceedings and discover new things about them. Text mining is the derivation of meaningful data from a large body of unstructured data, using automated methods to reveal structure and associations. Through text mining Hitchcock is able to compare patterns of persecution over time and further examine changes in court behaviour and procedure.

Did you know, for instance, that the shortest trial on the Old Bailey proceedings is just eight words in length whilst the longest is 320 pages and over 150,000 words? Hitchcock believes that previous attempts to average trial lengths per year to show trends disguises the mix of long and short trials contained within each year and also the fact that the accounts are not entirely complete, that some trials are purposefully reduced in length for very interesting reasons. Through text mining Hitchcock shows that changes in the nature of the jury trial (and which trials would reach a jury) are vital to understanding the trends especially when looking also as the number of non-guilty verses guilty pleas and verdicts. Hitchcock argues that plea-bargaining became increasingly important.

At the heart of Hitchcock’s paper is an argument that data/text mining represents the beginning of a new methodology for historians studying data and that we are very much at the beginning of an exciting process of using digital tools for new historical research. All we have to do is rise to the challenge.

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Text Mining the Old Bailey Proceedings

Professor Tim Hitchcock

(Hertfordshire)

The Old Bailey Online is probably one of the most successful web-based projects produced in Britain thus far. Based on the proceedings from London’s central criminal court this is a fully searchable edition containing some 197,745 criminal trails detailing the lives of non-elite people. One of the originators of the project, Tim Hitchcock is looking at how to use text mining tools to examine the proceedings and discover new things about them. Text mining is the derivation of meaningful data from a large body of unstructured data, using automated methods to reveal structure and associations. Through text mining Hitchcock is able to compare patterns of persecution over time and further examine changes in court behaviour and procedure.

Did you know, for instance, that the shortest trial on the Old Bailey proceedings is just eight words in length whilst the longest is 320 pages and over 150,000 words? Hitchcock believes that previous attempts to average trial lengths per year to show trends disguises the mix of long and short trials contained within each year and also the fact that the accounts are not entirely complete, that some trials are purposefully reduced in length for very interesting reasons. Through text mining Hitchcock shows that changes in the nature of the jury trial (and which trials would reach a jury) are vital to understanding the trends especially when looking also as the number of non-guilty verses guilty pleas and verdicts. Hitchcock argues that plea-bargaining became increasingly important.

At the heart of Hitchcock’s paper is an argument that data/text mining represents the beginning of a new methodology for historians studying data and that we are very much at the beginning of an exciting process of using digital tools for new historical research. All we have to do is rise to the challenge.

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Text Mining the Old Bailey Proceedings

Discussion

Professor Tim Hitchcock

(Hertfordshire)

The Old Bailey Online is probably one of the most successful web-based projects produced in Britain thus far. Based on the proceedings from London’s central criminal court this is a fully searchable edition containing some 197,745 criminal trails detailing the lives of non-elite people. One of the originators of the project, Tim Hitchcock is looking at how to use text mining tools to examine the proceedings and discover new things about them. Text mining is the derivation of meaningful data from a large body of unstructured data, using automated methods to reveal structure and associations. Through text mining Hitchcock is able to compare patterns of persecution over time and further examine changes in court behaviour and procedure.

Did you know, for instance, that the shortest trial on the Old Bailey proceedings is just eight words in length whilst the longest is 320 pages and over 150,000 words? Hitchcock believes that previous attempts to average trial lengths per year to show trends disguises the mix of long and short trials contained within each year and also the fact that the accounts are not entirely complete, that some trials are purposefully reduced in length for very interesting reasons. Through text mining Hitchcock shows that changes in the nature of the jury trial (and which trials would reach a jury) are vital to understanding the trends especially when looking also as the number of non-guilty verses guilty pleas and verdicts. Hitchcock argues that plea-bargaining became increasingly important.

At the heart of Hitchcock’s paper is an argument that data/text mining represents the beginning of a new methodology for historians studying data and that we are very much at the beginning of an exciting process of using digital tools for new historical research. All we have to do is rise to the challenge.

Digital History seminar series

Institute of Historical Research

Space, place and the city: a simple anti-GIS approach for historians

Professor Richard Rodger

(Edinburgh)

If you suggest using GIS (geographical information system) to an historian they might look back at you blankly or with a look of mild horror on their face. For many historians GIS is viewed (not unfairly) as a complicated tool best left to others. However, its potential usefulness in answering and revealing research questions is pretty much indisputable. Richard Rodger wants to show that working on the spatial does not necessarily require GIS work and where it does, it is often highly rewarding. In this paper Rodger wants to look at alternatives to GIS, to more simple processes for investigating the spatial. He does this not just with the academic historian in mind, but also the local historian, the student, and other interested researchers. Using pre-established geo-referencing tools and by following straight forward techniques can be highly rewarding and relatively easy to learn. Take the Google Maps platform as an example. Rodger describes in this paper how to use Google tools to map spatially various statistical data with minimum of effort. Then there is his own project, Visualising Urban Geographies, which uses Edinburgh as a template for building mapping tools specifically designed for use by historians. By investigating data by addresses or districts, this project allows historians to create spatial boundaries to link maps to the boundaries of data. In other words a set of district records can be mapped accurately and displayed in a way useful for interpretation.

Rodger wants everyone to be able to investigate the spatial and emphasises that it does not necessarily need to be complicated or time consuming.

Institute of Historical Research

Space, place and the city: a simple anti-GIS approach for historians

Discussion

Professor Richard Rodger

(Edinburgh)

If you suggest using GIS (geographical information system) to an historian they might look back at you blankly or with a look of mild horror on their face. For many historians GIS is viewed (not unfairly) as a complicated tool best left to others. However, its potential usefulness in answering and revealing research questions is pretty much indisputable. Richard Rodger wants to show that working on the spatial does not necessarily require GIS work and where it does, it is often highly rewarding. In this paper Rodger wants to look at alternatives to GIS, to more simple processes for investigating the spatial. He does this not just with the academic historian in mind, but also the local historian, the student, and other interested researchers. Using pre-established geo-referencing tools and by following straight forward techniques can be highly rewarding and relatively easy to learn. Take the Google Maps platform as an example. Rodger describes in this paper how to use Google tools to map spatially various statistical data with minimum of effort. Then there is his own project, Visualising Urban Geographies, which uses Edinburgh as a template for building mapping tools specifically designed for use by historians. By investigating data by addresses or districts, this project allows historians to create spatial boundaries to link maps to the boundaries of data. In other words a set of district records can be mapped accurately and displayed in a way useful for interpretation.

Rodger wants everyone to be able to investigate the spatial and emphasises that it does not necessarily need to be complicated or time consuming.

Institute of Historical Research

Space, place and the city: a simple anti-GIS approach for historians

Professor Richard Rodger

(Edinburgh)

If you suggest using GIS (geographical information system) to an historian they might look back at you blankly or with a look of mild horror on their face. For many historians GIS is viewed (not unfairly) as a complicated tool best left to others. However, its potential usefulness in answering and revealing research questions is pretty much indisputable. Richard Rodger wants to show that working on the spatial does not necessarily require GIS work and where it does, it is often highly rewarding. In this paper Rodger wants to look at alternatives to GIS, to more simple processes for investigating the spatial. He does this not just with the academic historian in mind, but also the local historian, the student, and other interested researchers. Using pre-established geo-referencing tools and by following straight forward techniques can be highly rewarding and relatively easy to learn. Take the Google Maps platform as an example. Rodger describes in this paper how to use Google tools to map spatially various statistical data with minimum of effort. Then there is his own project, Visualising Urban Geographies, which uses Edinburgh as a template for building mapping tools specifically designed for use by historians. By investigating data by addresses or districts, this project allows historians to create spatial boundaries to link maps to the boundaries of data. In other words a set of district records can be mapped accurately and displayed in a way useful for interpretation.

Rodger wants everyone to be able to investigate the spatial and emphasises that it does not necessarily need to be complicated or time consuming.

Institute of Historical Research

Space, place and the city: a simple anti-GIS approach for historians

Discussion

Professor Richard Rodger

(Edinburgh)

If you suggest using GIS (geographical information system) to an historian they might look back at you blankly or with a look of mild horror on their face. For many historians GIS is viewed (not unfairly) as a complicated tool best left to others. However, its potential usefulness in answering and revealing research questions is pretty much indisputable. Richard Rodger wants to show that working on the spatial does not necessarily require GIS work and where it does, it is often highly rewarding. In this paper Rodger wants to look at alternatives to GIS, to more simple processes for investigating the spatial. He does this not just with the academic historian in mind, but also the local historian, the student, and other interested researchers. Using pre-established geo-referencing tools and by following straight forward techniques can be highly rewarding and relatively easy to learn. Take the Google Maps platform as an example. Rodger describes in this paper how to use Google tools to map spatially various statistical data with minimum of effort. Then there is his own project, Visualising Urban Geographies, which uses Edinburgh as a template for building mapping tools specifically designed for use by historians. By investigating data by addresses or districts, this project allows historians to create spatial boundaries to link maps to the boundaries of data. In other words a set of district records can be mapped accurately and displayed in a way useful for interpretation.

Rodger wants everyone to be able to investigate the spatial and emphasises that it does not necessarily need to be complicated or time consuming.