25 November 2009

New Online Tool Will Help Connect History

Budding historians are set to benefit from a new online project which
will revolutionise the way we search for historical sources on the
internet, thanks to a £198,977 cash boost from JISC.

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.

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.”

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."