[Matthew Connelly]

Archives as Data: May 22-June 2, 2023

Digital history and archiving are thriving, but the increasing volume of digitized and “born digital” materials for historical research also present new challenges for both archivists and historians. Typically, the only way to explore these resources has been through keyword searching. More direct access to the data creates tremendous new research opportunities, but the barriers to entry can seem daunting.

This NEH-funded program will offer practical training for both historians and archivists in ways to process and analyze textual data. Participants in the Archiving Digital Records workshop, designed for archivists, will learn how to use new technology to improve description and arrangement of digital or digitized records, especially PDFs, and provide users with new ways to access them. Participants in the Text-as-Data workshop, designed for historians, will learn how to organize and analyze large document collections and use new methods to formulate original arguments. All participants will come together in seminar-style discussions with guest speakers on the novel challenges posed by doing archival research in the age of “big data.”

All of the classes will be in-person to facilitate informal discussions, though week two of the Archiving Digital Records workshop can be done remotely. Attendance is free, and funding is available for those who need to travel to participate. This is a joint project of Columbia’s History Lab and Columbia Libraries, and is funded by the NEH Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. Hands-on training will use textual data from the Freedom of Information Archive, a project that has aggregated the largest database of declassified government documents in the world.

For more information, including how to apply, click here.

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