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Stories, Sources and New Formats: the Challenges of Digitising Large Archive Source Collections

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Stories, Sources and New Formats: the Challenges of Digitising Large Archive Source Collections Stories, sources and new formats: the challenges of digitising large archive source collections In the last two decades or so there has been a movement towards digitising large collections of original sources. These projects have had a range of purposes, approaches and target audiences but there can be little doubt that they have had a profound impact on the practice of history in the academic, educational and public domains. In this article Ben Walsh and Andrew Payne attempt to survey the broad landscape of the scale and impact of digitisation and assess how the digital landscape has affected the historical landscape. The digitisation of for archives, allowing users to search World War service records, to be history collections and download copies of preserved through reduced handling. documents from anywhere in the world. Finally digitisation has allowed for the The development of digital technologies The National Archives has transformed bringing together of physically separated has opened up tremendous new its online catalogue Discovery into content to create comprehensive online possibilities for the study of history. the single point of access to 32 million collections which allow for ‘Big Data’ Digital imaging and digital storage descriptions of records; 22 million of projects such as the University of Sussex have enabled the creation of vast these are in their own collection and project on the household expenditure digital libraries enabling academic over 10 million records in 2,500 other surveys of the early twentieth century historians, educators and the general archives across the country. The vast which are held at Bangor University and public relatively easy access to very large majority of its collection, however, The National Archives. collections of original documents and remains available only for physical other sources from archive collections. inspection in the reading rooms at Kew, How is the process of The process began in the 1990s with with around 7% of records having been the digitisation of document collections digitised for online access. digitisation contributing on to CD-ROM. One of the earliest Digitisation has been driven by to academic scholarship? instances of this was The British four key factors: revenue generation, In addition to providing access to Library’s series of CD-ROMs Sources preservation, access and digital re- collections of source material which in History. Since then digital imaging unification. might be otherwise beyond reach, digital and digital storage have developed Revenue generation has become technologies allow historians to conduct spectacularly such that high-resolution an important motive as archives new types of research. Digital resources copies of documents, maps, cartoons, have sought to widen their funding offer up tremendous possibilities for census and other official records and base. Name-rich collections offer searching, sorting, categorising and countless other types of documents are an attractive option with a growing searching for patterns. now available to users in universities, audience interested in family history schools and homes. and genealogy. By partnering with The British Living And the digital collection continues commercial organisations such as to grow. Last year The National Archives Ancestry.co.uk and FindMyPast.co.uk, Standards Project delivered more than 640,000 documents it has been possible for The National Professor Ian Gazeley of the University to readers in their reading rooms at Archives to provide much wider of Sussex has described how digitisation Kew and over 200 million downloads access to the census, military service has transformed his research practice, via their website and licensed associate and migration records to researchers particularly in the British Living partnerships. Clearly digitisation offers around the world. At the same time the Standards Project, based on British archives a powerful way to open up their licensing agreements have generated government household surveys:1 collections to academic researchers, income to allow for further investment journalists and family historians as well in access and services. Digitisation also The digitalisation of twentieth- as history teachers and students. Indeed, allows fragile and damaged records, century British household in many ways the internet was made such as the ‘Burnt Collection’ of First expenditure records has allowed 28 The Historian – Spring 2016 The National Archives website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk me to tackle bigger questions than England’s medieval interest and confidence in working was possible hitherto. I’ve used the immigrants with medieval records. Among some results of household budgets studies of the recent key examples here are Similarly, Professor Mark Ormrod in my research since my PhD thesis the Fine Rolls of Henry III,3 England’s of the University of York and his 30 years ago, but these were all Immigrants, 1330-1550 and the York colleagues have reconstructed the lives small-scale enquiries that did not Cause Papers project.4 Electronic of numerous high-profile immigrants present significant issues with respect access gives history a bright future! in England in the medieval period as a to capturing the information they result of the digitisation of the medieval recorded. The 1953/4 Household Alien Subsidy Returns and Letters of Robot historians? Expenditure Survey is immense by Denization in the England’s Immigrants It may be that digitisation will continue comparison and was designed to project.2 Perhaps more interesting, they to transform the discipline of history be a stratified random sample of all have used a prosopographical approach still further. Canadian historians British households. It is quite rare to collect the scraps of information Geoff Keelan and Kirk Goodlet have to find a large survey where all the in these sources about more humble speculated a future in which historians original records survived. Capturing individuals to develop a fascinating new will be aided and abetted by robots.5 the expenditure information insight into patterns and processes of This does not mean a metal historian! recorded on a daily basis for three migration in the medieval period. As It is entirely plausible that before long weeks by all individuals in 13,000 Professor Ormrod himself observes: software will be able to read difficult households would not have been handwriting and convert to more feasible without modern digitisation Electronic resources have readable forms. Texts in modern and techniques, as there are about one transformed access to historical ancient foreign languages might be million hand-written individual daily records for an increasingly diverse translated with sufficient accuracy. As expenditure records in the survey. range of users, and thus made it more and more transactions are digital, We have digitised the material to be possible, as never before, for people to so the ability of software to archive in keeping with the original records understand the evidence on which we these transactions becomes feasible. as faithfully as possible. The data we base – and extend – our knowledge Of course this may be a curse rather have extracted from this survey has of the past. The opportunity to reach than a blessing as we are overwhelmed allowed us to answer a number of public audiences has been especially with data. Having said that, robot questions relating to the standard important for medieval and early readers could conceivably ‘understand’ of living in Britain at mid-twentieth modern historians, because the texts to the extent that they might be century, and now that this data is in records we use are written in hands able to direct historians’ energies by the public domain, I’m sure that in and languages that are difficult recommending them to study particular the future it will be used to address to read. So electronic delivery of source materials. Artificial Intelligence questions that we did not foresee at document facsimiles, modern may seem the stuff of science fiction but the point of digitisation. English translations and summaries, it is a rapidly-developing field and may and databases of standardised open up new approaches to the study of information have helped to revive history. The Historian – Spring 2016 29 An example of a return for a railway platelayer in Kilburn, North London, in 1904. Records became more detailed in subsequent surveys. While individual records provide a fascinating insight into the lives of families, the digitisation of large surveys opens up the prospect of new levels of investigation and interpretation based on thousands of such records. The British Living Standards Project, University of Sussex, funded by ESRC Research Grant RES-062-23-2054 What are the challenges crowd-sourcing to make machine- create metadata about the official diaries in digitising a collection searchable formats. This final stage kept by each battalion commander often poses the biggest challenge during the First World War.6 of sources from an as the nature of the documents can archive and making determine how it is undertaken. Bringing digital them available? ‘Structured data’ such as forms collections to wider The process of digitisation itself is well are often easier to work once the key audiences practised and understood, with four fields have been identified to aid with So far we have focused on what main steps to get documents from searching. Not everything needs to be academic historians have gained, and artefact to screen. made searchable – usually only key data might further gain, from the process of fields such as name, address, date of digitisation. But the National Archives 1 Preparation of material to ensure the birth, service unit etc, as with the First and most other holders of collections best image possible can be obtained. World War service records. do not want to reserve their collections This may require documents to ‘Unstructured data’ such as purely for academic use. The last few undergo conservation work. letters, minutes and reports are more decades have seen an explosion in public 2 Photographing is usually done in challenging because what needs to interest in history.
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