Workshop Programme ‘Digital Histories: Advanced Skills for Historians’

Day 1 (24 April 2014): Chances and Challenges of Digital History

10.30 – 11.00: Arrival and Registration

11.00 – 11.30: Welcome and Introduction

Dr Tanja Bueltmann (Northumbria)
Researching History in the Digital Age: Opportunities and Challenges

11.30 – 13.00: Digital History in Practice

Alun Edwards (Oxford)
Embedding community collections within the community: user-generated content to support public-engagement, education and knowledge exchange

Katherine Krick (Durham)
From Manuscript to Webpage: Using the Digital Age to Study the Middle Ages.

Alan Fidler and Steve Young (Tynemouth WW1 project)
The Tynemouth World War One Commemoration Project – creating a digital memory of a community on Tyneside

13.00 – 14.00: Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00: Doing Digital History

Interactive demonstrations of the Europeana 1914-18 & Tynemouth WW1 project tools

15.00 – 15.30: Coffee Break

15.30 – 16.30: Lost in data? How digital research methods can change the way we write history

Open round table discussion about the chances and challenges of digital history projects

16.30: Close of First Day

17.30 – 19.00 Public Lecture

Alun Edwards (Oxford)
Collecting Stories of the First World War: Europeana 1914-1918 and The Oxford Community Collection Model

Optional Evening Meal

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Day 2 (25 April 2014): Digital History and Engaging with the General Public

09.30- 10.00: Arrival and Registration
10.00 – 11.30: Museums, Archives and the Digital turn

Bill Griffith (Discovery Museum Newcastle)
A History of the North East in 100 Objects – a real project, a virtual exhibition.

Chris Wild (Retronaut.com)
Retronaut: Tearing holes in our collective map of time
11.30 – 12.00 Coffee Break
12.00 – 13.00: Digital History in the museum

Guided tour through the Discovery Museum with focus on curatorial concepts and the use of digital tools
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch Break
14.00 – 15.00: Digitisation: Pitfalls and Problem in Preservation

Ian Johnson (Newcastle)
Digital Pitfalls: An Archivist’s Perspective

15.30 – 16.00: Plenary & Feedback Round
Facilitated Open Space to develop how participants’ will increase the visibility and impact of their work and research
16.00: Close

Digital Histories: Advanced Skills for Historians

A two-day AHRC-funded workshop for postgraduate and early-career researchers on digital history and digital curation

24/25 April 2014, Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne)

The Department of Humanities at Northumbria University and Tyne & Wear Archives are holding a two-day workshop titled ‘Digital Histories: Advanced Skills for Historians’ on 24 and 25 April 2014. The workshop is designed to introduce and discuss some recent trends in the field of the digital humanities. The event will feature presentations from a range of historians, archivists and practitioners who have embraced the ‘digital turn’. Participants will hear about the uses of digital tools for research and public engagement; they will also have the opportunity to learn more about digital research tools and possibilities to use social media for the dissemination of their own research results. The event is open to postgraduates and early career researchers.

The first day of the workshop will feature short presentations by three current research projects:   the Oxford University-based RunCoCo project will introduce the Europeana 1914-18 project; Durham University will present on the  digitisation of medieval and early-modern manuscripts; and the Tynemouth First World War group will discuss their community-based digital history project. The presentations will be followed by a hands-on introduction into the planning, organisation and dissemination of these digital history projects. The first day will be concluded by a public talk about the digital history of the First World War and how the European digitisation project Europeana 1914-18 might change our public perceptions of the Great War.

The second day, which will be held at Tyne & Wear Archives, will then focus on the curatorial side of digital history projects. Particular attention will be paid to the challenges – and potential shortcomings – of digital history for archives and libraries. This will be followed by a session on how Tyne and Wear Archives use social media to engage with the wider public. Chris Wild, the individual behind the historical photo blog Retronaut (http://www.retronaut.com/), will present a talk on this topic. The workshop will then conclude with roundtable session which will allow participants to develop their own ideas on how to use digital tools and social media for their own research projects and public engagement.

As we have a limited capacity of 30 participants, we would like to ask all interested persons to register on our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-histories-advanced-skills-for-historians-tickets-10894839759

The whole event will be followed in live twitter feed under the hashtag #digihist2014. A documentation of the event will also be available on the event blog under digihist2014.wordpress.com.

For all further enquiries regarding the workshop please directly contact to the organisers André Keil (andre.keil@northumbria.ac.uk) or Laura Hutchinson (laura.hutchinson2@northumbria.ac.uk).

Please do also follow us on our social media sites:

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/digitalhistories2014

Twitter: @digihistories