In June 2024 the KB hosted a Summerschool on Digital Collections, organized in collaboration with the Huizinga Institute. The summerschool aimed to familiarize participants with a wealth of digital publications, from digitized historical newspaper pages to archived websites and the intricate processes involved in managing them, blending theoretical insights with practical skills.
The program commenced with an introduction to the KB's extensive digital collections, the history, current status, and key features. A significant aspect of digital collections discussed was the web collection focusing on its construction and its role in preserving 21st-century digital content. The sessions surround this collection highlighted the technical intricacies of WARC files and challenges of archiving websites, as opposed to traditional media, and the potential research opportunities available. Connections were drawn between web archives and humanities research, revealing untapped avenues for exploration.
One of the most commonly used resources, digitized newspapers was another focal point. The sessions revealed the meticulous processes behind their creation and the role of metadata in research accessibility and what libraries mean when they talk about the "digital object" of the newspapers. This was further complemented by the practical insights into Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technologies which are reshaping access to historical texts.
When working with digital collections, understanding the technical aspects is crucial, and sessions on TEI-XML, PDF, and EPUB formats, provided participants with a comprehensive understanding of digital text editions and their application in research.
The summerschool provided theoretical information and a practical demo of the process of digitizing medieval manuscripts. The workflow of the traveling project team that photographs and digitizes manuscripts from various institutions, followed by discussions, provided fascinating insights into the preservation and accessibility of these historical texts.
The accessibility of the Delpher collection through Python programming was also demonstrated to participants via Jupyter Notebooks for querying digitized newspapers from Delpher, analyzing them and creating visualizations of the analysis for easy interpretation.
A significant aspect of the summerschool was the emphasis on digital source criticism. Speakers like Jesper Verhoef, Kaspar Beelen and Arno Kuipers discussed biases and gaps in the KB collection, emphasizing the need to recognize and address these issues in digital heritage collections. They clarified what the KB can legally do with its collections and the limitations researchers must consider.
The theoretical and practical sessions together culminated in a symposium where participants presented their weekly assignments, showcasing the ideas they developed using the knowledge gained during the summerschool. Topics ranged from historical cartographic networks to contemporary parenting issues, and from the depiction of saints in medieval prayer books to gender roles in Surinamese contract labour. The closing panel discussion reflected on the week’s learnings and future directions in digital research, accentuating the innovative research possibilities that emerge from interdisciplinary engagement.
The summerschool aimed to focus on the dynamics between researchers and collection managers. It highlighted the challenges faced by the KB in digitization, copyright issues, and technical limitations. Understanding these factors is essential for researchers to fully appreciate the scope and boundaries of the digital collections they utilize. The interaction between collection managers and researchers also fosters a reciprocal relationship where new research can highlight gaps and limitations in collections, guiding future digitization efforts.
Final thanks
The KB Summerschool on Digital Collections team wants to thank all their collegues that have aided them in the organisation of this wonderfull week: whether it was giving a talk or a workshop, providing lunches or taking pictures: we could not have done it without you! We also thank the participantes for attending our first ever summerschool and we hope to have provided you all with a platform for collaboration and to have aided you to better navigate and utilize the KB digital collections for your future research endeavors.
