The following interview was conducted by Sam Goven, a master’s student in Journalism at KU Leuven, with Roberta Pireddu, team leader of the BiblioTech Hackathon project PostScript. Roberta provides academic support for the Master in Digital Humanities at KU Leuven. Roberta’s team worked with the postcard collection. You can learn more about the team’s work by having a look at their project poster in the BiblioTech Zenodo community and by visiting their project website.

The BiblioTech Hackathon is a 10-day event organized by KU Leuven Libraries and the Faculty of Arts. Students, researchers, and staff members of KU Leuven worked in multidisciplinary teams with digitized collections from KU Leuven Libraries. The theme of the 2026 edition was travel, which was reflected in the selected datasets: historical postcards and historical travelogues. More information about the hackathon and its results can be found on the BiblioTech 2026 website.

Congratulations on winning both the first prize and the public’s favorite! Can you tell me a bit about what first drew you to the hackathon, and have you participated in one before?

I hadn’t participated in a hackathon before, but I had organized a small one myself. It was for a project on Artificial Intelligence and its application in the cultural heritage sector. I knew a lot about the organizational aspects, but not much about how to actually participate in a hackathon. What I mainly did then was observe the other groups: what they were doing and how they came up with their projects. So I was mostly involved from the sidelines.

As for why I participated: I’m currently praktijkassistant and teaching assistant for the Master in Digital Humanities, and digital humanities students are an important target group for the BiblioTech hackathon. Taking part myself allowed me to work on a project together with the students. I also already knew the postcard collection, as I had worked with it in the past, and I thought it would be nice to create something new using that material.

And your own background is in Digital Humanities as well?

Yes, that’s right. I studied Digital Humanities in Leuven, and before that I studied history, more specifically medieval history, so my background is very much in the humanities. I’ve mainly worked with heritage collections, like the ones that were used for this hackathon.

I already mentioned you won the first prize with your project. Could you describe it in a nutshell?

Our team worked with the postcard collection, which is a very large one, and visually very attractive. It’s rich in information, with a lot of detail in the metadata, but because of its size it can be quite difficult to really explore all of those details.

What we wanted to create was a kind of website or digital space where people could explore the collection more easily and from different perspectives. We chose three main perspectives. One of them, for example, is a map, where users can see the locations represented in the collection and then zoom in on the details. On the website, users can also explore specific elements, like all the trains in the collection, all the cars, parks, and so on.

In addition, we created a crowdsourcing section. We wanted to include user participation so that the collection could be enriched with additional information. For example, on the back of the postcards there are greetings, and we wanted to allow users to transcribe or translate those messages so they could be added to the metadata.

You were the team leader of your group. Was this role in line with what you had expected?

I expected that I would need to give structure to the team: define the focus of the project, set concrete steps, and remind everyone of deadlines. In the end, though, everything developed very organically and smoothly, and I was really happy with how it worked out.

At the ‘Meet the Data, Meet the People’ event, you were introduced to the data for the first time. How did the brainstorming process go?

At first, it wasn’t very clear what specific skills everyone could bring to the project, or how we should approach such a large collection. That led to a lot of questions: what do we actually want to do with this collection, and what do we want to highlight?

In the beginning, we had many different ideas. We thought about working with the colors of the postcards, or focusing on locations, and that’s when the idea of using a map came up. There were a lot of possibilities. At a certain point, though, we decided that we really needed to look more closely at the dataset, see what was actually there, and then make a decision. That happened a couple of days after the opening event. We had some time to reflect, explore the data, and then settle on a clear approach.

Was it difficult to decide in which direction you wanted to go?

A bit, yes. But in the end, the direction really emerged from what we actually found in the data. As I mentioned before, we initially wanted to work with color, but when we started thinking about the kind of results that would produce, we realized it wasn’t the direction that appealed to us the most. So at some point we had to make a clear decision: okay, let’s go in this direction and really commit to it.

That said, it was still a bit challenging, because along the way new ideas kept popping up. For example, we considered adding a gamification aspect to the crowdsourcing section, where participants could earn points based on how much they contributed. In the end, we had to leave that out because of time constraints. At some point we realized, there are only three days left, how can we realistically make this work? It’s important at that stage to be realistic and say, okay, this is something we can do, and this is something we can’t.

During your final presentation at the closing event, you mentioned the educational goal of the project and its collaborative aspect. What kind of audience did you have in mind? Who should be able to use the website you developed?

We definitely had researchers in mind. The idea was to help them shape their research by giving them access to all these additional details in the collection. Because the postcard collection is so broad, it’s not immediately obvious what kind of research questions you could explore with it, and we wanted to make that easier.

At the same time, we wanted to reach a wider audience, people who are curious about Belgium’s history, about tourist places, and what they looked like in the past. Some might be interested in comparing then and now, others in seeing how streets and cities have changed, or just browsing the collection and feeling a bit nostalgic.

One thing I found very appealing was how user‑friendly the website was, it really looked like something anyone could use.

Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of people would love the idea of being able to see how a place looked in the past and compare it to how it looks now, seeing how much it has changed, or sometimes how it no longer exists at all.

The end result was a success, but did you face any roadblocks during the hackathon?

There was one issue at the beginning related to the locations of the postcards. We wanted to create a map and link each image directly to a specific place, but the coordinates were missing in the collection. So we first had to retrieve that information, and that took some time. At one point, we even thought it wouldn’t be possible. In the end, though, one of the team members managed to clean the dataset and recover the exact coordinates for each location, which allowed us to move forward.

You mentioned that this was the first hackathon you participated in. Do you feel you picked up any new skills along the way, and how might you use them in future research?

The crowdsourcing concept was particularly interesting for me. It’s something I had already worked with in earlier projects where we involved the public. For example, we showed people images, often of places in cities, and asked them to share additional information about what they saw.

What was new for me in this project was the specific crowdsourcing tool that we embedded in the website. I think that’s something I’ll definitely use again in the future. It’s very user‑friendly and easy to integrate, and the fact that it automatically produces a file with all the participants’ responses is very useful.

What advice would you give to someone who might be hesitant to participate in a hackathon because of their background?

I really think everyone can participate, because there’s a place for everyone in a hackathon, even if you don’t have strong technical skills. Whatever your background or skills, there’s always a way to contribute and find your role within the group. That might be through creative ideas, working on the poster, or helping shape the concept of the project. There’s always something meaningful you can bring to the team.

Last question: what advice would you give a team leader?

I would say don’t be too strict at the beginning. It’s important to give everyone enough space to be creative and to let people explore ideas, so that everyone’s skills can really emerge. I think the brainstorming phase is especially important, because that’s when you start to understand what each team member can do and how everyone can contribute to the project.

Congratulations one more time! It’s amazing how much each team accomplished in such a short period of time. For me, it almost felt unreal, this looked like a year’s worth of work.

Yes, exactly. For me, this could have been a thesis, the kind of results you would expect from a master’s thesis. That’s really what made it so remarkable to me.

The following post was written by Sam Goven, a master’s student in Journalism at KU Leuven. It offers a participant’s perspective on the BiblioTech Hackathon, reflecting on the experience, the creative process, and collaborative spirit that shaped the event.

Libraries are often seen as places of preservation rather than experimentation, but the BiblioTech Hackathon turns KU Leuven Libraries into a digital playground. Drawing on rich library datasets, students, researchers, and staff from diverse backgrounds work in interdisciplinary teams to reimagine historical collections through digital tools and collaboration.

The second edition of the hackathon culminated on 26 March in the University Library in Leuven, where seven teams presented their final projects to a jury. Over the course of ten days, materials from the library collection were transformed into innovative digital outputs, ranging from interactive maps and searchable databases to experimental interfaces, which can be explored via the project websites. Team PostScript ultimately claimed both the jury prize and the audience award with an interactive digital archive of Belgian postcards.

By combining technical support, curated library collections, and an emphasis on experimentation rather than competition, the BiblioTech Hackathon demonstrates that digital humanities can be accessible, creative, and collaborative, even for those new to computational approaches.

What is a Hackathon?

During a hackathon, a blend of “hacking” and “marathon”, participants work together in teams on a project against a tight deadline. These projects often have a digital component and can be developed over one or several days, resulting in a website, database, or another form of digital output.

The first edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon took place in 2023, organized by KU Leuven Libraries and the Faculty of Arts. Participants could choose from seven datasets, including the Bible of Anjou and wartime posters. The focus was on exploring documentary heritage from a fresh perspective by transforming it into computational data. The hackathon proved to be a success and led to a second edition in 2026.

Meet the Data, Meet the People

The second edition kicked off on 12 March in Agora Learning Centre in Leuven. As the smell of pizza filled the space, the perfect brain food for sharp minds, the seven teams discovered both the datasets and each other for the first time. In total, 39 enthusiastic participants from a wide range of backgrounds took on the challenge. The hackathon attracted not only master’s students, but also PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and KU Leuven staff. Participants represented a broad variety of disciplines and research fields, including Computer Science, Egyptology, Law, and Economics.

To make the most of this diversity, teams were formed in advance based on digital skills and areas of expertise, ensuring a balanced mix. Each team was supported by a designated team leader to keep the project on track, while technical experts were readily available throughout the hackathon to answer questions and provide assistance. To ensure everyone could get started smoothly, an additional training session on the technical infrastructure and tools was organized the next day.

Following an introduction to the datasets and the available support network, the teams dove into the material. This year’s hackathon offered two datasets: well over 35.000 historical postcards from Belgium and around 300 travel accounts written by European authors describing the destinations they visited. Once again, these historical sources provided ample opportunities for innovative perspectives. Four teams chose to work with the travelogues, while the remaining three focused on the postcards.

The brainstorming phase reflected the exploratory nature of the hackathon. Faced with rich datasets and a wide range of ideas and ambitions, teams took time to explore different directions before narrowing their focus. Working within a limited timeframe required careful consideration of what was both innovative and feasible. This process not only helped shape the projects but also allowed participants to recognize and build on each other’s strengths. Andreas Ketele, a member of the Inked and Stamped team, reflected afterwards: “What I really enjoyed was that process of exploration. We reflected on our ideas and experimented a lot, and that’s exactly what a hackathon is about: discovering possibilities along the way.”

The Final Projects

On 26 March, participants, jury members, and guests gathered in the University Library for the final presentations accompanied by a poster exhibition, marking the culmination of the hackathon and an opportunity for teams to present their work. The evening opened with welcoming words from the organizing team, Demmy Verbeke (Head of KU Leuven Libraries Artes), and Geert Brône (Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Arts), who praised the creativity and commitment shown throughout the hackathon.

The presentations were opened by team CaptaCats with their project ShipAdvisor. Loosely inspired by the travel website TripAdvisor, the team developed a web platform that maps maritime routes in the Mediterranean during the 18th and 19th centuries, based on historical travel accounts.

Next, team DH.xml presented their analysis of the postcard dataset. They argued that historical postcards functioned as a form of social media avant la lettre, and used the collection to identify recurring visual trends and patterns.

All Reads Lead to Leuven focused on how 19th-century French travel writers wrote about African languages. Their project resulted in a website featuring Instagram-inspired posts that reveal the vocabulary and framing these authors used when describing linguistic encounters.

Using the postcard dataset, Inked and Stamped built a searchable digital database. Its intuitive interface allows users to explore the collection by location, date, and even the color of the postcards.

Team PostScript adopted a similar approach, but with a specific focus on postcards from Antwerp. In addition to a searchable database, they introduced interactive features such as maps that contrast contemporary photographs with historical images from the collection.

The penultimate presentation came from Team W@nder. Drawing on The Land and the Book, a 19th-century publication by W. M. Thompson, they visualized the author’s travels in the Levant. As with other projects, historical illustrations were juxtaposed with present-day photographs to highlight continuity and change.

The evening concluded with a presentation by Team Julie Verne. They developed an oracle-like search tool based on the travelogues dataset. Through their website, users can query the texts and receive the most relevant responses generated from the corpus.

After a brief deliberation by the jury and a public vote, the awards were announced. The jury consisted of experts in data and digital research: Julie Birkholz (Coordinator CLARIAH VL+), Geert Brône (Vice Dean for Research of the Faculty of Arts), Jo Rademakers, (Head of LIBIS), Fred Truyen (Head of CS Digital), and Katrien Verbert (Program director of the POC Digital Humanities). Team PostScript was awarded both the jury prize and the audience award. As in the 2023 edition, however, each team received recognition, including awards such as Best Research Potential and Best Visualization. The evening concluded with a reception, where teams presented their project posters over food and drinks. To share the creativity and impact of the hackathon with a wider audience, the posters are currently touring across KU Leuven.

A Community Built Through Collaboration

Not only were the results of the hackathon impressive, participants also praised the atmosphere and strong sense of community that developed throughout the event. In post-hackathon interviews, several participants reflected on the collaborative environment that emerged over the course of the ten days. Andreas Ketele described the experience as particularly rewarding: “I’m usually not someone who uses very strong words, but this really was fantastic. […] We were working as a group of highly motivated people. We collaborated very well and benefited enormously from all the support we received along the way.”

The diversity of backgrounds and skill levels did not prove to be a challenge, but rather one of the hackathon’s greatest strengths. By bringing together participants with different perspectives, expertise, and levels of technical experience, the hackathon created space for learning from one another. As Roberta Pireddu, team leader of PostScript, explained: “I really think everyone can participate, because there’s a place for everyone in a hackathon, even if you don’t have strong technical skills. Whatever your background or skills, there’s always a way to contribute and find your role within the group.”

For many participants, this emphasis on collaboration rather than competition was key. As advice for future participants, Luisa Ripoll Alberola, team leader of CaptaCats, encouraged newcomers not to focus too heavily on the final outcome: “What really matters is not the end product, but the process: working together, learning new things, and enjoying the experience. That’s what makes it valuable.”

The second edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon proved once again how working with library data can foster meaningful collaboration across disciplines. By bringing together diverse participants, the hackathon strengthened connections within the academic community and opened up new ways of engaging with humanities collections.

More information about the hackathon, its datasets, and the final projects can be found on the BiblioTech 2026 website. We encourage you to have a look at the project posters and websites to explore the teams’ outputs and discover the creative ways in which KU Leuven’s library collections continue to inspire digital humanities research.

Are you a Digital Humanities student or early career researcher in Belgium who would like to discuss DH with other early career researchers in the Belgian DH community? If so, you might be interested in joining the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs!

The DH Virtual Discussion Group is a joint initiative organized by individuals at multiple Belgian institutions. We strive to involve speakers from all Belgian institutions and encourage participation from all those who are interested in DH and are located at any Belgian institution. This series, the core organizers are Leah Budke (KU Leuven), Tom Gheldof (KU Leuven, CLARIAH-VL+), Paavo van der Eecken (University of Antwerp), and Loren Verreyen (University of Antwerp). Over the past years, the series has become a regular event. The spring 2026 edition proudly marks our twelfth term.

Our first two sessions this spring will continue the “under-the-hood” format, which entails a volunteer from our community providing a thirty-minute overview of a digital project implementing a given tool, approach, or platform. This is not meant to be a polished research presentation, or to present findings or results, but rather to give our community a behind-the-scenes look at how decisions were made and why specific tools were chosen or developed. The hope is also that this presenter will give attendees some ideas about how to get started implementing a specific tool or workflow, and that they can also answer questions or contribute to a discussion on other projects in our community that might be using similar methodologies or addressing similar issues. This “under-the-hood” session format allows us to have focused discussions around a specific project where we can learn from each other in an informal way. In addition, by implementing this format we can maintain the low threshold for contributing and engaging in the conversations.

Our final session will be a special in person session during which members of our community can give an elevator pitch of their DH Benelux contribution.

---

The spring 2026 schedule will be updated as details about upcoming talks are confirmed. Please check back here or on the website (linked above) for full details. Information about each session will also be circulated via the mailing list. 

Session 1
Date: Monday 30 March, 15h-16h30 CEST via Teams
Speaker(s): Julie Van Ongeval, VUB
Title: The Fall of Antwerp (1585) as a linguistic turning point? Language change from macro- and micro-perspectives.
Abstract:  The Spanish recapture of Antwerp (1585) during the Eighty Years’ War, known as the Fall of Antwerp, marks a crucial turning point, not only from a historical but also from a linguistic perspective. Historically, the Fall triggered profound social, economic, and demographic transformations. Prior to 1585, Antwerp had flourished as one of Europe’s largest and most prosperous cities, characterized by substantial immigration. In the aftermath of the Fall, however, the city experienced severe socio-economic decline and large-scale emigration, causing its population to decrease by more than half (from 100,000 inhabitants in 1580 to 42,000 in 1589) (De Meester 2011, Lesger 2007). From a linguistic standpoint, the Fall has traditionally been associated with what De Vooys (1970) termed “the decline of the Southern Netherlands”. The event is believed to have shifted the linguistic center of gravity to the Northern Netherlands, slowing down or even halting the ongoing processes of language standardization in the Southern Netherlands and, by extension, in Early Modern Antwerp (Van der Sijs 2020). ​Yet, these linguistic claims have primarily been based on printed, literary, or explicitly normative texts. Considerably less is known about language use in more informal and everyday contexts (Elspaß 2020). 

This study addresses that gap by analyzing informal, handwritten letters preserved in the newly developed Early Modern Antwerp Corpus (1564-1653). Drawing on Dixon’s punctuated equilibrium model (1997), which proposes that significant historical events can accelerate linguistic change, we test an alternative hypothesis: rather than causing stagnation, the Fall of Antwerp may have triggered intensified linguistic variation and change. To assess this hypothesis, we examine six linguistic features that were undergoing change and were relevant to the process of Dutch standardization (clause negation, verbal cluster order variation, schwa apocope, the prefix ge- in past participles, word-final /k/, spelling of /ɣ/ in onset). First, we analyze developments at the community level to identify broader patterns of change. We then adopt a more microscopic perspective, investigating how individual writers respond to the shifting sociohistorical context. This includes both inter-individual variation (e.g. social categories and networks) and intra-individual change across the lifespan. By investigating the linguistic consequences of the Fall of Antwerp from both macro- and micro-level perspectives, this study aims to bridge the three waves of sociolinguistic research, integrating community-level patterns with individual-level variation and change.  

Session 2
Date: Monday 20 April, 15h-16h30 CET via Teams
Speaker(s): Léa Hermenault, UA
Title: The Belgian Historical Gazetteer: (historical) toponyms in a digital era
Abstract:My presentation will introduce the Belgian Historical Gazetteer, a project founded by CLARIAH-VL+ and hosted at the University of Antwerp. This project aims to set up a historical gazetteer of toponyms for the whole present-day territory of Belgium, in order to provide researchers with a collection of data that does not stop at Belgian provincial borders and which goes beyond the level of municipalities.

First, I will explain how the gazetteer is constructed using both automatic extraction of text from old maps and manual corrections/additions. Then, I will show how this gazetteer will help researchers deal with place names that appear in their sources. Finally, I will demonstrate the potential of digitized lists of historical place names for both toponymic and landscape studies which make digital gazetteers, aside from their classic function, innovative exploring tools.

Session 3 – Special In-Person DH Benelux Session
Date: Monday 18 May, 13h30-16h CEST,
Location: room 1.01 Gogotte, Hoek 38, Leuvenseweg 38, Brussels (location is within walking distance from the central station)
Speaker(s): various members of our community
Format: elevator pitches of DH Benelux contributions

---

There are an increasing number of conferences, workshops, and funding opportunities in DH, and we would like to ensure that you are aware of them. We will start every session with a moment for individuals to share news about upcoming lectures, workshops, seminars, and conferences. We have a corresponding Slack group where we also share these opportunities both during the discussion group meetings and in between. The link to join the Slack group is included in every email sent out to the mailing list, so watch for it there or send us an email to request access.

If you would like to register or invite other colleagues to join, please complete the registration form for the mailing list here. Please note, if you have received emails from us about the Discussion Group in the past, it means you are already on our mailing list. In that case, there is no need to register again—you will receive the emails with the MS Teams link and any additional information on the day of the session. Additionally, you will also receive updates on upcoming sessions including further details about speakers and the “under-the-hood” presentation topics. 

Are you a frequent attendee of the DH Virtual Discussion Group and would like a low-threshold way to become more involved in the organization? We are looking for ambassadors to promote the group within their university networks. If this might be a role you would like to take on, get in touch and we can tell you more!

We look forward to seeing you this spring!

These events are only open to KU Leuven researchers and staff

To support researchers in their use of relational data, CLARIAH-VL+ & Artes Research (partners in DH@rts) are hosting 2 Nodegoat workshops.

Nodegoat is a web-based research environment designed for the Humanities. The platform enables researchers to manage and visualize complex historical data, including vague dates and historical regions, as well as to generate diachronic geographical and social network visualizations.

During the workshop, participants will learn how to use this flexible digital environment for their own projects.

Program

The workshops will be given by Geert Kessels & Pim van Bree (the developers of LAB1100).

• The morning session (09:30-12:30) will cover a general introduction to Nodegoat
• During the afternoon session (14:00-17:00) the developers will present more advanced Nodegoat features.

You may sign up for just the morning session, just the afternoon session, or both workshops.  Just make sure to register for each session individually.

Practicalities

• When: April 24, 2026 from 09:30 to 12:30 and from 14:00-17:00
• Where: Colloquium (05.28) in the University Library. These are in-person workshops and will not be recorded.
• For who: This event is open to KU Leuven researchers working in the Humanities. No prior experience is required. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research questions or datasets to explore within Nodegoat
• Price and registration: Free but mandatory. You can register here. You may sign up for just the morning session, just the afternoon session, or both workshops.  Just make sure to register for each session individually. Registration deadline is 10 April 2026. 
• More info: Click here

Every academic year, the HDYDI (How Do You Do (It)?) event on research data workflows signals the start of the Digital Scholarship Module. Through a series of sessions and (mini-)workshops, Artes Research aims to guide students through the complexities of scholarship in the digital age, from Open Science to Research Data Management and beyond.

At the HDYDI kick-off event, we invite three researchers from the Faculty of Arts to open the black box of their research workflows. By sharing the practical tools, decisions, and challenges that shape their day‑to‑day work, they aim to offer the first-year PhD researchers a realistic insight into what digital scholarship can look like across disciplines. We hope these behind‑the‑scenes glimpses help you discover approaches that can inform your own research journey!

---

Tim Debroyer: From Paper to Digital Source

The first speaker, Tim Debroyer, is a third-year PhD candidate at the Cultural History since 1750 research group. Under the supervision of Joris Vandendriessche and Kaat Wils, Tim is studying the evolution of 20th-century Belgian patient organisations as an overlooked link in the development of the modern welfare state. This involves examining their oral history as well as archival and published sources.

The focus of Tim’s talk is on the latter – periodicals specifically form one of the most important sources of information for his project. Faced with thousands of pages early on in his research project, he had to make strategic decisions: what to photograph, how to photograph it, and which digital methods were worth the investment.

Taking BVS Nieuws, the periodical of a diabetes association founded in the 1940s, as an example, Tim explains that he ended up manually photographing the entire series of journals so as to allow for a more thorough discourse analysis. This experience taught him some “tricks” which might be useful to others looking to photograph large amounts of text. Firstly, he used a classic camera in order to avoid the post-processing which smartphones tend to apply, and which can harm OCR quality. Secondly, he made sure to always photograph beyond the edges of the page to make it easier for the OCR software to recognize the boundaries. Thirdly, since taking pictures in the library was quite hectic, Tim always made notes of what he was doing: for instance, what stood out in the issues and what was missing – this made it much easier to return to the sources later on in his trajectory.

Once he properly organized the resulting pictures in folders per issue or volume with short, meaningful names, Tim set to extract the text using OCR (Optical Text Recognition) tools in order to enable keyword searches and quantitative analysis. (This is a labor-intensive step, he cautions, so make sure that it makes sense for your methodology before adopting it yourself.) Numerous scanning apps and online tools exist – Tesseract, Google Cloud Vision and Transkribus (for handwritten text) are great options for the more technically minded – but Tim made use of ABBYY FineReader, a commonly used OCR tool that is very performant and user-friendly. It is a commercial tool, but computers with ABBYY licenses are available at the Maurits Sabbe Library and Agora, so researchers looking to digitize a limited number of sources are free to go there without having to purchase their own license. ABBYY FineReader allows for image pre-processing (e.g. fixing lighting, straightening and cropping pictures), supports various languages, recognizes images in sources as well, and offers various formats for exporting (including .txt files). Tim was quite satisfied with the quality of the OCR’d texts: take good pictures, he says, and ABBYY will deliver good results!

To conclude, Tim shows how he processed the resulting text files in AntConc, a free concordance tool that’s often used for text mining. It allows for large-scale word searching and analysis, can provide keyword frequencies and information about relations to other words, and can easily compare different corpora. (Tim provides a small tip for those looking to explore AntConc: keep a stopword list of high-frequency words with little thematic content that the tool can filter out of its analysis.)

Of course, every researcher has to figure out what workflow suits them, but Tim importantly highlights that you should think about what you want to achieve before investing in digital methods. Consider the nature of your research project, the characteristics of your source corpus, the methodologies you use (discourse analysis, quantitative analysis, network & visual analysis) and let these things decide how you will process and study your sources. At the same time, don’t be afraid to try out new tools that might work well for you!

Of course, the quality of ABBYY FineReader’s OCR results depends on the quality of the input images.

---

Lauren Ottaviani: Mapping and Analyzing Women’s Magazine Archives

Our second speaker is Lauren Ottaviani, fourth-year PhD candidate in English Literature. Lauren’s project, supervised by Elke D’hoker, focuses on the representation of the women’s suffrage movement in two conservative, middlebrow periodicals dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries: The Woman at Home and Lady of the House. In doing so, the research seeks to consider the interaction between suffrage and domestic ideals at the turn of the twentieth century.

Similarly to Tim, then, Lauren also works with a large corpus of periodicals; and just as we saw with Tim, many of the magazines’ issues – which tend to be quite lengthy – remained as yet undigitized. The complexity of her materials meant that Lauren had to decide early on how to approach data management efficiently. In the end, a combination of three tools informed her research workflow.

Firstly, early on, she shifted from using Word for note-taking to using the free open-source tool Obsidian instead. As Lauren says, Obsidian (which was covered in last year’s HDYDI session as well) has the same ease of use that a program like Word offers, but you’ll actually be able to find your note again! With its added functionality, Obsidian allowed her to create a relational database of notes categorized by date, theme, or type, so as to keep track of any stories worth revisiting. Through tags and linked notes, Lauren could keep track of authorship, include direct links to the digitized magazine pages, and even uncover recurring anonymous authors. It’s also just a great tool for conference notes and miscellaneous admin.

Secondly, Lauren made use of the storage that’s provided by KU Leuven on OneDrive for Business. Currently, OneDrive is no longer recommended as a primary storage solution for research data at the university,¹ but it does have some useful features – and it proved particularly handy for Lauren’s use case. Using the OneDrive smartphone app, she took pictures of interesting articles in the periodicals she was studying and placed those in her pre-organized folder structure. In contrast to Tim, Lauren did not think full OCR of her corpus was worth the time investment or really relevant to her research questions, but this smaller-scale scanning process (which resulted in perfectly legible captures) worked great for her methodology.

Thirdly and finally, Lauren also adopted Nodegoat as part of her workflow, mainly for its “mapping” potential. That is, Nodegoat is a database tool, but it also offers built-in network visualization capabilities, which Lauren used to map out different entries – i.e. letters from the magazines’ correspondence columns – tagged with geolocations. The resulting visualization allowed her to track where readers lived, what the magazines’ geographical reach was, and how their readership expanded over time – elements that were central to her analysis of the periodicals’ circulation.

Using a combination of these three tools, Lauren was able to create a structured, well-organized database out of a vast, undigitized corpus; and even though her approach differed quite substantially from that of Tim, both illustrate how the right tools, used well, help make large-scale periodical research manageable.

Using Nodegoat, Lauren was able to map out the readership of the periodicals she’s studying.

---

Sinem Bilican: Managing Multimodal Data in Healthcare Research

Sinem Bilican is the last speaker: as a PhD candidate at the Research Unit Translation & Interpreting Studies, she is part of the interdisciplinary research project Managing Language Barriers in Unplanned Care (MaLBUC). With the help of her supervisor Heidi Salaets, Sinem studies linguistic diversity and multilingual communication in healthcare practices with the goal of laying bare overlooked communication barriers. As such, her project involves collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine, and we can reasonably expect very different data types from what we saw in Tim’s and Lauren’s presentations.

Indeed, the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the research project – which encompasses ethnographic observations as well as a large-scale survey and interviews – necessitates the implementation of clear research data management practices. Sinem works with extensive field notes, images, video and audio recordings, questionnaires, and other survey data: a lot of materials to manage, to be sure!

Sinem begins by outlining the tools involved in her daily research workflow. Zotero is a usual suspect here, and one which we see in many researchers’ workflows as a handy reference manager as well as a note-taking and annotation tool. OneDrive, meanwhile, enables Sinem to exchange data, drafts and other documents transparently between team members; whereas for a related larger-scale project, the team opted for the ease of use of Teams and SharePoint (which is a recommended storage solution at the Faculty of Arts). Finally, Obsidian is mentioned again, and Sinem stresses its convenience for taking both academic and miscellaneous notes.

Next, Sinem presents some of the tools she used during the data collection phase of her research project. Interestingly, the first tool she talks about is an actual physical tool: a Livescribe pen. This smart pen with a built-in recorder synchronizes handwritten notes with audio, allowing Sinem to easily reconstruct interviews and medical consultations she attended² – after a day of fieldwork, you can just plug it into your laptop and have everything appear in the Livescribe app. For the surveys, Sinem uses REDCap, which is commonly used in the Biomedical Sciences: it is a highly secure, KU Leuven-authenticated tool that can automatically generate full survey reports. It is, as Sinem points out, also quite a technical tool, but the university provides comprehensive support for users.

The last tool Sinem considers takes us from data collection to research dissemination – namely, Canva. Canva is a user-friendly, web-based design platform that’s great for making posters, visuals, and any other materials you might need to present your research. It allows for image upscaling, QR-code generation, and even themed PowerPoint slide decks. Sinem’s enthusiasm for Canva is infectious – and fittingly, she used it to create her HDYDI presentation as well!

By combining these tools, Sinem is able to navigate a complex, interdisciplinary project that involves varied datasets with clarity and structure; and while her workflow differs markedly from those of Tim and Lauren, it likewise shows how thoughtful tool choices can make even the most challenging research environments manageable.

REDCap proved a useful tool for Sinem’s research data workflow.

---

Across all three presentations, the workflows we saw revealed both overlaps and differences, but the shared message was clear: the best workflow is the one that genuinely works for your project. Let these examples inspire you, try out the tools that seem useful, and keep what supports your work. With a bit of exploration, you may find a data workflow that not only suits your project, but strengthens it!

---

1. As explained in the university’s storage solution FAQ, there are a number of reasons why OneDrive is no longer recommended as a primary solution for long-term research data storage; most significantly the fact that data stored on OneDrive servers is inaccessible to KU Leuven, which goes against RDM policy (principle II). This means that any data that you’ve kept on OneDrive is erased as soon as you leave the university for any reason, and recovering files is a difficult and costly procedure. ︎
2. Of course, these recordings were made with informed consent of all involved. ︎

Have you been meaning to set up an appointment to ask about research data management for your project, an aspect of your research workflow, or a specific DH tool or method? Visit one of our drop-in sessions and we will help you on the spot! No need to make an appointment!

The sessions are designed to support researchers, students, and staff members in all areas of digital scholarship. The initiative is a collaboration between Artes Research, DH-support staff and researchers at the Faculty of Arts, and ICTS at the Faculty of Arts.

Don’t have a question about any of the above but want to learn more about DH? No problem! Come and use our space for co-working! It’s a great moment to develop digital skills by starting a Programming Historian tutorial, for instance!

Everyone is welcome to attend, you do not need to register!

Stop by on one of the following dates and we will be glad to help you:

• 29/01/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis
• 19/02/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis
• 19/03/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis
• 28/04/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis
• 26/05/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis
• 25/06/2026: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis

This event is only open to KU Leuven researchers, students and staff.

In March 2026, KU Leuven Libraries and the Faculty of Arts will organize the second edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon!

What is a hackathon? It is an event that is usually organized over a short period of time where participants come together in small groups and work intensively on a creative digital project or towards some digital end. In the case of BiblioTech, KU Leuven researchers, students, or staff will be divided into small groups and will work specifically on one of the datasets prepared (by LIBIS) for the hackathon. The groups will be guided by at least one group leader and will be able to rely on the help of an expert pool comprised of people who have specific technical knowledge and skills. The groups are free to follow their creative inspiration but must apply some digital approaches or tools to the dataset to produce an end result that will be presented in the form of a short presentation and a poster at the closing event of the hackathon.

Who are we looking for? One of the amazing benefits of hackathons is that they allow many different people with diverse backgrounds and skill sets to come together and to learn from one another. This is our goal for BiblioTech! We welcome applications from researchers at all stages of their careers, motivated students, and also KU Leuven staff members. Digital skills are not a must, but a willingness to learn about digital approaches definitely is. The hackathon should be a fun and engaging experience, and each participant should find themselves with new skills and perspectives at the end.

What about the data? The 2026 edition of the BiblioTech Hackathon is going places! Participants will have the option to work with two datasets both focused on the experience of travel. The first dataset comes from KU Leuven Libraries digitized collections and features historical picture postcards. The second dataset comprises historical travelogues. This combination of image, metadata, and textual materials provides many opportunities for the application of DH methods. We are all excited to see where this data leads you! 

Practical details

The hackathon will span 10 days and will take place from Monday 16 March until Thursday 26 March. In addition to the working period of the hackathon, there will be a pre-hackathon brainstorming event where participants “Meet the Data, Meet the People,” prior to the start of the hackathon, a training day to learn how to use the infrastructure (ManGO and HPC service), and a closing event where the teams’ projects are presented.

• When: Mark your calendars for the following dates:
  • Application Deadline: 5 January 2026 (23:59 CET)
  • Pre-Hackathon Brainstorm | Meet the Data, Meet the People: 12 March 2026
  • Infrastructure Training: 13 March 2026
  • Hackathon Working Period: 16–26 March 2026
  • Hackathon Closing Event: 26 March 2026
  • from Monday 13 March until Thursday 23 March
• Where: Leuven (see above for more details)
• For whom: We welcome applications from researchers at all stages of their careers, motivated students, and also KU Leuven staff members. Digital skills are not a must, but a willingness to learn about digital approaches definitely is.
• Price: free
• Registration: Already convinced and want to take part? Great! Submit an application here. The deadline to apply is 5 January 2026 (23:59 CET).  We look forward to hacking with you!

Want to see further details? Check out the BiblioTech Hackathon website for the most current information.

Are you a Digital Humanities student or early career researcher in Belgium who would like to discuss DH with other early career researchers in the Belgian DH community? If so, you might be interested in joining the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs!

The DH Virtual Discussion Group is a joint initiative organized by individuals at multiple Belgian institutions. We strive to involve speakers from all Belgian institutions and encourage participation from all those who are interested in DH and are located at any Belgian institution. This year, the core organizers are Leah Budke (KU Leuven Libraries Artes), Tom Gheldof (KU Leuven, CLARIAH-VL+), Paavo van der Eecken (University of Antwerp), and Loren Verreyen (University of Antwerp). Over the past years, the series has become a regular event. The fall 2025 edition proudly marks our eleventh term.

Our first two sessions this fall will continue the “under-the-hood” format, which entails a volunteer from our community providing a thirty-minute overview of a digital project implementing a given tool, approach, or platform. This is not meant to be a polished research presentation, or to present findings or results, but rather to give our community a behind-the-scenes look at how decisions were made and why specific tools were chosen or developed. The hope is also that this presenter will give attendees some ideas about how to get started implementing a specific tool or workflow, and that they can also answer questions or contribute to a discussion on other projects in our community that might be using similar methodologies or addressing similar issues. This “under-the-hood” session format allows us to have focused discussions around a specific project where we can learn from each other in an informal way. In addition, by implementing this format we can maintain the low threshold for contributing and engaging in the conversations.

Our final session will be a round table session during which 3-4 members of our community chat with us about their experience doing a PhD with a Digital Humanities component.

---

The following sessions are on the schedule for the fall 2025 semester (details will be updated as confirmed):

Session 1
Monday 20 October, 15h-16h30 CEST via Teams
Speaker(s): Theodora Rontzova, KU Leuven
Title: Cultural Heritage in Virtual Worlds – the IMPULSE Project
Abstract: My presentation will introduce IMPULSE, a project that aims to enhance accessibility to digitized cultural heritage collections through immersive technology, fostering diverse narrative and public engagement. Over the course of three years, IMPULSE will enhance accessibility to digitized cultural content, optimize streamline digitization processes in the three focus areas of education, artistic creation and CCSIs, develop legal frameworks to mitigate risks and barriers in utilizing cultural heritage data, and foster collaborative creation on immersive platforms. My presentation will provide an overview of the most recent developments within the different Work Packages of the project, with focus on the findings of the two recent workshops in Leuven and in Malta. I will share insights from the development of the virtual platform that will lead to the project’s final Hackathon later this year, and I will finally invite participants to engage with our Community of Practice.

Session 2
Monday 17 November, 15h-16h30 CET via Teams
Speaker(s): Sara Budts, VUB
Title: Finding Patterns in Lottery Rhymes of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries with and without AI
Abstract: This presentation explores the patterns in lottery rhymes produced in the late medieval and early modern Low Countries, with a focus on the rhymes written by women. The lottery was a popular fundraising event in the Low Countries. Lottery rhymes, personal messages attached to the lottery tickets, provide a valuable source for historians. We collected more than 11,000 digitised short texts from five lotteries held between 1446 and 1606. We have used GysBERT, a language model of historical Dutch, to identify distinctively male and female discourses in the lottery rhymes corpus. Although the model pointed us to some interesting patterns, it also showed that lottery rhymes written by men and women do not radically differ from each other. This is consistent with insights from premodern women’s history which stresses that women worked within societal, and in this case literary, conventions, sometimes subverting them, sometimes adapting them, sometimes adopting them unchanged.

Session 3 – Round Table Session
Monday 15 December, 15h-16h30 CET via Teams
Speaker(s): To be confirmed
Session Description: This session features insights from 3-4 PhD researchers in our network who are working with DH methods. The session is designed to be free-flowing and informal, but you can expect the following avenues of discussion: (1) how the researcher became interested or started integrating DH methods in their research, (2) the challenges faced when learning new DH skills, (3) important resources that have helped throughout this process, (4) other challenges encountered related to the perception or acceptance of DH, and (5) specific benefits that DH methods have offered for the researcher’s work.

---

There are an increasing number of conferences, workshops, and funding opportunities in DH, and we would like to ensure that you are aware of them. We will start every session with a moment for individuals to share news about upcoming lectures, workshops, seminars, and conferences. We have a corresponding Slack group where we also share these opportunities both during the discussion group meetings and in between. The link to join the Slack group is included in every email sent out to the mailing list, so watch for it there or send us an email to request access.

If you would like to register or invite other colleagues to join, please complete the registration form for the mailing list here. Please note, if you have received emails from us about the Discussion Group in the past, it means you are already on our mailing list. In that case, there is no need to register again—you will receive the emails with the MS Teams link and any additional information on the day of the session. Additionally, you will also receive updates on upcoming sessions including further details about speakers and the “under-the-hood” presentation topics. 

Are you a frequent attendee of the DH Virtual Discussion Group and would like a low-threshold way to become more involved in the organization? We are looking for ambassadors to promote the group within their university networks. If this might be a role you would like to take on, get in touch and we can tell you more!

We look forward to seeing you this fall!

The Flanders Training Network for Methodology and Statistics (FLAMES) is an inter-university training network comprised of Ghent University, Hasselt University, University of Antwerp, KU Leuven, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. This network is organizing a number of statistics and methodology courses this fall.

Some courses that may be of interest to our researchers include:

03/10/2025: Photovoice – the use of participatory photography in qualitative research – ON CAMPUS
27/10/2025: Critical Discourse Analysis – ON CAMPUS
05/11/2025: Strategies in qualitative data-analysis from a Grounded Theory perspective – ON CAMPUS
07/11/2025: Introduction to Interpretability & explanability in AI with Python – ONLINE
17/11/2025: Ethnographic research and observational methods – ONLINE
24/11/2025: Using NVivo for Qualitative Data Analysis – ON CAMPUS

The above is just a selection of the courses that are on the program for this fall. To see the full list of training opportunities and to register for any of the courses, visit the FLAMES website.

Each year the Artes Research team offers the opportunity for students to do an internship with our team. During spring 2025, Helin Toprak, a student in the Advanced Master in Digital Humanities, joined us.

The Artes Research team frequently (co-)organizes training opportunities and collects training resources for researchers at the Faculty of Arts. Helin’s internship focused on this aspect of our work. During her three months with us, she developed resources on a variety of tools we find useful for our researchers. Helin created tutorials showcasing the functionalities of OpenRefine, and two Knight Lab tools, Timeline JS, and StoryMap JS.

OpenRefine is a tool that is useful for nearly all researchers who work with structured data and computational methods. An aspect of the research data workflow that is crucial in the beginning stages is data cleaning and transformation. OpenRefine is a free open-source web-based tool that allows users to do just that. During her internship, Helin created a tutorial to help researchers get started with this tool. The tutorial is designed for users who have no experience with OpenRefine and are looking to learn about the features and explore its uses.

The other two resources that Helin created focus on two tools from the Knight Lab suite. Timeline JS is an open-source tool developed to help users create interactive timelines. This is an accessible tool that anyone can use. The web-based tool just requires data that users put into a Google spreadsheet, then it’s ready to go with multiple options for customization. Advanced features allow those with more expertise to use their JSON skills to further customize their output.

StoryMap JS is also a free web-based tool developed by Knight Lab. This tool is designed to be highly visual. Users can add images and text to maps, allowing them to create a story or illustrate certain events or situations that might be relevant to their research topics. This tool is equally as accessible as Timeline JS and can be customized to fit a researcher’s needs and style.

To learn about these two tools as well as OpenRefine, you can have a look at the resources that Helin created during her internship. They are accessible via the following Zenodo record (make sure to look through all the documents in the record for each separate resource):

• Toprak, H. R. (2025, July 16). Materials for KU Leuven Libraries – Artes Research. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15982530

We would like to thank Helin for her great work during her internship! She was a pleasure to have as an intern, and we wish her all the best in her career after graduating from the Advanced Master in Digital Humanities!

Have you been meaning to set up an appointment to ask about research data management for your project, an aspect of your research workflow, or a specific DH tool or method? Visit one of our drop-in sessions and we will help you on the spot! No need to make an appointment!

The sessions are designed to support researchers, students, and staff members in all areas of digital scholarship. The initiative is a collaboration between Artes Research, DH-support staff and researchers at the Faculty of Arts, and ICTS at the Faculty of Arts.

Don’t have a question about any of the above but want to learn more about DH? No problem! Come and use our space for co-working! It’s a great moment to develop digital skills by starting a Programming Historian tutorial, for instance!

Everyone is welcome to attend, you do not need to register!

Stop by on one of the following dates and we will be glad to help you:

25/09/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis

28/10/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis

20/11/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis

11/12/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 00.24, Erasmushuis

—- Due to low registration numbers, this event has been cancelled —-

Yes, you read it correctly; we are having another in-person meeting! As the name suggests, the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs in Belgium is usually a virtual event. We meet on a monthly basis during the academic year to keep up-to-date on all that is happening in our Belgian DH community and beyond and to hear about our members’ DH projects. The virtual format was a necessity when the group formed at the start of the pandemic, and it has worked well to fulfill the objective of bringing together people who are interested in DH from institutions all over Belgium. While we certainly intend to continue the virtual format, we are excited to organize our third annual in-person event this May (Monday 26/5, 14h00-16h00, Hoek 38, Brussels)!

This meeting of the Discussion Group will also be our special DH Benelux session. Each year we organize a special session a week or two before the annual DH Benelux conference (hosted this year in Amsterdam). During this session, members of our community who will be contributing to DH Benelux (in the form of a paper, poster, or demo) are invited to give an elevator pitch of their contribution. The format of this session holds many benefits for all who present and who attend:

1. It gives first-time presenters the opportunity to pitch their conference contribution in an informal setting and to work out some of the pre-conference nerves. Similarly, it provides all of our community members the opportunity to support our early career researchers and to encourage them as they pass this first milestone.
2. It allows our members to learn about what kind of DH work is happening in our community. We typically hear from one member of our community during each monthly session, but there is not enough time and space to hear from all our members in a more detailed presentation. The elevator pitch format is perfect for this because we can hear from many people in a short amount of time!
3. It gives insight into what to expect at a DH conference, and more specifically, what to expect at DH Benelux.
4. It promotes and supports the broader DH Benelux community, which is a tight-knit group of encouraging and inspiring people.
5. It provides inspiration and promotes further engagement within our community. With a large number of elevator pitches, the chance is greater that mutual research interests will become apparent.

We welcome attendance from anyone based at a Belgian institution (including Universities, Hogeschools, and GLAM institutions) with an interest in Digital Humanities! If this session sounds like something you would like to attend, please see below for the practical details and the link to register:

What: Special DH Benelux Session of the DH VDG
Where: Room 1.10 Malachiet, Hoek 38, Leuvenseweg 38, Brussels (location is within walking distance from the central station)
When: 14h00-16h00
Registration: open until 21/5 via OneButton

There will be cookies, coffee, tea, and water available during the session. Anyone who would like is welcome to go for a social drink at a nearby cafe together after the session. The session is free to attend, but registration is required. Registration will close on 21 May, so make sure to let us know soon if you will be joining us!

Have you been accepted to present a poster, paper, or demo at DH Benelux this year? Congratulations! We would love to have you do an elevator pitch during our meeting (timing will depend on how many people will present, but you can expect to have 3-4 minutes and a maximum of one PPT slide if desired). Please get in touch ASAP so we can get you on the schedule! You can email leah.budke@kuleuven.be to be added to the program.

While we really hope this event will have a large in-person attendance, we also realize that scheduling conflicts might prevent some of our members from being able to travel to Brussels for this event. If you would like to listen to the presentations or present your DH Benelux contribution virtually, that option is also possible. The MS Teams link for virtual access will be circulated to the mailing list the morning of the event. If you would like to present virtually, please let us know this when you contact us to be added to the program.

We hope to see you in Brussels on 26 May!

Are you a Digital Humanities student or early career researcher in Belgium who would like to discuss DH with other early career researchers in the Belgian DH community? If so, you might be interested in joining the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs!

The DH Virtual Discussion Group is a joint initiative organized by individuals at three different Belgian institutions. We strive to involve speakers from various Belgian institutions and encourage participation from all those who are interested in DH and are located at any Belgian institution. This year, the core organizers are Leah Budke (KU Leuven Libraries Artes), Tom Gheldof (KU Leuven, CLARIAH-VL+), Sven Lieber (KBR), Paavo van der Eecken (University of Antwerp), and Loren Verreyen (University of Antwerp). Over the past years, the series has become a regular event. The spring 2025 edition proudly marks our tenth term.

Our first two sessions this spring will continue the “under-the-hood” format, which entails a volunteer from our community providing a thirty-minute overview of a digital project implementing a given tool, approach, or platform. This is not meant to be a polished research presentation, or to present findings or results, but rather to give our community a behind-the-scenes look at how decisions were made and why specific tools were chosen or developed. The hope is also that this presenter will give attendees some ideas about how to get started implementing a specific tool or workflow, and that they can also answer questions or contribute to a discussion on other projects in our community that might be using similar methodologies or addressing similar issues. This “under-the-hood” session format allows us to have focused discussions around a specific project where we can learn from each other in an informal way. In addition, by implementing this format we can maintain the low threshold for contributing and engaging in the conversations.

Our final session will be our special DH Benelux session during which members of our community pitch their DH Benelux contribution in the form of an elevator pitch. This special session takes place in person (with option to join online), which is a fun way to bring the community together while also allowing us to learn about the diverse projects being done in the Benelux region!

---

The following sessions are on the schedule for the spring 2025 semester (details will be updated as confirmed):

Session 1
Monday 17 March, 15h-16h30 CET via Teams
Please note: a last-minute change of schedule has been made. Unfortunately, Tess Dejaeghere is unable to present for us during this session. Tom Gheldof will present about the CLARIAH-VL+ project.
Speaker(s): Tom Gheldof, KU Leuven (coordinator CLARIAH-VL+)
Title: Building a DH Service Infrastructure: CLARIAH-VL(+) and Open Science in action!
Abstract: This presentation introduces CLARIAH-VL, a project that aims to advance Digital Humanities research by establishing a robust DH infrastructure in Flanders (with partners UGent, UAntwerpen, KU Leuven, VUB and the Dutch Language Institute). During the period 2021-2024, CLARIAH-VL developed several high-quality and user-friendly DH tools or tool suites, the so-called Service Infrastructure Components (SICs). In this presentation, an overview of these SICs will be provided, spanning disciplines and DH methods such as Named Entity Linking, semantic annotation, TEI XML editing, topic detection and much more. Finally, this presentation will also highlight how the new project phase (under the acronym CLARIAH-VL+) will further develop its DH infrastructure and stays committed to Open Science and public engagement, not only by ensuring accessibility and alignment with European research infrastructures like CLARIN-ERIC and DARIAH-EU, but also by reaching out to other partners for Digital Humanities research in Flanders and beyond.

Session 2
Monday 28 April, 15h-16h30 CEST via Teams
Speaker(s): Roberta Pireddu, KU Leuven
Title: Enriching Cultural Heritage with AI: The AI4Culture Hackathon Journey (& A Glimpse into CrowdHeritage)
Abstract: In this presentation, I will share insights into the AI4Culture project, with a particular focus on the planning and execution of the AI4Cultural Hackathon—a one-week event held at KU Leuven in February 2025. I will discuss how the event was developed within the framework of the project, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the preparations, challenges faced, and lessons learned. Additionally, I will highlight the CrowdHeritage platform, showcasing its successful implementation in various events organized as part of other projects and participatory activities.

Session 3 – Special In-Person DH Benelux Session
Monday 26 May, 13h30-16h CEST
Location: room 1.10 Malachiet, Hoek 38, Leuvenseweg 38, Brussels (location is within walking distance from the central station)
Speaker(s): various members of our community
Format: elevator pitches of DH Benelux contributions

---

There are an increasing number of conferences, workshops, and funding opportunities in DH, and we would like to ensure that you are aware of them. We will start every session with a moment for individuals to share news about upcoming lectures, workshops, seminars, and conferences. We have a corresponding Slack group where we also share these opportunities both during the discussion group meetings and in between. The link to join the Slack group is included in every email sent out to the mailing list, so watch for it there or send us an email to request access.

If you would like to register or invite other colleagues to join, please complete the registration form for the mailing list here. Please note, if you have received emails from us about the Discussion Group in the past, it means you are already on our mailing list. In that case, there is no need to register again—you will receive the emails with the MS Teams link and any additional information on the day of the session. Additionally, you will also receive updates on upcoming sessions including further details about speakers and the “under-the-hood” presentation topics. 

Are you a frequent attendee of the DH Virtual Discussion Group and would like a low-threshold way to become more involved in the organization? We are looking for ambassadors to promote the group within their university networks. If this might be a role you would like to take on, get in touch and we can tell you more!

We look forward to seeing you this spring!

What kind of stories lie hidden in the Vesalius manuscript, educational glass slides of ancient temples, or the ruins of great civilizations? What if ancient murals were designed to speak to multiple cultures, blending artistic traditions into a shared narrative? What if Palmyra had never fallen and we could explore how it evolved into the present day? What if Vesalius’ anatomical work was reimagined from the perspective of a female anatomist? During the 2-day workshop hosted by the IMPULSE Project (18-19 February) participants will delve into questions like these and explore the technological possibilities for enriching our understanding.

Workshop Application: Reimagining Learning. Transforming Education Through VR and Cultural Heritage

The IMPULSE project invites you to participate in a two-day workshop that explores how Virtual Reality (VR) can unlock new ways to connect with cultural heritage and transform educational processes. You will get the opportunity to reimagine and reshape teaching and learning through the use of immersive storytelling practices and innovative technology.  

Whether you are an educator, creator, cultural heritage enthusiast, or simply curious about the potential of VR, this event is open to you. No technical expertise is required! Only curiosity and willingness to collaborate and explore new ideas. 

Workshop Highlights

• Design Interactive VR Experiences: Utilize authentic cultural objects from the KU Leuven Collections to craft compelling VR learning scenarios. 
• Shape an Innovative VR Platform: Test and contribute to the development of cutting-edge immersive technology. 
• Collaborate with Peers: Engage with professionals and thought leaders to co-create innovative approaches to learning.  

Practicalities

Target audience: this workshop is open to everyone, regardless of background or experience.
Date: 18-19 February
Location: KU Leuven Agora Learning Center (online participation also possible)
Application deadline: 2 February

To see full details about the IMPULSE project workshop, including the required application procedure, please visit the event webpage.

On February 12 and from February 18 to 20, 2025, the AI4Culture Hackathon will see professionals, institutions and passionate individuals from the fields of AI, digital humanities, and cultural heritage teaming up to transform how shared cultural heritage is preserved, enriched, and interacted with.

The hackathon is designed to guide the participants to learn more about the AI tools available on the AI4Culture platform, trying them first-hand using unique cultural heritage datasets. Europeana, the treasure trove of European digital cultural heritage hosting over 50 million digital items, will be the primary repository for datasets. On the opening day, February 12, participants will be introduced to Europeana’s platform, explore curated collections, and get full access to their vast data via the Europeana API. This session will feature inspiring challenges designed to ignite innovative AI applications.

Participants will have the opportunity to explore five AI tools developed as part of the AI4Culture project. These tools include features such as AI-powered solutions for automatically generating multilingual subtitles for audiovisual content, applying OCR, transcription, and automated data enrichment techniques to enhance the quality and accessibility of digital collections, and detecting objects and other features in photos and videos. 

Program

12 February 2025
10:00 – 18:00 CET | Irish College, Leuven
Hackathon Opening Day: Introduction to tools, data, and participants

13 – 17 February 2025
Online/Onsite
Independent team work

18 – 20 February 2025
Collaborative Work on Campus (Optional)
Collaborative space available at KU Leuven, Campus Arenberg

20 February 2025
15:00 – 19:00 CET | KU Leuven, Campus Arenberg, Heverlee
Hackathon Closing Day
Team presentations, awards ceremony and reception

Practicalities

Target audience: The initiative seeks individuals with diverse backgrounds and complementary skills, whether technical, creative, or interpersonal. While prior hackathon experience is advantageous, motivation is the primary consideration.
Date: 12 February – 20 February
Location: KU Leuven campus, Leuven (various locations)
Application deadline: 10 February

To see full details about the AI4Culture Hackathon, including the required application procedure, please visit the event webpage.

Have you been meaning to set up an appointment to ask about research data management for your project, an aspect of your research workflow, or a specific DH tool or method? Visit the DH@rts drop-in sessions and we will help you on the spot! No need to make an appointment!

The sessions are designed to support researchers, students, and staff members in all areas of digital scholarship. The initiative is a collaboration between Artes Research, DH-support staff and researchers at the Faculty of Arts, and ICTS at the Faculty of Arts.

Don’t have a question about any of the above but want to learn more about DH? No problem! Come and use our space for co-working! It’s a great moment to develop digital skills by starting a Programming Historian tutorial, for instance!

Everyone is welcome to attend, you do not need to register!

Stop by on one of the following dates and we will be glad to help you:

27/02/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 0.24, Erasmushuis

27/03/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 0.24, Erasmushuis

17/04/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 0.24, Erasmushuis

13/05/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 0.24, Erasmushuis

26/06/2025: 14:00h -16:00h, Het Salon LETT 0.24, Erasmushuis

Every academic year, the HDYDI (How Do You Do It?) event on research data workflows signals the start of the Digital Scholarship Module. Through a series of sessions and (mini-)workshops, Artes Research aims to guide students through the complexities of scholarship in the digital age, from Open Science to Research Data Management and beyond. At the HDYDI kick-off event, three researchers from the Faculty of Arts lift the curtain on their own research workflow and offer a behind-the-scenes look at the ways in which they approach their research, the data they engage with, and the tools they use in doing so. The goal of this session is to provide examples of more advanced workflows for the first-year PhD researchers as they embark on their own research journey. Hopefully this recap of the session can spark some inspiration for you!

---

Seb Verlinden – Using Obsidian as a note-taking tool for literature

The first speaker, Seb Verlinden, is a second-year PhD candidate in medieval history. Under the supervision of Maïka De Keyzer and Bart Vanmontfort, Seb is studying the long-term landscape changes – mainly in the form of gradual desertification – that characterize the Campine region, one of the driest areas in Belgium. Particular focus is on the impact of eighteenth-century drainage in the region.

Seb’s talk concerns an issue that all researchers can relate to, regardless of the relative complexity of their project – that of taking notes. It is true, as Seb highlights, that every researcher has their own unique workflow, often relying on a combination of tools that makes sense for them (in his case, QGIS, FileMaker Pro, MAXQDA, and spreadsheet software). But at the heart of any research process is the need to organize one’s thoughts, and this is where note-taking apps can make a real difference. So, what are some of the options out there?

Zotero is a possible solution – one we’ve already discussed elsewhere on this blog. As a reference manager first and foremost, Zotero has the potential to become a researcher’s living library, a knowledge base covering all relevant literature. It also has great capabilities for annotating PDFs, especially with its new 7.0 update. What you’re missing in the context of note-taking, however, is the big picture. Seb aptly points out that using Zotero to make notes is like putting post-its in books: you have no real overarching structure, and no way to easily link notes across books.

Other tools are likewise flawed. Lots of researchers use Microsoft Word to take notes, even though it is primarily tailored to mid-length longform text. As a result, it is easy to lose track of notes, unless you’re willing to navigate multiple files; and it tends to grow slow and cumbersome, since it is occupied with layout. It is, simply put, unintuitive for this purpose.

This is why Seb puts forward another solution, one that he believes to be faster, better automated, and easier to use: Obsidian. A widely supported and free tool, Obsidian does have its advantages: in contrast to both Microsoft Word and Zotero, it uses open-source file formats (.md or Markdown files, written in an accessible markup language) and it is full-text searchable and provides a structured overview of notes. Moreover, it offers a versatile workspace, allowing you to go as simple or as complex as you like – especially with the addition of supported plugins. One such plugin, in fact, allows your Obsidian environment to easily interoperate with your Zotero library (including references, bibliographies, and PDF annotations), which is particularly useful.

Seb ends his talk by highlighting another key benefit in using Obsidian. By introducing links in your notes, it is possible to cross-reference other notes within your system with minimal user effort; and through the use of tags, you can generate another layer of structure. Obsidian then uses this information to visualize the relations between your different notes, automatically creating a network of clusters that correspond to certain topics of interest. This way, it expands the possibilities of the data without the need for the researcher to make any real effort – a great reason to think about using Obsidian for your own note-taking needs!

---

Laura Soffiantini – Managing linguistic and historical data. A PhD workflow using FileMaker

Laura Soffiantini is the second speaker: as a PhD researcher at the Cultural Studies Research Group, she is currently analyzing the geographical representation of Greece in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. With the help of her supervisor Margherita Fantoli, Laura intends to shed new light on the way in which Greece was perceived in Flavian-era Rome. In order to do so, she has to manage a varied mix of linked data – textual, linguistic, and historical – as part of her daily routine.

Grappling with 37 books of a classical encyclopedia, and dealing with data in different formats and with different qualities (actual text, numeric coordinates, symbols, etc.), Laura realized the importance of proper Research Data Management. It enables aggregating, manipulating, analyzing, and comparing your data more efficiently throughout – and even beyond – the research process. Indeed, a challenge faced by many researchers is the retrieval of data collected or processed at an earlier time, with the aim of relating it to “new” data. In this context, Laura provides a look at her own research workflow.

The primary strategy in managing your data, she remarks, is to structure it. By adding structure to your data, you can parse it more easily and return to it without issues, even in later phases of your project. Software like Obsidian is indispensable for this purpose, but it’s also good to think about using tabular formats like .csv (an open plain text format) as a way to organize your data. A useful tool put forward here is pandas, a Python library designed to help manage and analyze data derived from such .csv files. That might sound technical, but Laura ensures us that – even if you have no background in programming – pandas is a very accessible and convenient tool in handling tabular files.

Having thought about what data she worked with (an essential step for every researcher), Laura adopted an initial workflow in three parts. She first started out with .json files containing Pliny’s text, which she converted into tabular .csv files, adding data related to the lemmatization of the corpus, part-of-speech tagging, and references to book and chapter positions. Subsequently, she thought about grouping this data into different categories, which she assigned to different columns – such that there is a column titled “book_chapter”, one titled “lemma”, and so on. Finally, Laura assigned identifiers to the information contained in these files; she explains she wasn’t aware of the importance of such identifiers at the start of the project, but now realizes they form a crucial part of keeping tabular data.

As a result, Laura ended up with multiple .csv files, which she then related to each other using FileMaker (with the expert assistance of Mark Depauw and Tom Gheldof). One table, for instance, contains a list of all the Latin words used (the tokens, e.g. urbs) alongside their identifier, book number, lemma, and possible identifier linked to the Trismegistos database of ancient texts. Another contains the lemma along with its part-of-speech tag (e.g. proper noun) and meaning (e.g. “city”). By linking the different files through the use of identifiers – the keys to the data – Laura made a relational database easily managed and organized through FileMaker. The resulting dataset is at the core of her research project.

The main takeaway Laura wants to leave us with is that it is important to create an environment in which you can efficiently collect, store, manipulate, and analyze your data. This should not come at the cost of traditional approaches and methodologies – in fact, you can add to them to create a better workflow as a whole!

---

Zakaria El Houbba – Obsidian as part of the research workflow

The third and final speaker is Zakaria El Houbba, third-year PhD candidate in Arabic Studies. Zakaria’s project, supervised by Arjan Post, focuses on the pre-modern relation between Islamic jurisprudence and Sufism, and in particular on the way in which these two strands are united in the figure of Aḥmad Zarrūq. In doing so, the research aims to come to a theory of applied legal epistemology in Zarrūq’s Sufism.

By discussing his own workflow in detail, Zakaria intends to highlight a number of key takeaways revolving around the idea of the “second brain”. Because we are so deeply involved with knowledge gathering on a daily basis, and constantly receive input from various sources (whether academic or not), we run the risk of being overwhelmed by a flood of information. When you use software to carry that burden for you, you can save your own brainpower for actual critical thinking rather than secondary tasks like categorizing information. This way, you’re effectively constructing what’s referred to as a second brain.

In this context, Zakaria also makes use of Obsidian, though he approaches it from a very different angle than Seb. Zakaria doesn’t actually enter all of his notes into Obsidian – he first uses an app like Microsoft OneNote as a “vault” to record random, non-processed thoughts, which he periodically goes through to think about how they fit in his project. He then sorts these thoughts and puts them in corresponding folders (relating to certain projects, classes, issues, etc.) in order to process them properly in Obsidian. Zakaria emphasizes that it’s fine to keep it simple and take it slow, focusing on what you specifically need from the note-taking environment so as not to get overwhelmed by all the options and information.

There are more tools Zakaria uses in his workflow – in fact, he says, there is a constant conversation between himself, Obsidian, Zotero, and ChatGPT. He uses Zotero to make notes and highlight text when reading articles, which he imports into Obsidian and categorizes using tags. Afterwards, he copies those highlights from Obsidian into ChatGPT, asking it to take up the role of copy editor and summarize the text. The resulting summary, which he critically revises, is then given a place in Obsidian once again.

Next to the powerful visualization capabilities discussed by Seb, Zakaria explains that Obsidian can also be used to create subpages within notes to explain terms and concepts, provide brief biographies of important figures, and so on. These “subnotes” can be linked back to in other notes as well, resulting in a kind of personalized Wikipedia for your research topic. This can also be helpful when you’re following classes on a certain topic or revising your own teaching material!

Finally, speaking of teaching material, Zakaria points us to a couple of helpful AI tools that can be used to process video files, such as recorded lectures or talks – whether you attended them or gave them yourself. One such tool is NoteGPT, which essentially functions as a transcriber and summarizer of recordings. You can revise and copy the resulting transcriptions and summaries into Obsidian as well, further expanding the scope of your second brain. Brisk Teaching serves a similar purpose as NoteGPT, but can also be used to turn a video into a PowerPoint presentation, which can be very convenient and time-saving. By thus constructing a workflow, gradually accumulating relevant information through different tools, it becomes much easier to manage your research.

---

The workflows of the presenters reveal both similarities and differences, but there’s one thing all three can agree on – what’s important is to find a workflow that works for you. To that end, take inspiration from some of the tools and processes described here, but always make sure they support your specific research methods. This was emphasized in the questions as well: don’t feel pressured to adopt a tool like Obsidian, but try it out and see if it accommodates your needs. Who knows, you might uncover a more efficient workflow or see your data from a new perspective.

Happy holidays from the Artes Research team, and may your data be blessed in the year to come!

As part of our blog series, “Stories from the Research Trenches,” we often invite researchers and colleagues to share their personal experiences. For this installment of the series, we are delighted to have our colleague André Davids from KU Leuven Library of Economics and Business share about his recent Erasmus+ stay at the University of Mannheim. André talks specifically about the opportunity to explore Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools, a topic that Faculty of Arts researchers often seek advice about. Read about André’s experience learning about various OCR software options, his takeaways on how they do things at the University of Mannheim, and his impressions about the city itself.

Meanwhile, somewhere else: Erasmus+ in Mannheim

Hello, I am André, and in March 2023, as part of the Erasmus+ program, I spent five days at the University of Mannheim. Why did I choose Mannheim? In the context of my work at the Library of Economics and Business, where I am involved, among other things, with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), it quickly became clear after some online research that they are very actively engaged in that field there.

I was warmly received at the library by Stefan Weil, one of the most active current developers of the OCR software Tesseract. He told me a lot about the university and the city, but also introduced me to the world of Linux, Ubuntu, Debian. In addition, I was able to experiment with various OCR software (Tesseract, eScriptorium, Pero-OCR) and received more information about the OCR-D Project.

In Mannheim, they primarily work on the further development of open-source software. Additionally, they offer support to students and researchers in using this software. Once a month, they organize an open online OCR consultation hour in collaboration with the University of Heidelberg, where anyone can ask their OCR-related questions. The “clients” are mainly researchers, but also library staff from other universities.

Also interesting to mention: The library has a room, the ExpLAB, which is dedicated to brainstorming, Design Thinking, etc. This room is fully equipped for brainstorming sessions, but also has Eye-Tracking Stations, Virtual Reality glasses, etc., which can be used by both students and staff.

This Erasmus+ experience not only enriched my knowledge about OCR but also about the city and university. Although Mannheim is a well-known city, I didn’t know much about it myself. Due to its architecture, it was chosen by the Allies in 1940 as a place to experiment with air raids and complete city destruction. As a result, there wasn’t much left of the city after World War II, and it had to be rebuilt. After long debates, the Baroque Palace (Barockschloss) was also rebuilt. Luckily so, because in 1967, the University of Mannheim could establish itself there. This building, with its width of 450 meters, is the second-largest baroque palace in Europe, after Versailles (but – and this is important – it has one more window than Versailles).

Navigating the city was quite a challenge since the city center has no street names but has been divided into squares since the 17th century. The most striking street is the one in front of the university, the “Kurpfälzer Meile der Innovationen” (Palatinate Mile of Innovation), which has 42 bronze plaques on the ground honoring famous innovators such as Carl Benz (automobile), Karl von Drais (precursor to the bicycle), Werner von Siemens, and others. Maybe an idea for KU Leuven?

What stuck with me most in terms of their work culture is the Teams channel called “Mittagessen” (lunch). This is where colleagues arrange lunch plans. This is also how I met a colleague who, as a student, did Erasmus at KU Leuven. I still don’t fully understand their working hours. Apparently, they work 40 hours a week, but I was always the first one there and one of the last to leave… Maybe they calculate time differently there. Everywhere is different, but a lot is still familiar. I look back very positively on my trip to another library and can highly recommend it to everyone.

Also interesting to see is the university library’s introductory video:

Have you been meaning to set up an appointment to ask about research data management for your project, an aspect of your research workflow, or a specific DH tool or method? You can now come to one of our drop-in sessions and we will help you on the spot! No need to make an appointment!

The sessions are designed to support researchers, students, and staff members in all areas of digital scholarship. The initiative is a collaboration between Artes Research, DH-support staff and researchers at the Faculty of Arts, and ICTS at the Faculty of Arts.

Some areas that we can help with:

• Getting started with Zotero or optimizing Zotero use with an existing Zotero library
• Suggesting DH tools or methods for your specific research questions
  • Relational databases in FileMaker
  • Social Network Analysis and network visualizations
  • Computational tools for working with texts
• Providing resources for various DH and RDM tools
• Advice on DMPs
• Advice on scholarly communication
• Advice on Lirias
• … and much more!

Don’t have a question about any of the above but want to learn more about DH? No problem! Come and use our space for co-working! It’s a great moment to develop digital skills by starting a Programming Historian tutorial, for instance!

Stop by on one of the following dates and we will be glad to help you:

• Thursday 7 November, 14h-16h, the Salon (LETT 00.24)
• Thursday 5 December, 14h-16h, the Salon (LETT 00.24)