Are you looking for an easy way to organize your research data in a database without worrying about data loss? Do you want to build logical relationships between your data but don’t want to delve into programming languages? Then Baserow might offer the solution you need!

Why build your database in Baserow

Baserow makes it possible to create an online database without any technical experience. It has the look and feel of an excel spreadsheet so it is very intuitive to navigate. However, it goes beyond a mere spreadsheet as it offers database capabilities allowing you to organize and analyze your data in a relational way. Just as any other relational database, it allows you to link fields (or columns to use spreadsheet jargon) over different tables ensuring data consistency and lets you choose from different types of predefined fields making it possible to easily store and structure various types of data (e.g. images, dates, checkboxes, etc.). Moreover, Baserow is very collaborative: you can easily work together in real-time, with every change immediately visible to all.

Important to mention as well is that the servers of Baserow are stored in Europe (Amsterdam), meaning that it can be GDPR compliant and may be appropriate to store personal data. (Before storing personal data on any new tool, submit an amendment to your existing PRET dossier).

How to get started

On the Baserow website there is a lot of information available that will make you familiar with the platform. You can find everything you need to know to get started here, and this blog post guides you through the process also.

Baserow is still very new but is developing rapidly, with new features being released constantly. So if you notice that there is still a feature missing, chances are high that Baserow is already developing it. You can also browse the forum to check out which feature requests are in the pipeline. The forum is also a great way to ask a question or submit your own request, I can say from personal experience that the Baserow team will get back to you very quickly!

Apart from the forum, Baserow also maintains a nice blog where you can find an overview of the latest updates and interesting articles, e.g. about database use in general such as whether you should choose a spreadsheet or database for you next project or which alternatives to excel are out there.

Pricing

And the good news is, you can use the hosted version on the Baserow website completely for free! The free plan should be sufficient if you are looking to build a simple database. In case you would need more advanced features or more data storage, you can go for their premium or advanced plan (see pricing information).

Some interesting features highlighted

Since I personally use Baserow quite a lot, I wanted to highlight some good-to-know features (obviously this is in no way an extensive overview of all that Baserow has to offer):

• Views: Baserow allows you to create different views of a table. This way, you can look at your data in multiple ways which might lead to new perspectives. In the free plan you have three options: the grid view (basically like a spreadsheet), the gallery view (which organizes your data in cards), or as a form (that is automatically created based on your data and can then be customized further).
• Sharing: you can share the view of one of your tables more broadly, either by creating a shareable link or embedding your table in e.g. a website. This way, others will be able to consult your data, without the fear of them messing anything up as they won’t have any editing rights.
• Snapshots: thanks to the snapshot feature you can make a full copy of your database. This way you could restore your database to that point in time later and you are protected against accidental loss.

I should also mention one downside: when you use the hosted web version you can only access Baserow through your browser, there is no desktop app available.

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Even though Baserow is still in its early stages, it is already very promising and really accessible, even when you have never built a database before. Try it out and see for yourself!

The first meeting of the spring 2022 edition of the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs in Belgium kicked off on Monday 21 March with a presentation from Gianluca Valenti (University of Liège). We had a total of twenty attendees—some new faces and some familiar ones—who all contributed to an engaging conversation about digital humanities. 

This session followed our standard format, which opens with a greeting from the organizers, Julie M. Birkholz (KBR and Ghent University), Margherita Fantoli (KU Leuven), and Leah Budke (KU Leuven). This is followed by our networking session where new and returning attendees can introduce themselves in a small group, tell about their interests and experiences in DH, and get to know others in the community. This networking moment also allows those of us who already know each other to catch up and enjoy a coffee or tea before the main presentation starts and to welcome new members into our community. After the networking moment, the group comes back together to share any upcoming DH events or opportunities. The main event follows, when a member of our community gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a digital project, workflow, or tool. 

Gianluca’s “under-the-hood” presentation was titled “Modern Letters and Text Analysis: The ‘EpistolarITA’ Project” and discussed the importance of epistolary texts in historical research. As Gianluca explained, today there is a wealth of correspondence available to researchers, but we are still lacking adequate tools to engage with these materials to the fullest extent. The EpistolarITA project aims to fill this gap and to contribute to scholarly efforts to exploit historical epistolary texts through the development of the EpistolarITA database. The database brings together fifteenth through seventeenth century Italian letters and allows users to perform statistical analysis on this corpus. As Gianluca explained in his presentation, the database allows readers to compare a target text to the texts in the corpus. The database then has the capability to return similar texts, ranking them in order of their similarity. In order to be able to accomplish this, the algorithm uses a number of different techniques including TF-IDF, Word2Vec, and Named-Entity-Recognition. The advantage of using the database, as Gianluca demonstrated, is that it allows users to draw connections or to see patterns that they might not otherwise see. While the full text of letters is not made available due to copyright restrictions, users are still able to perform text analysis on these materials and to return results that they would otherwise not be able to achieve without many visits to the archives and the additional work that goes into creating the infrastructure which allows this type of text analysis.  

The EpistolarITA database is still in the process of being populated, but the official publication is expected this spring. For now, the project site and database is entirely in Italian, but they hope to make an English translation available in the future. 

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If a look behind the scenes of a digital project sounds interesting to you, we would be delighted to have you join us for our next DH Virtual Discussion Group meeting on Monday 25 April from 15h-16h30 CEST! In this session, Montaine Denys from the Flanders Heritage Libraries will take us behind the scenes of the Flanders Heritage Libraries’ digitization projects. Montaine’s talk, titled “Managing the Evaluation of OCR Quality in Flemish Newspaper Collections,” will include a discussion of the project workflow, the creation of a “ground truth” dataset, interpreting results, and the specific challenges they have faced and the lessons they have learned while undertaking this project.  

To join us for this session or any future sessions all you need to do is register for our mailing list. Once registered, you will receive all future emails, including the links to the Zoom meetings. These links are distributed via email the morning of the event. 

The DH Virtual Discussion Group is designed to be a low-threshold way for researchers, particularly early career researchers, to come together and learn about digital humanities. Everyone is welcome to attend and absolutely no DH expertise is required. To see a full overview of this spring’s sessions, click here. If there is a session that seems of interest to you, please do join us! 

The Belgian War press website biedt gratis tal van Belgische kranten aan die gedurende de twee Wereldoorlogen verschenen, al dan niet klandestien of gecensureerd door de bezetter.

Op initiatief van CegeSoma (Studiecentrum Oorlog en Maatschappij) met financiële steun van Belspo (Federaal Wetenschapsbeleid) werden deze kranten – waarvan de consultatie in diverse archieven en bibliotheken vaak problematisch is – verzameld en gedigitaliseerd. De website, die geraadpleegd kan worden in het Nederlands, Frans en Engels, biedt ook achtergrondinformatie aan met betrekking tot oorlogspers.

Het overzicht van gedigitaliseerde kranten vind je hier:

Al deze kranten digitaliseren was niet haalbaar, daarom opteerde de Koninklijke Bibliotheek ervoor meer dan veertig titels te digitaliseren die een evenwichtige staalkaart bieden van de Belgische dagbladpers tussen 1830 en 1950. Op die manier werden zowel Franstalige, Nederlandstalige als Duitstalige kranten van verschillende politieke strekkingen gedigitaliseerd. Het gaat bijvoorbeeld om de neutrale Le Soir, het socialistische Vooruit en Le Peuple, of de liberale en nationale L’Indépendance belge.

Via “online consulteren” + “browse” vind je gemakkelijk per krant de verschillende edities (per jaar, maand, dag) terug. Daarnaast kan je ook de inhoud van de kranten zelf doorzoeken via de “search” functie.

Vragen over het gebruik van deze databank mogen worden gericht aan de collectie-expert Geschiedenis en Overheidspublicaties.