We’re delighted to announce details of the first webinar of the Autumn/Winter 2026 series of Friday Frontiers. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Emma Clarke and Paula Kelly to present on two case studies from the #DiscussAI project. 

The Friday Frontiers webinars allow researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from across the broad DARIAH community, and now beyond, to learn about current research, best practice and social impact, and different tools and methods in digital humanities scholarly practice.

The webinar sessions are all free to attend, but registration is required.  Presentations are all recorded and published at a later date on DARIAH-Campus. 

The details of the upcoming talk, along with the registration details is below:

Friday 2nd October, 10.30 WEST / 11.30 CEST / 12.30 EEST

Title: Case Studies from #DiscussAI: A National Conversation on Artificial Intelligence in Ireland
Speakers: Dr Emma Clarke (Dublin City University) & Paula Kelly (Technical University of Dublin)
Registration Link: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/uSQOL_dAQWCujoTv3jqy7A 

Description

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in everyday life, decisions about its development and deployment are often made without meaningful input from the people it affects. Ireland’s national AI strategy, AI – Here for Good, places strong emphasis on citizen involvement. However, public understanding of AI and its societal impact lags behind the pace of technological advances. Many communities, particularly those traditionally underserved by science and technology engagement, remain excluded from the conversation, therefore, AI literacy is essential to enhance inclusion. 

The Research Ireland ADAPT Centre launched #DiscussAI in September 2021, establishing a national conversation on AI that equips people across Ireland with the knowledge and skills to critically engage with AI-driven systems and make informed choices. Co-creating dialogue is at the heart of #DiscussAI. This session introduces that approach through two case studies, and explores why participatory, co-created dialogue matters for research and practice on the societal impact of AI. 

Case Study 1: Age-Friendly AI 

Age-Friendly AI places older adults at the centre of the conversation on AI. The AI training programme builds on dialogue with older people, ensuring that content reflects their real-life experiences and needs. 

Case Study 2: The Bigger Picture 

An art-science initiative designed to explore public perceptions and misconceptions of AI. Combining public workshops, critical analysis and artist submissions, The Bigger Picture uses creative practice as a route into critical dialogue about AI. 

Speaker Biographies 

Dr Emma Clarke – Age-Friendly AI Co-Lead 

Dr Emma Clarke is the Engaged Research Lead at the Research Ireland ADAPT Centre, based at Dublin City University where she works on ADAPT’s #DiscussAI initiative – a National Conversation on Artificial Intelligence that has engaged over 85,000 citizens in conversations about the societal impact of AI in Ireland since 2021. Emma’s work centres on citizen science, participatory dialogue and multi-stakeholder engagement. She is co-lead of Age-Friendly AI – Ireland’s National Artificial Intelligence Literacy Initiative for Older Adults. Emma has presented her research at international forums including PCST and ECSA. She holds a PhD from the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, specialising in cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer. 

Paula Kelly – Age-Friendly AI Lead 

Paula is a lecturer and a member of the tPOT research group in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at TU Dublin. She is the team lead on the Research Ireland funded Age-Friendly AI: Ireland’s National Artificial Intelligence Literacy Initiative. Over two years this initiative is fostering a national dialogue on AI with older adults across Ireland, and co-creating and delivering a comprehensive, accessible, and inclusive national AI literacy programme tailored specifically with and for this demographic. Paula is also involved as a volunteer tutor and facilitator in a number of public engagement STEM activities hosted by tPOT and WITU.

These events are only open to KU Leuven researchers and staff

The Open Science Discovery offers an introduction to Open Science as a way to make research outputs available at different stages of the research process. The training combines the expertise of KU Leuven researchers who draw on their own experience with Open Science and the extensive knowledge of research support staff. Through a combination of practical examples and expert guidance, participants will gain valuable insights into how Open Science can enhance and support their own research.

This year’s programme focuses on two key themes. The first theme, scholarly communication, explores current publication practices and introduces the rights retention strategy as a practical approach to managing copyright. The second theme addresses the ethics of data sharing. This part will include a reflection on the opportunities and challenges of data sharing and reuse in the age of AI.

Practicalities

• When: October 12, 2026
  • Discovery session: 9:30 – 12:30
  • Preregistration workshop: afternoon (exact schedule will follow)
• Where: Hybrid (on-site sessions at Campus Gasthuisberg)
• For who: Training targeted at PhD researchers, but other researchers and support staff are welcome. No prior knowledge necessary.
• Price and registration: Free but mandatory. Click here to register. Certificate of attendance included.
• More info: Open Science helpdesk

Friday, April 17, 2026 | 7:00 PM IST | Virtual

The DHARTI Governing Body invites scholars, faculty, and practitioners to a strategic conversation on India’s evolving role in the international DH community and how DHARTI can deepen digital humanities work across India.

The recent ADHO decision to adopt double-blind review for DH2026 has sparked essential global discussions about fairness, inclusion, and review practices. This is our moment to articulate Indian perspectives on:

• What unique contributions can India bring to global DH from the Global South?
• How do multilingualism, decolonial approaches, infrastructure needs, and interdisciplinary networks shape our work?
• What role can DHARTI play in mentoring, networking, and amplifying Indian DH internationally?

Who should join: Leaders from humanities, social sciences, libraries, and technology shaping DH ecosystems in India.

Register here to receive meeting link.

Concept Note Undergraduate humanities education in India has historically trained students within single-disciplinary silos. The engagement in the field of humanities has transformed with the advent of the digital tools and the interlinked spaces, breaking disciplinary boundaries and connecting, overlapping teaching-learning and research. This summer school proposes to address the possibilities of the ever expanding […]

DHARTI is pleased to announce that the DHARTI2026 Biennial Digital Humanities Conference will be hosted by Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Bhubaneswar, in December 2026.

These events are only open to KU Leuven researchers and staff

Whether you’re new to AI coding assistants or have been using them for a while, you can join this workshop to explore the wide range of these tools available, discuss best practices for using them in your projects, and discover when and how to use them to maximize your productivity. You will not need any more than a basic understanding of programming. Plus, if you’re already comfortable with AI tools, this is a great opportunity to share your experiences and insights with others!

Practicalities

• When: June 15, 2026 from 09:30 to 13:30
• Where: Collaborative space Geometrica (QDV 01.180) of Quadrivium – Celestijnenlaan 200H, Heverlee. This is an in-person workshop and will not be recorded.
• For who: This event is open to KU Leuven staff with a basic understanding of programming
• Price and registration: Free but mandatory. You can register here. 
• More info: Click here

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.” (full interview)

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.” (full interview)

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.” (full interview)

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.” (full interview)

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. We also invite you to explore interviews with participants, offering a personal insight into their experiences during the event.

KU Leuven Libraries has invested in an integrated approach to strengthen the discoverability and accessibility of physical resources through digital access, thereby supporting and stimulating research, education, and heritage activities.

The Digitisation and Enrichment of Collections Service creates, manages, and enriches data through metadata creation, digitisation, and imaging and serve as experts in these fields. Through state-of-the-art infrastructure such as the Imaging Lab and the Scan Hub, both fragile heritage materials and modern documents are digitised. These processes are supported by metadata creation and embedded within a broader policy framework for the preservation and management of physical collections. The team follows the latest developments in the field with regards to technical aspects and concerning digitisation project management and legal matters.

To make this often invisible expertise visible, Digitisation and Enrichment of Collections of KU Leuven Libraries developed the YouTube series “How KU Leuven Libraries Digitises” (in Dutch). Through a seriest of 4 videos you can discover, step by step, how materials are prepared, handled, placed under controlled lightning, scanned, and described. They show the people, equipment, and procedures behind the digitisation workflow. Discover the series below, or directly on Youtube.

If you want to know more about KU Leuven Libraries digitisation process, visit the website.

1. Safely handling

2. Metadata creation

3. Imaging Lab

4. Scan Hub

Join us for the Helsinki Digital Humanities Hackathon 2026—an opportunity to collaborate and innovate in an interdisciplinary setting. The application period is open (until 14 April 2026) – apply now to be part of this year’s cohort.

People talk about hackathons, but there is only one Helsinki Digital Humanities Hackathon. #DHH26 is the 11th iteration of our international summer school (aimed primarily at master’s students and beyond), which brings together diverse participants from Finland and across Europe. 

In the Helsinki Digital Humanities Hackathon, you will experience an interdisciplinary research project from start to finish within the span of 10 days. For researchers and students from computer science and data science, the hackathon gives the opportunity to test their abstract knowledge against complex real-life problems. For people from the humanities and social sciences, it shows what is possible to achieve with such collaboration.  For everyone, the hackathon gives the experience of intensely working with people from different backgrounds as part of an interdisciplinary team, as, during the hackathon, each group develops a digital humanities research project from start to finish. Working together, they formulate research questions with respect to particular data sets, develop and apply methods and tools to address them, and present the work at the end of the hackathon. 

Participation in #DHH26 is free for all accepted participants. This year, we also expect to sponsor a limited number of participants from outside Finland with flights and accommodation (decisions on this to be made after the application period). 

The event is organised by FIN-CLARIAH—particularly its DARIAH-FI component—in collaboration with HELDIG and the Department of Digital Humanities at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Helsinki, as well as Aalto University. We are supported by CLARIN-EU, HIIT, the Helsinki Centre for Intellectual History, and Marie Curie Training Networks CASCADE & MECANO. 5 ECTS credits may be gained from participating in the hackathon for students, and it also functions as a staff training event for leadership and collaboration across disciplinary borders.

For information on what the hackathon was like in previous years, see #DHH25, #DHH24, #DHH23,#DHH22, #DHH21, #DHH19, #DHH18, #DHH17, #DHH16 and #DHH15.

Themes

This year, the hackathon groups are organised around the following five themes:

• Parliaments Beyond Borders: Exploring the Role of Foreign Nations in National Policy Debates
• Crimes and Punishments: “True Crime” in Britain during the 19th century
• The Language of Profits: A Multi-Disciplinary Exploration of Corporate and Legal Rhetoric
• Large-Scale Patterns of Knowledge Production Through the Lens of 200 Million Books Across 600 Years
• Decoding the System of Finnic Oral Poetry

See further information on the #DHH26 themes.

Ap­plic­a­tion sched­ule for #DH­H26

17.3.2026 This year’s themes are unveiled, and the application period starts
14.4.2026 Application period ends
27.4.2026 Registration period ends for #DHH26 for accepted participants
4.5. & 11.5.2026 Two #DHH26 pre-hackathon online preparatory sessions
20.–29.5.2026 #DHH26 hackathon in Helsinki

Please note that we can only accept participants who are able to commit to the full week of intensive work (not just a couple of hours here and there), as well as the preparatory sessions. Thus, if you know that you have other commitments during the hackathon, please consider applying next time when you can make a full commitment.

Venue

Minerva Plaza, Siltavuorenpenger 5 A (see on mapOpens in a new tab)
University of Helsinki
Finland

Prac­tic­al­it­ies and Timetable

The hackathon will take place between 20.–29.5.2026. The participants are expected to commit to the hackathon for the whole period; work takes place mainly between 10 AM and 5 PM on weekdays (the weekend is free!). In addition, there are two online pre-sessions on Mondays 4.5. and 11.5., between 2 – 4 PM UTC+03:00 for orientation, group formation and preparation for the intensive hackathon period. The participants are expected to attend also these pre-sessions.

Public presentations of the projects:
29.5.2026 13:00–16:00, Minerva Plaza, Siltavuorenpenger 5 A, room K226.
The event will be streamed at https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l5

Or­gan­isa­tion

General organisers:

• Mikko TolonenOpens in a new tab, professor in computational history at the University of Helsinki
• Eetu MäkeläOpens in a new tab, professor in human sciences – computing interaction at the University of Helsinki
• Jukka SuomelaOpens in a new tab, associate professor in distributed algorithms, logic and complexityOpens in a new tab at Aalto University
• Jouni TuominenOpens in a new tab, university researcher at HSSHOpens in a new tab, University of Helsinki

You can contact the organisers via email: dhh-hackathon@helsinki.fi.

The Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH) presents Digital Humanities on the Edge. To kickstart 2026, we bring together four speakers to examine topics core to the future directions of DH: Infrastructure, Surveillance, Platforms, and Artificial Intelligence. The panel will consider how these four domains are reshaping not only DH tools, but also the ethical and political conditions under which DH work now takes place. At a moment of considerable disciplinary inflection, aaDH invites you to a discussion on the edge – of methods, histories, theories, and time.

Register via Humanitix

Speakers:

• Professor James Smithies
• Dr Tyne Daile Sumner
• Dr Alex Shermon
• Dr Leah Henrickson

Moderated by Associate Professor Tully Barnett

Register via Humanitix

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. ︎

We’re delighted to announce that the registration for the Spring 2026 series of Friday Frontiers is now open. The Friday Frontiers webinars allow researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from across the broad DARIAH community, and now beyond, to learn about current research, best practice and social impact, and different tools and methods in digital humanities scholarly practice.

The webinar sessions are all free to attend, but registration is required.  Presentations are all recorded and published at a later date on DARIAH-Campus. 

The details of the upcoming talks, along with their registration links are below:

Friday 6th March 2026, 11.30am CET

Title: “Can this be done?” New research tools for studying human interaction 

Speakers: Stefan Lindgren & Carolina Larsson, Lund University

Registration: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/OTW1rrYUQpSE9cb2GLauig

This presentation aims to demonstrate a new workflow for using motion capture to study human movement and interaction. The workflow arose from a collaboration with Riksteatern Crea, a theatre group in Sweden that creates stage productions in sign language designed for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing audiences alike. They asked whether it is possible to transfer the complex movements of a sign-language performer to a digital avatar that could be projected onto a stage and interact in real time with both the audience and live actors. The answer was yes. Here we outline the development of a simplified, more efficient workflow for researchers studying human interaction through body movement and gesture using motion capture devices of different kinds and a free game developing software called Unreal Engine.

About the speakers:

Stefan Lindgren

Stefan Lindgren is a research engineer at Lund University Humanities lab, a multiuser research infrastructure that provides tools and knowledge to conduct research about human behavior, communication, cognition and culture. He is acting technical manager for the lab and has a background in computer technology with a special interest in 3d-data and 3d-visualisations. He has been involved in a large number of research projects helping out with 3d-documenation all over the world. His expertise includes 3d-scanning, photogrammetry, motion capture and 3d-visualisations.

Carolina Larsson

Carolina Larsson is a systems developer at Lund University Humanities lab, a multiuser research infrastructure that provides tools and knowledge to conduct research about human behavior, communication, cognition and culture. Carolina is an expert in 3d-modelling and is proficient in Blender, a 3d-software that covers most aspects of 3d-modelling. She has a solid experience in working with and manipulating 3d-data from any kind of 3d-acquisition.  She has been working with 3d-documentation, motion capture and animations in research projects in areas such as medicine, archaeology, linguistics, historical reconstructions and museology. 

Friday 10th April 2026, 11.30am CEST

Title: Mytholudics: Games and Myth

Speakers: Dom Ford, University of Bergen

Registration: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/829zNVouQZKUG0zr7wQmpA

Abstract

Games create worlds made of many different elements, but also of rules, systems and structures for how we act in them. So how can we make sense of them? Mytholudics: Games and Myth lays out an approach to understanding games using theories from myth and folklore. Myth is understood not as an object or a kind of story, but as a way of expressing meaning, a way in which we produce a model for understanding the world and things in it. This talk lays out this approach and how it can help you analyse and conceptualise gameworlds. The framework helps to see games and their worlds in the whole. Stories, gameplay, systems, rules, spatial configurations and art styles can all be considered together as contributing to the meaning of the game.

About the speaker:

Dom Ford is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen, as part of the LEAD AI programme. His current project looks at nonplayer characters in games with AI-generated dialogue, how players respond to the use of this technology and how this use may challenge ideas in the philosophy of fiction like intentionality. He is also an editor for Eludamos. Previously he was a postdoc at the University of Bremen, part of the Media and Religion lab in the ZeMKI Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, where he was also the managing editor for gamevironments.

His first book, Mytholudics: Games and Myth, proposes a method for analysing games both as conduits of mythologies within society and as mythological structures in themselves. It’s out now and published by De Gruyter.

He wrote his PhD at the IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Digital Play between 2019 and 2022, supervised by Hans-Joachim Backe.

Friday 8th May 2026, 11.30am CEST

Title: Feminist Digital Humanities: Intersections in Practice

Speakers: Monika Barget (University of Maastricht), Jenny Bergenmar (University of Gothenburg), & Susan Schreibman (University of Maastricht)

Registration: https://dariah.zoom.us/meeting/register/1Rib0DoaQaKSYM8nwOvOiw

Abstract

In April 2025 Feminist Digital Humanities: Intersections in Practice was published by The University of Illinois Press. It is an edited collection (which is available open access and can be downloaded here) divided into three main sections: Readings, Infrastructures and Pedagogies. The thread that runs through this collection is a theorisation of feminist DH practice as sites of possibility for exploring, exposing, and revaluing marginalized forms of knowledge production through new modes and processes of meaning making. Each chapter also reflects on what it means to be a feminist and a technologist through definitions of feminisms that are brought into conversation with DH scholarship. Feminist DH practices are presented as sites of possibility for exploring, exposing, and revaluing marginalized forms of knowledge production by enacting new modes and processes of meaning making. An overriding focus of the collection is to demonstrate how feminist lenses attuned to issues of intersectionality and gender can uncover structural inequities and present opportunities for social and intellectual change.

This talk will have a three-part focus. The first part will reflect on the collection as a whole, and how it intersects with current feminist thought and DH practice. The second part will explore the Readings section through the chapter Feminist DH: A Historical Perspective Excavating the Lives of Women of the Past by Monika Barget and Susan Schreibman which explores how the Irish digital humanities project Letters 1916–1923 adopted a feminist approach to surface marginalized women’s voices in a heterogeneous historical collection of letters dominated by male voices. The third part will focus on Jenny Bergenmar’s co-authored chapter Infrastructures for Diversity: Feminist and Queer Interventions in Nordic Digital Humanities from the Infrastructures Section, which explores how DH infrastructures in institutional frameworks can make space for feminist, queer, and activist perspectives, methods, and collaborations.

About the speakers:

Monika Barget is an early modern historian and digital humanist specializing in the political history of the eighteenth century, visual cultures, and spatial history. From 2017 to 2018, she contributed to the Letters 1916–1923 and Ignite projects at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Following postdoctoral work in Mainz, she joined the History Department of Maastricht University as an assistant professor in August 2021.

Jenny Bergenmar is a professor of comparative literature at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is a literary history scholar who has previously worked with digital scholarly editing and archival materials through digitization and crowdsourcing. She is currently principal investigator of the research infrastructure project QUEERLIT database: Metadata Development and Searchability for LGBTQI Literary Heritage (2021–2023).

Susan Schreibman is a professor of digital arts and culture at Maastricht University and a Co-Director of DARIAH. Her current research projects include: PURE3D2.0 and Contested Memories: The Battle of Mount Street Bridge.