This is a short report from an event organised by SHS (Suomen Historiallinen Seura), Tilaushistoriakeskus, and the National Library of Finland (NLF). The event homepage is here.
Jussi-Pekka Hakkarainen, Information Specialist at the National Library of Finland, spoke about how the NLF has been unifying its digitised content and trying to make it more accessible to users. The materials have been organised into multiple collections, found under Digitised Collections.
A panel discussion on the effects of digitisation on historical research was led by Professor Anu Lahtinen, with participants Professor Jari Eloranta, FT Maria Kallio-Hirvonen, FT Eeva Kotioja, and Johanna Lilja from the NLF. The discussion revolved around how language models and large datasets have, on the one hand, enabled new avenues of research, while on the other, risked steering research toward topics whose source materials happen to be more accessible because they have already been digitised.
Professor Jari Eloranta gave a presentation on digital and statistical approaches to the history of economics, emphasising how an increasingly wide array of datasets has become available and how the volume of available data keeps growing. Eloranta pointed out that the greatest potential lies in combining datasets, and that various AI approaches can be extremely helpful there.
Doctoral Researcher Ville Vaara (that’s me) gave a short presentation on the various uses of AI in digital approaches to historical research, noting how these approaches have become increasingly accessible to interested researchers, since language models help a great deal with getting to grips with computational methods.
Outi Karemaa, CEO of Gaudeamus, gave a presentation on current trends in the digital side of publishing. Karemaa pointed out that while the publication of e-books and audiobooks has increased, printed books have nonetheless maintained a steady volume of output. This listener’s interest was particularly piqued by Karemaa’s comment that digital reading platforms such as Goodreads offer the possibility of gathering a great deal of statistics on people’s reading habits — for example, whether someone starts but doesn’t finish a book.