Connecting data; Connecting histories

The Connected Histories project is an example of how the community is taking disparate or 'silo-ised' datasets and using lightweight technical approaches such as APIs to knit that data together in meaningful ways.

This JISC-funded project, partnering the University of Hertfordshire, the Institute of Historical Research as well as the Universities of London and Sheffield, brings together a range of digital resources and electronic content on early modern and 19th Century Britain (British History Sources 1500–1900) already available on the web.

Users of this innovative service have at their fingertips:

• sophisticated searching on name, place, and date via an integrated, 'federated' search facility
• the ability to interrogate 11 major electronic resources in early modern and 19th Century British History, including open and licensed content (text and images)
• a wide selection of resources, including: British History Online, British Newspapers 1600–1900, British Museums Images, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, London Lives 1690–1800
• the opportunity to save, connect and share resources in 'personal workspaces'

Aggregating data in meaningful and unique ways has additional benefits. It also helps to surface hidden collections and encourages researchers to make new connections.

A new approach to address the 'silo effect'

In recognition that the nature of historical research has changed, that the world of information is ever growing with an infinite range of resources to interrogate, the Connected Histories team agreed to take this approach to work with distributed data. In addition, it was an attempt to move away from another costly project that locks away data in 'silos', where the 'silo effect' sees users having to hop from site to site to carry out their research.

According to Tim Hitchcock from the University of Hertfordshire, "Connected Histories is simply a comprehensive index of words. But in the process of creating that index, we also sought to assign meaning to some of them."

Not only are they indexing all the words, but they're also creating indexes of all the names, places and dates held within these resources.

Hitchcock explains further, "the API architecture breaks down the structures of online resources into their component parts – separates out data from processing, from delivery – allowing each to be re-used and re-purposed."

This model, a series of indexes to the original material, means that direct access to the resources is not the be-all-and-end-all. The index is the key; it tells users what these collections contain, whether private, subscription-based (or paywall) or free-to-access (open).

Benefits for sustainability and scholarship

The power of using Connected Histories allows researchers to cross search and cross reference collections, thus tearing down the walls between websites (and ultimately their digital resources).

This model makes it easier to connect, not only with relevant topics, but with other researchers, collecting and sharing links that they may not have done previously, and in new ways.

Services like Connected Histories enable researchers to share their work and work more collaboratively, moving towards a common purpose of research, in History, the Humanities and beyond.

This all requires a fundamental thinking of the data silo or service model, Hitchcock explains, our 'traditional' data models suggest that information itself is "something to be consulted and collected; that it is an unchanging object of study, rather than a pool of constantly changing stuff that can be interrogated from any angle, and pursued along any trajectory."

This new approach can open up new opportunities, not only suggesting emerging models for sustainability in creating and repurposing data, but alternative modes of historical analyses. Newly digital forms of data demand the need for new modes of exploring our connectedness.

Ultimately, we can empower researchers to access large bodies of data like never before, and so strengthen our approach to and understandings of our histories.