Since the 1990s, digital technologies have transformed the work of historians, not only in relation to how sources can be located and accessed but also in the way historians analyse and represent their findings for the academic readership as well as for the wider public. One of the first centres to explore these changes and their ramifications was the Virginia Center for Digital History, founded already in 1998, only a few years after the advent of the World Wide Web. As a concept, “digital history” has already a long history, but its meanings have changed through the decades, from the early emphasis on the ‘hypertextual power’ of information technology to the present enthusiasm for algorithmic methods in organizing big data.

Digital History in Finland III aims at bringing together historians who today work on different problems in digital history. The idea is to build an up-to-date view on what is happening in the field in Finland and to meet other scholars interested in similar questions.

The symposium will take place between 10-15 o’clock on 30 November. It will be followed by the annual Veikko Litzen lecture at 16.00. This year’s lecture is given by Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History at the University of Sussex and the Co-Director of Sussex Humanities Lab (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/336034). Hitchcock’s lecture is titled:

Macroscopes and Microscopes: Computer assisted close reading of historical texts

Hitchcock will also participate in the Digital History in Finland symposium.