Webinar

The FLOW Project: A Modular Workflow for Automatic Text Recognition and Beyond [Feb 18, online @ 15:00 GMT]

The FLOW Project: A Modular Workflow for Automatic Text Recognition and Beyond

Bodleian Bytes

18 February 15:00 to 16:00

Online event. Registration required.

Registration: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/oxford/registration-bodleian-bytes-the-flow-project

Historical research often involves working with highly diverse and complex source materials, ranging from handwritten manuscripts to large, heterogeneous document collections. Machine learning methods are increasingly shaping how historians work with digitised sources, particularly through Automatic Text Recognition (ATR). In this talk, Jonas Widmer and Dana Meyer will introduce The FLOW, a modular, microservice-based framework designed to support machine learning–driven data management and processing in the Digital Humanities.

The talk will outline how The FLOW separates complex ATR workflows such as pre-processing, model training, inference, and evaluation into independent, reusable components that can be combined flexibly and accessed without programming experience. Using state-of-the-art transformer-based models, the project aims to make advanced text recognition workflows more transparent, reproducible, and scalable across diverse historical datasets.

Jonas and Dana will outline a typical FLOW workflow, showing how datasets are managed on the Hugging Face platform and then processed step by step. The focus will be on how such workflows can support everyday research practices when working with large and heterogeneous historical corpora.

Speaker Biographies

Jonas Widmer is a Research Software Engineer specialising in Digital Humanities at the University of Bern. In this role, he assists in planning and developing projects focused on Natural Language Processing. His primary interest lies in Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), where he engages with historical projects and their diverse sources.

Dana Meyer is a Master’s student in Intelligent Interactive Systems at Bielefeld University and works as a research assistant on the project The Flow in the Digital History group at Bielefeld University

Jonas Widmer

Jonas Widmer

Dana Meyer

Dana Meyer

Bodleian Bytes

Bodleian Bytes is a series of online talks hosted by the Centre for Digital Scholarship at the Bodleian Libraries. The series engages with innovative national and international research in digital scholarship. It is a virtual space for discussions surrounding different tools and methodologies whilst also providing inspiration for future digital research.

Event Details and Registration

Registration is required for this free online event. Registration closes at 17.00 on Monday 16 February 2026.

Date and time: Wednesday 18 February, 15:00-16:00 (UK time)

Location: Online via Zoom.

For further information, please email the Centre for Digital Scholarship: cds@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Centre for Digital Scholarship

The Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at the Bodleian Libraries is a space and place for engaging, leading and shaping discussions around digital scholarship practice and research within and beyond the University of Oxford. 

Digital Changelings: 3D Scanning Nature [Feb 17 @ 12:00 GMT in person (Galway) and online]

Digital Changelings: 3D Scanning Nature

Date & Time: 12pm, Tuesday 17th February

Location: Studio 3, O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance, University of Galway

Registration

In person: https://ti.to/creative-tech/masterclass-liing-heaney

Zoom: https://universityofgalway-ie.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jbqJZag_T0CrOoJBH1CAFA#/registration

Centre for Creative Technologies, University of Galway, Masterclass Series

In this session, multidisciplinary artist 1iing heaney will talk about the use of 3D scanning in her practice, and how it has informed her thinking on digital and ecological life. She will discuss the technical and creative application of the medium as she has implemented it across installation, sculpture, and video.

Speaker Bio
1iing heaney is a multidisciplinary artist based in Leixlip, Co. Kildare exploring the complex entanglements of the anthropocene, particularly between technology and ecology. She is currently a Masters by Research candidate in IADT, funded by scholarship from TU Rise Elevate. Working across diverse mediums such as 3D print, Extended Reality, stone, CGI, steel, and screen, her work is presented as immersive, sculptural, and screened experiences.

Upcoming:

Róisín Berg – Tuesday, 24 February

Tara Jaye Burke – Tuesday, 3rd March

Claire Healy  – Tuesday 24th March

Jane Cassidy – Tuesday 31th March

Welsh language Wikipedia [Feb 17, online @ 14:00 GMT]

Welsh language Wikipedia

17 February 14:00 to 15:30, online via Zoom

Digital Scholarship at Oxford

Jason Evans, National Library of Wales, will talk about his work on Welsh language Wikipedia, and the challenges and importance of developing smaller language digital resources. There will be a short talk, followed by discussion and a Q and A

For this session we will hear from Jason Evans, Open Data Manager at the National Library of Wales.

For over a decade Jason has managed projects to improve content on the Welsh language Wikipedia. He works to advocate for open access within the culture sector and works to support the sharing of knowledge in smaller languages and about under represented groups. He has developed processes for transforming Library metadata in rich linked open data and connecting knowledge across languages, datasets and organisations. He advises Welsh Government on Welsh Language Data, currently sits on the Europeana Members Council and chairs the Europeana Impact Community steering group.

Jason will talk about his work harnessing the crowd and technology to disseminate knowledge in Welsh, the value of Welsh language Open Data, and smaller language digital resources. 

More info: https://digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/critical-digital-humanities-0

Futures in the Making: Identity, Speculation, and Digital Representation [Feb 10, online and in person, @12:00 GMT]

Futures in the Making: Identity, Speculation, and Digital Representation

Date & Time: 12pm, Tuesday 10th February

Location: Studio 3, O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance, University of Galway

The Masterclass Series continues with 

Aisling Phelan, an Irish multidisciplinary artist exploring digital doubles, speculative futures and human-machine interactions and entanglements.

In this masterclass, Aisling will present an overview of her artistic practice, tracing the research, processes, and technological explorations that shape her work in relation to identity, corporeality, and digital representation. Drawing on recent research into DeepFakes, doppelgangers, and robotics, the session will also invite participants to engage in speculative thinking around possible futures shaped by emerging technologies, using fiction and open-ended questioning as tools to reflect on contemporary technological anxieties.

Speaker Bio
Aisling Phelan is an Irish multidisciplinary artist exploring digital doubles, speculative futures and human-machine interactions and entanglements. Through 3D animation, AI, video, sculpture, and live interactive technologies, her work explores what it means to be human in an era of rapid technological advancement and pervasive algorithmic influence. 

Drawing from a transhumanist and speculative fiction perspective, Phelan explores how far we are willing to go in the pursuit of self-optimisation and the potential costs of such advances. Fusing the intimate with the artificial, her practice confronts the seductive promise of transcendence and enhancement, creating space for reflection on the role of current digital infrastructures in shaping how we understand ourselves and others.

In person: https://ti.to/creative-tech/masterclass-aisling-phelan

Zoom: https://universityofgalway-ie.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Fb4r-VXCTAOFEkSJdwm8iw

Upcoming Workshops:

Liing Heaney  – Tuesday, 17 February

Róisín Berg – Tuesday, 24 February

Tara Jaye Burke – Tuesday, 3rd March

Claire Healy  – Tuesday 24th March

Jane Cassidy – Tuesday 31th March

SynFlow: Continuous Semantics Change Analysis via Dependency Co-occurences [Jan 26, online, @17:00 GMT]

SynFlow: Continuous Semantics Change Analysis via Dependency Co-occurences

The first talk of the Data in Historical Linguistics Seminar Series 2026 will take place remotely on Monday 26 January 2026 at 5pm GMT. Bách Phan-Tất (KU Leuven, Belgium) will be presenting on SynFlow: Continuous Semantics Change Analysis via Dependency Co-occurences

Registration for this talk will close at midnight on the Friday before the event and the link for this can be accessed here: https://forms.gle/HEnpTKreXdrZqjfA8 

Participants will receive a Microsoft Teams link via email on the morning of the talk. 

The abstract for this talk can be found at this page.

The programme and registration links for all talks in the series can be found on our website: 

2026 Programme

This seminar series is run by Andrea Farina (King’s College London) and Dr Mathilde Bru and is aimed at PhD students and early career researchers. The purpose of this seminar series is to bring together researchers working on historical linguistics with a quantitative approach, and to discuss current avenues of research in this topic. We hope that these seminars will nurture international collaboration and establish academic ties among researchers working on similar topics in this field.

Global Survey Findings on 3D Digitisation in Cultural Heritage [Jan 22, online, 13:00 CET]

Global Survey Findings on 3D Digitisation in Cultural Heritage [Jan 22, online, 13:00 CET]

In cooperation with Heritage Malta, the IIIF and the EU eArchiving Initiative, the newly established Research Center MNEMOSYNE at the UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage present the final results of the 2025 Worldwide Survey on 3D Data Acquisition and Digitisation in Cultural Heritage. This event, offered free of charge, provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art in a field of critical importance to Humanity, focusing on the documentation, protection, preservation, and use and reuse of cultural heritage data, medatata and paradata. 

It further offers a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this domain, clearly articulating the necessity of digitising the past.

The results demonstrate how cultural heritage digitisation contributes to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), while simultaneously advancing scientific knowledge, supporting evidence-based heritage management, and creating long-term value for future generations. 

Moreover, the event seeks to reassess current knowledge and to articulate a clear framework for interdisciplinary collaboration, highlighting how diverse professional communities must work together to ensure the effective safeguarding and sustainable management of the material and immaterial legacy of our past.

Free of Charge Registration:
https://unescochair-dch.net/Webinar-about-Survey-on-Digital-Heritage-Results

ACDH Lecture: From Punch Cards to Prompt Engineering [Jan 20, online, 16:45 CET]

ACDH Lecture: “From Punch Cards to Prompt Engineering: The MHDBD and the Future of Semantic Annotation with LLMs” with Katharina Zeppezauer-Wachauer & Julia Hintersteiner (both Universität Salzburg)


📅 Tuesday, January 20th, 2026
⏰ 16:45 – 18:15


The invited speakers will present the complete technological redesign of the Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdatenbank (hashtag#MHDBDB): After decades of development in relational and RDF-based environments, the project has moved to a TEI-first architecture designed to support LLM-driven research.

The speakers address the key reasons for this shift:
i) the need for structured, AI-readable data;
ii) the practical limits of high-complexity standoff models; and
iii) the excessive resource demands of large-scale RDF infrastructures.

In this context, Large Language Models are reshaping annotation, search, and interpretation. TEI-XML emerges as a sustainable framework for transparent, semantically robust, and interoperable Expert-in-the-Loop workflows, balancing philological rigor with AI scalability.
The talk offers a focused perspective on the evolving technical foundations of text research in the humanities.

More detailed information,

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/acdh/newsevents/event-series/acdh-lecture-121

This lecture is jointly organised in close collaboration with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH) and the University of Vienna and is part of the University’s Digital Humanities Lecture Circuit (WS 2025).

Authority, Hierarchies and Games: An overview of multilingual language practices in Final Fantasy, Minecraft and PUBG in Twitch and live gaming scenarios [Jan 19, online, @17:15 UTC+1]

Authority, Hierarchies and Games. An overview of multilingual language practices in Final Fantasy, Minecraft and PUBG in Twitch and live gaming scenarios

We are pleased to invite you to the next talk in the lecture series Digital Humanities in Focus, organized by RosDH, the Digital Humanities Working Group at the University of Rostock.

On Monday, January 19, 2026 at 17:15 (UTC+1), Laura Vawter, PhD Candidate at the Institute of English and American Studies (Rostock), will give a talk titled:

“Authority, Hierarchies and Games. An overview of multilingual language practices in Final Fantasy, Minecraft and PUBG in Twitch and live gaming scenarios”

Abstract:

Cultural and linguistic analysis of language in digital environments and gaming scenarios is a global and interdisciplinary field that encompasses linguistics, digitalization, education, and computer science. Digital Humanities (DH) too is an interdisciplinary field that explores the relationship between philosophy, cultural studies, social sciences, and digitalization.

The exploration of digital games not only has profound implications for the transformational nature of these intersecting fields but is key to unlocking a digital culture that is central to the lives of current, younger, and future generations. Just as language is how we, as individuals, create meaning, games and participation in gaming culture are how individuals create meaning in the digital world.
This lecture discusses linguistic patterns in gaming scenarios, how players establish and shape hierarchies within gaming communities using gaming language, and its implications for future research in DH.

The event will take place online. Access to the Zoom link and further information can be found here.

Everyone interested is welcome to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!

Measuring Narrative Space: A Computational Study of German and English Prose Fiction [Jan 13, online, 10-12 CET]

Measuring Narrative Space: A Computational Study of German and English Prose Fiction [Jan 13, online, 10-12 CET]

The lecture is public and can be attended only via zoom. The talk will not be recorded.

Dr. Katrin Rohrbacher (Nürnberg/Erlangen):

Measuring Narrative Space: A Computational Study of German and English Prose Fiction

In this talk, I will present ongoing work on measuring the notion of narrative space using machine learning methods, specifically by fine-tuning BERT-based classification models and applying them to a large collection of German and English historical prose fiction, including both canonical works and non-fiction. Moving from theorization and conceptualization to dataset creation, modeling, analysis, and interpretation, I will outline the steps involved in conducting a computational study of this kind. We will examine results that show how the concepts of “setting” and “lived space” have been used in fiction over time and discuss their implications for “experientiality” and embodiment more broadly, including cross-linguistic perspectives between German and English. The talk also introduces a methodological model for iterative, interpretive “computational reading” that bridges qualitative and quantitative approaches.

When: January 13, 2026, 10-12 hs

Where:  Zoom 

Zoom link:  https://uni-bielefeld.zoom-x.de/j/67280092106?pwd=Zlzqqy980r2N7I1wTktAbbV33tCBaj.1

Playing with culture: games as heritage, from preservation to reuse [Nov 26, online, @14:00 CET]

Europeana Webinar – Playing with culture: games as heritage, from preservation to reuse

Video games are an engaging way to interact with cultural heritage – entertaining a captive audience with historical periods, facts and with tangible and intangible culture. In this webinar we will explore the video game as a cultural artefact in its own right.

This webinar is organised by Europeana Foundation in association with EFGAMP (European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects)

Video games can also be seen as cultural artefacts which require careful preservation, that can be reused in their own right, and whose gameplay is in itself a form of intangible heritage. In this webinar we will explore the video game as a cultural artefact – diving into preservation, archiving, and reuse case studies with speakers from EFGAMP network, before discovering some of the ways that video games can be used to disseminate digital cultural heritage material with other speakers. This will be followed by a panel discussion with the speakers.

Confirmed speakers are:

  • Andreas Lange, European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects
  • Winfried Bergmeyer, International Computer Game Collection
  • Wytze Koppelman, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
  • Gabriele Aroni, Manchester University
  • Lucia Gambardella, Studio Macaco
  • Hosted by Fiona Mowat, Europeana Foundation

Registration: https://pretix.eu/Europeana-Foundation/Playing-with-culture/