Between the Chairs: An Interdisciplinary Career

The author was one of the earliest representatives of computer applications within historical research in Germany, later being appointed to the first professorship for computer applications in the Humanities in Germany outside of linguistics. The following text describes his experiences as part of that development, which lead from the beginnings in the seventies to the current state of “Digital Humanties”. His view on this development of an interdisciplinary area left him with rather mixed memories: behind a sparkling front story of an enfolding field, he frequently had the feeling, that there was a tendency to ignore the huge epistemic potential of a serious attempt to apply computer science to the field of history in favor of glamorous but shallow short term goals

A draft proposal for a standard for the coding of machine readable sources

'Maschinenlesbare Quellen' werden alle Darstellungen einer Quelle auf einem Computer genannt, die von quellenorientierter Datenverarbeitung genutzt werden. Damit werden Daten erfaßt, die bedeutende Textteile zusammen mit codierten Informationen enthalten - wie in den Datenbanken demographischer Forschung verfügbar. Außerdem wird Material einbezogen, daß fast vollständig aus Text besteht, wenn auch aus sehr kleinen Einheiten, die grob strukturiert sind - Material also, wie es in den Datenbasen der mikroanalytischen Forschung existiert. Außerdem werden schließlich mehr oder weniger uncodierte Darstellungen fortlaufender maschinenlesbarer Texte erfaßt - wie sie normalerweise aus mit Hilfe des Computers erstellten Bearbeitungstechniken resultieren. Drei Ziele werden verfolgt: (1) die Darstellung eines Vorschlags für einen allgemeinen Standard zur Beschreibung und Definition von Inputformaten, die bei der Verarbeitung von maschinenlesbaren historischen Materialien benutzt werden; (2) die Unterbreitung eines Vorschlags für eine generelle Definition eines maschinenlesbaren Formats, in dem soziale Daten formal für eine Austauschprogramm beschrieben wird; (3) die Erstellung eines Arbeitspapiers für die Arbeit über das Softwaresystem, das als CLIO/C bekannt ist. (KWübers.)'Machine readable sources' we call all representations of a source on an electronic computer which are used by source-oriented data processing. So we include data, which contain significant portions of text along with coded information - as available in the data bank of demographic research (in its broadest meaning); we include at the same time material which consists almost completely of text, but of very small units of it, being heavily structured - material, that is, as it exists in the data bases of microanalytical research; and we also include, finally, more or less uncoded representations of continuous machinereadable texts as usually resulting from computer aided editing techniques.' (author's abstract

Controversies around the digital humanities: an agenda

"Observations on the current stage of the Digital Humanities and their environment identify four dangers: (1) The focus on infrastructures for the Digital Humanities may obscure that research ultimately is driven by analytical methods and tools, not just by the provision of data or publishing tools. (2) Information technology can support the Humanities in many forms and national traditions. That textual analysis is much discussed right now, should not hide the view of a broader disciplinary field. (3) The mobile revolution looming may once again lead to a repetition of highly destructive processes observed at the PC and the internet revolutions. (4) The Digital Humanities may have to take a much stronger part in the development, not only the reception, of technology. - A series of concrete and controversial questions, which allow the discussion of some of these trends, is derived." (author's abstract