Historical maps are rich cultural artifacts that pose significant challenges for computational analysis. Maps contain a complex assortment of textual and visual elements, including diverse annotations, nonstandard layouts, and numerous symbolic representations. These features complicate the application of conventional optical character recognition (OCR) technologies. This presentation explores the feasibility of using contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) tools to identify handwritten placenames and topographic symbols—such as churches and fortifications—in early modern cartographic materials. The project focuses on the unprinted works of Danish cartographer Johannes Mejer (1606–1674), whose maps can offer unique insight into 17th-century Nordic geography and culture; for instance, Mejer was among the first to chart the region of Skåne prior to its acquisition by Sweden. The corpus comprises over 200 digitized items from the Danish Royal Library, including maps, sketches, and handwritten documents. These copious materials has not been systematically transcribed or analysed thus far, presenting an opportunity to apply AI-based methods to unlock their content. To evaluate the feasibility of currently available AI technologies for handwritten text recognition (HTR) and symbolic image recognition with respect to such historic maps, the project experiments with several AI-drive tools. Initial experiments have been conducted using Transkribus (German Giant model), HTRFlow, and several large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Transkribus has shown limited success in accurately identifying handwritten placenames embedded within cartographic contexts. LLMs are being evaluated for their potential – already demonstrating impressive results; a testing environment is now under development to facilitate the systematic comparison of performance by different LLMs as well as integration with Transkribus and ground truth. DHNB 2026 — Book of Abstracts 166 This work-in-progress explores feasibility for applying of AI towards complex historical documents. We invite feedback and collaboration from researchers with experience in machine learning, historical cartography, and archival digitization.

With the growing availability of free and open-source applications (e.g. Gephi, Python scripts, QGIS) and browser-based tools (e.g. Voyant Suite, OpenRefine, Omeka.Net, Flourish) access to digital technologies is no longer the primary barrier for humanities scholars. Instead, the challenge is discovering the right tools and developing the competencies needed to use them effectively. Fortunately, a wide range of online resources—such as YouTube tutorials, GitHub guides, and platforms like The Programming Historian—offer support for learning digital methods. However, teaching digital methods in the humanities remains complex. Learners vary widely in their technical proficiency, disciplinary backgrounds, research needs, and conceptual understanding. As a result, educational resources reflect diverse pedagogical approaches and assumptions, which are often implicit and rarely articulated. Few studies have systematically examined these resources to understand their pedagogical positioning, making it difficult to match them to specific user groups or learning scenarios. This work-in-progress addresses that gap by focusing on the case of spatial technology instruction in the digital humanities. Spatial technologies are frequently introduced in DH courses, textbooks (e.g. Drucker’s The Digital Humanities Coursebook, 2021), and library guides (e.g. NYU’s DH guide, https://guides.nyu.edu/digital-humanities). Yet outside specialized fields like archaeology or human geography, the use of geographic information systems (GIS) remains relatively rare. GIS tools often require a steep learning curve, technical expertise, and familiarity with complex data formats—posing a high barrier for scholars in non-technical disciplines. Moreover, many forms of humanistic inquiry are not naturally aligned with the literal spatiality demanded by GIS. Scholars such as Franco Moretti and Katherine Hayles have even argued that mapping may conflict with humanistic epistemologies, despite their potential. This dual challenge—technical and conceptual—makes spatial methods an ideal case study for exploring how digital tools are taught and understood in the humanities. To investigate this, the on-going study analyzes thirty open educational resources (OERs) that introduce spatial technologies and techniques to humanists. These resources are drawn from prominent platforms: The Programming Historian (17), Dariah Campus (5), Esri’s GIS for Humanities (6), and DariahTeach (2). The goal is to understand how GIS technologies and spatial methods are presented to learners with primarily humanistic backgrounds. The analysis combines manual thematic coding with computational topic modeling using BERTopic. Thematic analysis has thus far revealed six key attributes in digital method instruction:

Genre: format of the resource (e.g. walkthrough, cookbook, course module, project report)

Use-cases: the research question or problem used to demonstrate the tool’s value

Structure: how the learning content is organized (e.g. step-by-step, essayistic, branching paths)

Technical concepts: explanations of GIS-related ideas (e.g. georeferencing, vector data, integrity testing)

Contextual concepts: non-technical ideas (e.g. spatial theory, gazetteers)

Audience: assumptions about users’ background, proficiency, and motivations

Preliminary topic modeling reveals six clusters of OERs, broadly distinguishing resources by their technical orientation (platform-based vs. coding-based) and topical focus (GIS tools vs. spatial research). These initial findings offer promising insights but also raise further questions. How might the study be enriched by integrating theories of learning or instructional design? Should the scope be expanded to include other document types, such as introductory texts on spatial approaches? Could the framework be applied to other digital methods, such as text analysis or network analysis? By examining how spatial methods are taught to humanists, this study aims to illuminate broader patterns in digital humanities pedagogy and contribute to more effective, inclusive, and theoretically grounded instructional practices. We look forward to critical feedback to support us in this endeavour.

The paper investigates the fragmented landscape of cultural event information in Sweden, focusing on Småland. It aims to assess the potential for a centralized, user-friendly digital platform to enhance discoverability, accessibility, and engagement across cultural audiences and providers.The study combines a review of 82 regional and international cultural event information platforms (CEIPs) with two online surveys conducted in 2023 (n=34) and 2024 (n=23). Survey participants included cultural professionals from regional and municipal organizations in Småland.Municipal CEIPs often lack advanced filtering, multilingual support, and personalization features. Select international platforms demonstrate more sophisticated functionality. Survey data reveal strong interest in a unified platform, with emphasis on integration of information on events, inclusivity, and usability. Key barriers include administrative burden, and long-term maintenance concerns.Results inform the development of a flexible, metadata-rich CEIP prototype aligned with municipal infrastructure and user needs. Recommendations highlight actionable features for developers, municipalities, and cultural institutions.A well-designed platform can improve cultural participation, especially for underserved groups such as newcomers, non-native speakers, and digitally excluded audiences, contributing to greater cultural equity and accessibility. Preserved data on cultural events over time can serve as a basis for planning future cultural policies.This study offers one of the first regional assessments of CEIPs in Sweden, combining platform analysis with stakeholder insight. It identifies best practices across metadata design and interface functionality.

This report presents the results of a national survey on digital practices and needs among researchers in the humanities and related disciplines, as well as professionals in cultural heritage institutions, in Sweden. Conducted by DARIAH Sweden (DARIAH-SE) in coordination with the national research infrastructure Huminfra, the survey provides an empirical basis for Huminfra’s future strategic work and situates Swedish practices within the broader European context shaped by DARIAH-EU.

Based on 208 responses from 195 researchers at 27 higher education institutions and 13 professionals at cultural heritage institutions, the survey shows that digital tools and resources are firmly embedded in everyday research practice. A clear majority of respondents report using digital tools beyond basic applications and working with digital resources across several stages of the research lifecycle. Digital research is no longer confined to the field of digital humanities but permeates routine scholarly work across the humanities, social sciences, and cultural heritage sectors.

At the same time, the findings reveal significant gaps between use, competence, and support. Approximately 40% of respondents report below-adequate proficiency in working with digital tools, and around one third indicate limited awareness of relevant digital resources. These challenges are unevenly distributed across disciplines and career stages. Researchers in the humanities and the arts report the highest levels of below-adequate proficiency, while early-career researchers stand out as particularly affected, showing both low confidence in digital skills and limited awareness of available resources. The results further indicate that digital competence does not simply accumulate with experience: both early-career and senior researchers face distinct challenges, pointing to a need for structured support at multiple points in the research career.

The survey also highlights a highly diverse and fragmented digital tool landscape. Respondents mention over 200 different tools, with data analysis emerging as the most common mode of digital tool use. While this diversity signals openness to experimentation, it also places a substantial burden on individual researchers to identify, evaluate, and maintain complex digital workflows, often with limited methodological guidance. Reported challenges frequently concern basic-level tool use, lack of awareness of advanced functionalities, and difficulties in selecting appropriate tools for specific research tasks.

Training needs emerge as a central theme. Most respondents report having received no formal training in digital tools or resources, despite strong interest in training across areas such as data collection and management, data analysis, visualization, and multimedia work. Preferred training formats are interactive and practice-oriented, underscoring the importance of contextualized and workflow-integrated support.

Finally, awareness of services provided by Huminfra and DARIAH remains low, despite that 64% of the respondents were affiliated with institutions hosting a Huminfra node. Researchers primarily discover tools and resources through informal networks rather than institutional channels, pointing to challenges of mediation and integration rather than relevance or availability.

Taken together, the findings suggest that the central challenge for digital research infrastructures in Sweden is no longer adoption, but integration: stabilizing digital competence, coordinating support in a fragmented tool landscape, and embedding infrastructures and training more deeply into institutional practices and research careers.

Disciplinary literacy refers to the specific literacies required to understand and engage with materials written using the semiotic repertoire unique to a given field (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2017). Traditionally, it bridges language learning and content knowledge, emphasizing modes of communication, such as graphs and charts in the social sciences, that are integral to understanding specific classroom subjects. This proposal extends the concept of disciplinary literacy to include programming as an important literacy for Digital Humanities (DH) education, particularly when integrated with the established framework of computational thinking (Wing, 2006).

Over the past two years, cohorts in the Linnaeus University DH MA program have been introduced to Python scripts in Google Colab as a supplementary component to a first-semester course on digital methods. The course primarily relies on executables with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for assignments in text analysis, network analysis, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Alongside these tools, Python scripts performing similar tasks at a more basic level have been provided within each module. In addition, a similar mode of teaching has been used during the BALADRIA summer schools, with a mixed group of PhD and MA students from different fields and disciplines.

The inclusion of Python scripts is not intended to primarily develop students' practical coding skills, but to foster engagement that builds towards literacy in reading and interpreting code in a similar way to how other introductions to languages are carried out. This foundational literacy aligns with Moje’s 4Es of disciplinary literacy—engaging students in authentic disciplinary practices, eliciting and engineering prior knowledge and experiences, examining the underlying principles and methods, and evaluating their understanding to empower them as actors within the discipline (Moje, 2015). Integration with focus on reading and interpretation can also serve to concretize the decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm steps suggested by computational thinking by showcasing how they result in working code (Wing, 2006).

By framing coding as disciplinary literacy, this presentation will argue for the deliberate integration of programming into DH education as a semiotic mode for engaging with content knowledge. The effects of such integration are discussed with a basis in student evaluations and instructors' teaching experiences.

Bibliography

Moje, E. B. (2015). Doing and teaching disciplinary literacy with adolescent learners: A social and cultural enterprise. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 254–278. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.254

Shanahan, C., & Shanahan, T. (2017). Disciplinary literacy. In Handbook of Writing Research (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33–35. https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215

Textual elements are important features of any map, yet computational identification of words and characters – namely optical character recognition (OCR) - can be challenging given the non-textual features, different textual orientations, overlayed elements, and other complicating aspects of maps. Despite these OCR has been explored for printed maps with typeface text. But little work is currently undertaken applying handwritten text recognition (HTR) on non-printed, handwritten maps. Several openly available HTR tools – such as Transkribus or HTR Flow – are able to capture text from manually written documents, but these tools are usually applied to predominantly textual documents (e.g., letters, manuscripts, diaries). There is little insight into their efficacy regarding cartographic documents.

This on-going project explores the feasibility of current artifical intelligence models for HTR on the historical maps of Danish cartographer Johannes Mejer (1606-1674). Besides learning the capacities of current technologies in this type of media, digitalization of Mejer’s collection can offer insights into a crucial period in Nordic history, preceding the Swedish acquisition of Skåne, which Mejer was the first to chart during this time. Several machine learning applications for HTR – specialized systems such as Transkribus and HTR Flow, as well as general large language models such as GPT5 and Sonnet 4 – are trained and tested. 

After outlining the problem and the methods, including the preparation of AI training/testing material, this presentation reports the findings regarding the performance of currently available machine learning models. Following this, we propose subsequent steps for improved output. We also share preliminary historical insights gleaned from the processing on the Mejer’s works, as well as the overall challenge of applying HTR machine learning for difficult material such as historical maps. In so doing, the project hopes to encourage exploration of machine learning applications with unconventional material with textual elements.

Introduction. This paper explores a challenge for any novel digital intervention: the hesitancy or reluctance among the designated user group.Purpose.The overall purpose is to better understand the hesitant reception of digital innovations through a specific case study. The aim is to further our understanding of resistance towards digital innovation as well as reflect upon the pro-innovation bias of digital development projects.Method. Multiple sources were combined: data collected within the case project and conducted document analysis of project documentation.Results.Labor and maintenance were the main reasons behind stakeholder hesitancy, as well as concerns regarding the hosting, funding, and local relevance of the proposed innovation. Conclusion. The assumption that digitization is inherently beneficial shaped the direction of the case project. Yet ongoing cultural changes and current adaptations must be understood to ensure a new digital solution is actually needed. As researchers we must pay enough attention to relevant local conditions by critically engaging with the innovation process of the project itself. This requires looking pass the pro-innovation bias.  

To ensure the systematic, coherent and rational description of objects in and across collections, metadata standards for subject indexing have therefore been established. These metadata standards have evolved over time to accommodate changing needs, growing and diversifying collections, and emerging digital affordances. Yet, for numerous reasons, subject metadata are neither fully nor rigorously implemented in many of today’s catalogues – whether in the backend indices or the front-end end-user interfaces – to the detriment of users. Online public library catalogues, discovery services, journal article databases, university repositories and museum catalogues all demonstrate shortcomings in how subject metadata are integrated, consolidated and leveraged (Golub 2016; Golub 2018; Golub et al. 2020; Golub, Ziolkowski and Zlodi 2022). Properly incorporated, subject metadata could greatly improve the discovery of objects within collections and (because collections are increasingly connected online) the reconciliation of descriptive information across different collections for better cross-database searching. On the other hand, digital technologies could make standardised subject access finally realise the potential always envisioned for it. To make this argument, we explore subject access and associated metadata standards in library and museum cataloguing. 

Outside certain domains within the humanities (e.g. archaeology, spatial history) the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) remains relatively uncommon. There are several reasons for this. The complexity of GIS systems themselves entails a steep learning-curve along with requiring familiarity with sophisticated technical systems and data formats, setting a high threshold for scholars and students in non-technical fields. Moreover, despite notable exceptions, much humanistic inquiry is not inherently predisposed to engage with spatiality in the literal manner demanded by GIS, lacking a justification to engage with a technology requiring such a large upfront investment. Some, such as Moretti and Hayles, have gone so far as to describe mapping and GIS as fundamentally at odds within humanistic epistemology, despite its enormous potential.

Faced with these concerns and tasked with developing an open educational resource (OER) introducing GIS to humanists, the authors undertook an exploration of comparable OERs. The current paper reports how GIS is introduced to humanities-based scholars and enthusiasts through various learning resources platforms: The Programming Historian (17 OERs), Dariah Campus (5), Esri’s GIS for Humanities (6), and DariahTeach (2). The purpose of the survey is to understand how the technology and methods of GIS are presented to primarily humanistically-based learners. The OERs are subjected to a content analysis along three distinct dimensions:

Audience: What do the OERs assume about their audiences (motivations, backgrounds, desired outcomes, skillsets)?Method: How are GIS framed (utility, use-cases, affordances, accessibility)?Instruction: What conceptual and technical elements are covered (procedures, functionalities, workflows, resources)?By analysing these aspects of the OERs sampled and using our own OER in development to highlight the insights gleaned, the paper hopes to present a clearer understanding of OER development and instruction more generally within the humanities with respect to more complex and esoteric digital methods.

Linnaeus University (Linnéuniversitetet, LNU) is an international public university in the province of Småland, Sweden. LNU was founded in 2010 by a merger of the former Växjö University and Kalmar University, and currently has approximately 44,000 enrolled students. The university is currently Sweden’s sixth largest in terms of student numbers. It has 600 partner universities in more than 80 countries around the world.

Over the past decade, there has been a distinct emphasis on the Digital Humanities at LNU through a variety of initiatives, all focused on fostering interdisciplinary expertise in the Humanities, data analysis, cultural heritage, and ICTs. Best described as a decentralized collaborative culture, DH at LNU includes knowledge environments (e.g. Digital Transformations), centers of excellence (e.g. the Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications), and the iInstitute (the local center for the international iSchools consortium). LNU was the first Swedish university to join DARIAH and is now leading the bid for national membership. In 2016, Linnaeus established a Digital Humanities Hub to focus on data-intensive digital humanities, leading to the implementation of digital humanities as a research and teaching subject at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and to the Digital Humanities MA programme. This programme is being offered in English to international students, who benefit from being able to take advantage of the worldwide iSchools agreement for virtual student and faculty exchange. As part of the work of the DH Hub and the iInstitute, LNU was recently granted funding for a national PhD school in digital humanities, an initiative between four Swedish universities. In this presentation we will outline the original vision for fostering DH at Linnaeus University, reflect on the challenges and successes of the past few years and present general ideas on how to facilitate DH at the intersection of multiple disciplines.