Archival Historical Research with Tropy

"When you return from the archives with hundreds or thousands of research photos, making sense of them can feel like trying to escape a labyrinth. "

In our second 2019 workshop, Sean Takats will introduce you to the free software package Tropy, and help you to manage the process of taking, saving, and describing photos of archival materials.

Who is the workshop aimed at?

The workshop is designed for anybody who is interested in managing large collections of images, and especially images generated in the course of archival research. Tropy is a flexible system with an orientation to collaboration, longevity, and intuitive commonsense design. It helps you to transform an intimidating pile of potentially interesting stuff into an adaptable organisation system, where it's easy to tag and annotate images, group them into individual documents and objects, conduct searches and collaborate with others.

What do I need to bring?

You'll need a laptop with a wi-fi connection (and preferably eduroam), and permission to downloaded and install software. Ideally, you should install Tropy beforehand.

If you don't have a working laptop, we can usually supply one or two from the Lab's cache.

I can't make it! Will I be able to go to the later workshops in the series?

Yes! Each workshop is a standalone. But if you are a relative newcomer to the digital humanities, this would be a good entry point. We will make materials available online after the workshop.

About Sean Takats

Sean Takats is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Art History and Director of Research at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM). His research focuses on early modern France, the Enlightenment, and the digital humanities.

During his visit, Sean will also be giving a lecture on 'Subjectivity and Digital Research' (Sussex Humanities Lab, Monday 18 February, 16:00-17:00).