The DICIS (Digital Cinema Studies) network and the Early Cinema in Scotland research project are thrilled to introduce Dr Sharon Howard, University of Sheffield, who will be leading a workshop on data sharing and linking datasets. This event is part of the 'What is Cinema History?' conference, organised in collaboration with the HoMER Network (History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception).

The workshop is free to attend but places are limited. You do not need to be attending the conference to participate in this workshop, but if there is a waiting list preference will be given to registered delegates.

Connecting histories: an introduction to effective data sharing and linkage for historians

Transforming historians' sources into datasets that can be shared, linked and analysed using digital methods is highly challenging.

Historical sources are often intrinsically messy, complex and ambiguous, and difficult to convert into electronic formats that computers can understand. It's also a challenge for historians themselves: while grappling with the complexity of sources is a central part of the historian's training, the complexities of data and the demands of computers are far less familiar. This workshop will provide a practical introduction to methods and problems of creating and connecting historical datasets.

Dr Sharon Howard has managed and lead some of the most groundbreaking digital history projects in the UK and the development of tools and methodologies to make digitised sources much more discoverable and useful for historians and the public. Based at the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, some of the projects she has managed since 2006 include Old Bailey Online, London Lives, Locating London’s Past and Connected Histories  She is currently the project manager for the Digital Panopticon, an AHRC-funded collaboration between several British and Australian universities, using digital technologies to bring together genealogical, biometric and criminal justice datasets to explore the impact of different types of punishments on the lives of 90,000 people sentenced at The Old Bailey between 1780 and 1875. Sharon's published historical research focuses on Early Modern crime/legal history, women and gender.