How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Digital

We are all digital researchers now. Our methods of working, the sources that we choose to use, the ways in which we interact with those sources, and the ways in which we communicate our research findings have all been profoundly affected by the digital. Whether we are interested in epigraphic and papyrological texts or in the history of the web, in Anglo-Saxon charters or in eighteenth-century court records, in text or in moving image, digital tools and methods have the capacity to transform our understandings and offer new insights into old and as yet undreamt of questions. The development of the digital has also supported greater collaboration, openness and interdisciplinarity in humanities research, both by making this technologically possible and by altering the types and breadth of knowledge required to run a successful research project. Drawing on a range of projects and initiatives that encompass data both big and small, this presentation will highlight the possibilities afforded by the digital and the skills that we need to develop in order to shape the evolution of digital humanities research in the coming months and years.