Conference Agenda

Archives have become a central point of discussion and activism within queer and feminist communities internationally and locally during the past few years. Building on and referencing work by Ann Cvetkovich (2003) and Jack Halberstam (2005) amongst others, gay, lesbian, queer, and feminist cultural heritage institutions have sprung up. In Sweden, “arkivism” (Larsson Pousette & Thomsgård 2021) around collecting materials from historically marginalized groups has resulted in the recent establishment of two queer archives (QRAB and SAQMI) and one archive for Black Swedes (Black Archives Sweden) that specifically lifts queer stories within the Black Swedish community. This is a new wave of archives-building – KvinnSam, the National Library for Gender Research was the result of similar organizing in the late 1950s. Despite the long history of work with feminist and queer materials, how the collections and major themes of this kind of broader feminist and queer archival work are represented and made visible in platforms for Swedish cultural heritage is still an unexplored question.

Researchers and librarians have devoted much time to developing, testing, and analyzing indexing standards and practices that allow for thematized search. Work on feminist and queer metadata systems has exploded in the past few years, spurred by the development of Homosaurus, a linked open data vocabulary, which has been partially translated into Swedish and applied to Swedish literature in the project Queerlit (Golub, Bergenmar & Humlesjö 2023). However, archival collections and description practices are quite different from indexing practices for printed materials. As a result, there has been little development of archival metadata that facilitates thematic searches for “hidden” or “ghostly” materials and themes within physical collections (for work on archival ghosts, see Harris 2021). This paper aims to lay some groundwork for that development.

Just because the metadata is good does not mean that it is visible or usable. Johanna Drucker (2014) has long argued for a humanistic approach to digital infrastructure design that recognizes the arguments embedded in such design. It is worth thinking about what information is prioritized and what information is made invisible, and how platform design directs users to seek out particular kinds of information in particular ways. Further, there is plenty of research on the naivete of researchers, who often think that all information and data has made its way into digital databases, when this is far from true (for a Swedish example, see Weber 2022).

This assumption that databases are complete is an especially dangerous situation for materials related to women, gender, sexuality, and queer themes, given traditional descriptive practices for archives, which privilege certain kinds of lives and achievements based in a normative definition of male public-facing work and hide non-normative or traditionally female-coded work and life. This is as true for Sweden as it is for other places, as Anna Nordenstam (2008) notes. Digital humanist Tara McPherson (2014) has argued that “If a core activity of the digital humanities has been the building of tools, we should design our tools differently, in a mode that explicitly engages power and difference from the get-go, laying bare our theoretical allegiances and exploring the inter-actions of culture and matter” (p. 182).

This paper will build on an initial study of searching the Swedish cultural heritage platform Alvin for queer and feminist histories (Pierce 2024), expanding analysis to the other two large archival databases in Sweden, Arken and NAD (the National Archival Database). Together, these platforms represent over 200 institutions and archival divisions, meaning that they represent the vast majority of Sweden’s archival holdings available via digital channels. These platforms are intended to increase collaboration and research over institutional and disciplinary boundaries, by combining information on archival collections that were often housed, described, and made accessible locally until very recently.

Our study will examine how archival finding aids – the roads into and directions for using physical and digital archival collections – are represented and whether/how they make feminist and queer histories accessible. Initial findings from the examination of Alvin pointed towards problems with the representation of physical archives via finding aids on digital platforms. These problems stem from a set of rules for web design that prioritize visual materials, the promotion of bigness in search functionality, where greater numbers are privileged as relevancy, and the fuzziness of the concept of “archive” within a system where all “documents” (i.e. posts) are considered equal and distinct. All of these tendencies are at odds with the structure and descriptive rules that govern archival finding aids.

This study will examine these three platforms on a number of levels. First, we will assess the search functionality of each platform, analyzing which search routes are facilitated by the platform and which are not. Second, we will examine how search via free text functions in contrast to using subject words. Third, we will examine how subject headings are used, if they are used at all. Fourth, we will examine how each platform constructs a post/document. How open or closed are these posts, in terms of links and the facilitation of what historian Laura Putnam (2016) terms “side-glancing,” a particular kind of archives-based browsing? And fifth, we will examine three archival finding aids that appear most centrally positioned within lesbian and feminist history on each of the three platforms as defined by our searches. How is this post/document/finding aid structured, and why does this result in its relevancy across our array of searches?

An examination of NAD and Arken compliments the Alvin analysis through comparison. Arken is a very small database for the Swedish National Library (KB) and Umeå University, which includes both finding aids and digitized materials. Given that KB also controls the national subject word list, the inclusion of this platform is significant. NAD is the largest database for finding aids in Sweden, with well over 150 institutions represented. Overlaps between NAD and the other two platforms exist, in part because almost all institutions with special collections have, at one point or another, prioritized the outreach that NAD can offer. This is a database that most historians in Sweden consider as a one-stop shop for archives. It is also a database and platform under threat, underfunded to such an extent that it can no longer be updated by the National Archives let alone developed to accommodate digitized material, a situation that may lead to its eventual demise (Isacson, et al. 2023). A truncated free text search gives a result of 15 013 168 records for NAD, 62 511 records for Arken and 433 233 records for Alvin (Search conducted 2024-01-12).

In the case of NAD, the database is clearly developed by and for archivists, meaning that researchers familiar with archives will feel at home. However, NAD is poorly equipped for current digital humanities thinking or, indeed, users without significant experience in archives. The database is built for finding aids, although digitized materials are now available. The metadata produced for the platform is minimal and does not facilitate browsing. And the most used areas for archival description do not lend themselves to digital search. A search for “protokoll” (approved meeting notes) will turn up every organizational archive in NAD. Interlinked organizational and personal names offer the only non-hierarchical search options, obscuring thematic overlaps between collections. NAD’s main strength is its scope combined with the uniformity of its record metadata, making it possible to provide general search instructions. These strengths mean that feminist and queer archival material seems quite findable, but the representativity (are materials only reflective of post-WWII histories?) and thoroughness of search results are hard to determine.

Arken is a much smaller search service developed and managed by the Royal Library (KB) for its own special collections materials, including finding aids and digitized materials. Umeå University recently joined the platform, moving from Alvin. UU also has records in NAD. The database is built upon the open-source web application AtoM (Access to Memory) and adheres to international standards set forth by the International Council of Archives. This is by far the easiest platform to navigate, regardless of prior experience in archives. However, subject headings do not seem to be applied in a systematic way, and there is nearly non-existent metadata related to feminist and queer histories. Given the much smaller nature of Arken, search results reflect an historical erasure of these histories.

The Alvin paper identified areas for potential development that will be further explored in this paper. In particular, relationships and networks between individuals, organizations, themes, and archival holdings might be made more central to website design, to facilitate queer and feminist search across archives and institutions without labeling individuals as lesbians or feminists – a politically and historically dubious approach. While NAD does not apply keywords and has very limited operationalization of linking and Alvin fails to interlink its subject words, this kind of network approach has been applied to some degree within Arken via linked subject headings attached to archival finding aids, to facilitate thematic search.

Further exploration of these platforms will have two concrete benefits. First, institutions like KvinnSam will be able to develop finding aids and metadata that ensure the visibility of their materials for women’s, gender, and queer researchers, as well as a broader research community that has perhaps overlooked the relevancy of this kind of archival material. In other words, greater findability can assist in integrating women’s, gender, and queer history into national and international studies that do not explicitly focus on these topics. Second, the study will lay the groundwork for the further development of platforms for archives in Sweden, in ways that take into account but also look beyond the traditional hierarchical finding aid structure and capitalize on the insights of queer and feminist archives scholars. Development of platforms that facilitate access to archival materials must be based in and facilitate dialogue across the divide between cultural heritage professionals, researchers, and the general public, in order to build sustainable access to historical collections.

The usefulness of research infrastructures (RIs) for digital humanities (DH) and computational social sciences (CSS) depends on their capability to support research work tasks. RIs can provide more effective support and services when they have a clear understanding of the work practices and specific tasks researchers are engaged in. This paper explores the ways of working of social sciences and humanities (SSH) scholars to develop resources that truly endorse their data-intensive research processes. Particularly, the study investigates how SSH scholars interact with digital tools and materials to both determine their information needs and how to better support them. A qualitative analysis of 21 semi-structured interviews with potential end-users of a national RI for the DH and CSS that is currently under development revealed three themes: digitizing SSH research, meeting the information needs related to DH/CSS, and supporting DH/CSS research. Based on our findings, we were able to create an understanding of the work task-based requirements of SSH scholars that can be used to inform designs for improved RIs. Suggestions for enhancing the sustainability of resources and services in SSH are also put forth, emphasizing the importance of understanding and accommodating the unique scholarly practices within these fields.

This text presents lessons learned from KUB Datalabs digital humanities (DH) course development and is based on students evaluations and on dialogue between staff at the library and at faculty of humanities.

The courses, that we defines as course-integrated instructions incorporate DH in courses that do not have a DH tone as a starting point[1].

We experience that researchers in their role as teachers ask the library to contribute with DH modules that can be incorporated in their courses. This paper looks into that trend. Many humanistic courses deals with elements that is attached to the digital in some extent, and the teachers see an opportunity to include DH. We also experience that students have an interest in studying text and image material from online communities. Especially online sub cultures is a hot subject among students, and the teachers wish to meet this interest from the students to work more with digital sources.

It is not only on the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities, at DH is introduces in few modules on courses, where DH is not the core content. Also on other universities do library staff contribute on courses, where it is not a demand that the students submit and are examined in a DH assignment[2].

It is an exciting challenge to teach on these courses, because the intense frame demands that there in the planning situation is considered different types of tools and exemplary methods in order to get DH proper didacticized, so it is relevant for the students in precise that context, where they are in that single or in those few modules. The evaluations and our feedback shows that we do not always get it right, and that the timing in relation to the students' academic level is important.

When the KUB Datalab enter into a collaboration, that deals with the development of a DH course it starts with a dialogue about the frame and the content. The most important part in relation to the frame is the scope of the course, because the scope will be of decisive importance for the content of the course. KUB Datalab would normally offer between one or three modules as course-integrated instruction. In addition to the modules, students have the opportunity to consult the library staff, which is especially useful for those who choose to include digital technologies in their exam papers.

The text also presents the challenges of teaching DH the interesting framework. We have the intensive courses on one module, where we often limit the content to no-code software and online platforms (Voyant, Orange, DraCor etc.), because this give us an opportunity to illustrate the purpose of DH methods in a limited period of time. However, the problem is in relation to complexity that we can only hint at its scope and depth. This means that methodological issues, technological issues, and digital challenges in relation to using DH within the subject remain a black box. No-code software makes frequent use of linkage, distance, clustering and dimensionality algorithms, which form the cornerstone of data mining[3]. It is central elements in software educations, but of course, it is not elements that fits into a course that may have an ambition to introduce DH methods, but which is not toned towards a basic understanding of the digital.

We have the courses that consist of two to three modules, where we often organize a tailored content that illustrates a workflow that the students can follow in order to safely reach the goal with a result that they can include if they choose to use DH methods in relation to their exam assignment. On the one hand, the completed workflows remove some of the creativity from the part of the assignment that is about selecting methodology, but on the other hand, the students get a chance to focus on other things, such as focusing on problem solving and selection of data, which constitutes a much more important element of a humanistic assignment compared to an assignment in software education. The workflows give the students a starting point, and with a little extra guidance, the students will often be able to use the workflows to examine text collections that they choose themselves.

As can be seen above, this paper contributes to shed light on issues in relation to teaching in DH, which is relevant for other humanities faculties and libraries where DH is incorporated into non-DH toned courses.

Standards for citations and referencing were developed in the late 19th century, and revised and changed during the 20th. It should therefore be a possible task to automatically construct relations between texts based on the citations between them.

We report on work towards building a registry of citations and references for books and articles. This can be used to analyze particular scientific practices and how texts refer to other texts (e.g. Bergmark and Lagoze, 2000, Sivesind and Hörmann 2022). To achieve this within the context of Norwegian scientific and humanities discourse, we focus our efforts on the digitized texts at the National Library of Norway (NLN), which provides documents that are prepared using an OCR-process, and made available for analysis and feature extraction. However, the methods we develop can be used on any collection, as long as it provides a certain window into the texts, in the form of text fragments like concordances. The methods described will fit repositories like Hathi Trust, as well as local collections.

Our aim is twofold, one is to discuss the methods for extracting citations and references from full text, following the work of (Chenet 2017), and the requirements of the repository, and two, how one may go about building a database of citations and references which will represent the network of documents. Each book is associated with a list of other books it refers to together with how they are cited in the particular book.

The method books and references are provided for, which covers both freely available material as well as texts that are under copyright.

As we distinguish between citations and references, we approach these in two ways. We rely on the API to get access to text fragments that will form the basis for the analysis.

For citations we use the concordance extraction available at DH-lab API: 1) select concordances that contain years as four digit numbers, 2) run regular expressions on these to select the citations, if any, within them, and store the concordances with the extracted citation. While this pipeline captures most of the citations, and the citations that are found mostly seem valid, some are still missed. We have used the output of the regular expressions, i.e. keeping the valid citations, to train a machine learning pipeline with spaCy’s SpanCategorizer. The pipeline includes SpanFinder which can help us find more candidate token spans in the text fragments, and the SpanCategorizer scores each candidate with a probability estimate for the target label “CITATION” . We only keep the candidates with a higher score than 50%.

According to the APA style, a simple in-text citation should contain the author’s surname and the publication year inside parentheses: (Wertsch, 2002). The following regular expression captures this format: "([A-Z]([a-z])+,sd{4})". The expression matches parentheses containing one uppercase letter followed by lowercase letters, a comma, a whitespace and four digits. Although similar, this expression does not match (Sture 1437‒1503), because of the lacking comma and the extra dash and year, which indicates a lifespan. We make a subset of the good matches and the bad matches which are subsequently fed to spaCy’s machine learning model.

Within a text, the reference section contains the list of the documents identified by the citations. Here we will report and evaluate two methods for analyzing and linking citations to actual documents.The first method utilizes fragments (concordances) filtered on author names and year of publication. The second method processes the bibliography as an integrated text segment extracted from the entire document. Given that most texts we process are from the 20th century, we carefully consider copyright concerns. Fragments, small or large, should not infringe upon copyright. It's important to note that bibliographies, as compilations of cited works, are generally regarded as non-infringing under copyright law (except if the bibliography itself is the work). We will shed more light on this issue in the presentation.