ABSTRACT
In the last twenty years, a series of high-profile projects in the Digital Humanities have revolutionized the research and teaching environments of British and Irish history. The accessibility of material electronically enables students wherever they are situated to conduct much of their archival research online, without having to leave the comfort of their office. Early English Books Online, State Papers Online, and British History Online, among others, provide easy access (with an institutional subscription) to an enormous body of primary source material, albeit as stand-alone resources. The majority of these digital archives, however, are essentially image repositories, with limited functionality beyond a basic word search and image enhancement. 1 Moreover, there is no means of comparing or integrating data outside of these research silos. The latest challenge, therefore, for those working in the field of Digital Humanities is to move beyond these early prototypes and develop something more sophisticated, with a greater potential for tackling complex research questions. A high degree of interoperability is absolutely crucial, linking data across a number of different archives and datasets. In particular, projects comprising visual material and tabular data require a highly structured methodological approach to enable their effective use as a research tool.
