The lab,
on the record.
Texts and lectures by members of the lab on oral history and the history of computing in the historical and humanities disciplines.
Open versions are linked where available, with abstracts, manuscripts, slides and posters labelled by type. The lab’s Zotero group gives direct access to the texts and their bibliographic metadata.
Books
- 4Records
- 2016–2023Years
On Making in the Digital Humanities: The scholarship of digital humanities development in honour of John Bradley
Nyhan, J., Rockwell, G., Sinclair, S., & Ortolja-Baird, A. (Eds.). (2023). On Making in the Digital Humanities: The scholarship of digital humanities development in honour of John Bradley. UCL Press.
Hidden and Devalued Feminized Labour in the Digital Humanities
Nyhan, J. (2022). Hidden and Devalued Feminized Labour in the Digital Humanities: On the Index Thomisticus Project 1954-67. Routledge.
One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words
Nyhan, J., & Passarotti, M. (Eds.). (2019). One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words. Springer International Publishing.
Computation and the Humanities
Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2016). Computation and the Humanities: Towards an Oral History of Digital Humanities. Springer International Publishing.
Articles
- 3Records
- 2015–2024Years
2024
Democratising Access? The interface of new technologies and archived life stories
Flinn, A., Boyd, D., Morgan, C., & Nyhan, J. (2024). Democratising Access? The interface of new technologies and archived life stories. Oral History Journal: The Life Story in Oral History Practice, 52(3), 102–109.
2023
Exploring the possibilities of Thomson’s fourth paradigm transformation - The case for a multimodal approach to digital oral history?
Smyth, H. K., Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2023). Exploring the possibilities of Thomson’s fourth paradigm transformation - The case for a multimodal approach to digital oral history? Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 38(2), 720–736.
2015
Oral History and the Hidden Histories project: Towards histories of computing in the humanities
Nyhan, J., Flinn, A., & Welsh, A. (2015). Oral History and the Hidden Histories project: Towards histories of computing in the humanities. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 30(1), 71–85.
Book chapters
- 5Records
- 2019–2026Years
2026
Oral History as Data: Multimodal Approaches to Analysis and Interpretation
Flinn, A., Nyhan, J., & Smyth, H. (2026). Oral History as Data: Multimodal Approaches to Analysis and Interpretation. In A. Freund, E. Jessee, & A. Thomson (Eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Oral History. Bloomsbury Academic.
2023
The history of the ‘techie’ in the history of digital humanities
Nyhan, J. (2023). The history of the ‘techie’ in the history of digital humanities. In J. Nyhan, G. Rockwell, S. Sinclair, & A. Ortolja-Baird (Eds.), On Making in the Digital Humanities: The scholarship of digital humanities development in honour of John Bradley (pp. 129–147). UCL Press.
2022
Oral History and the (Digital) Humanities
Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2022). Oral History and the (Digital) Humanities. In H. Paul (Ed.), Writing the History of the Humanities: Questions, Themes, and Approaches (pp. 153–170). Bloomsbury Academic.
2019
Introduction, or why busa still matters
Passarotti, M., & Nyhan, J. (2019). Introduction, or why busa still matters. In J. Nyhan & M. Passarotti (Eds.), One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words (pp. 1–17). Springer International Publishing.
“A Tall, Stooping Figure in Black Crossing the Courtyard”: Philip Barras’ Recollections of Roberto Busa S.J.
Barras, P., & Nyhan, J. (2019). “A Tall, Stooping Figure in Black Crossing the Courtyard”: Philip Barras’ Recollections of Roberto Busa S.J. In J. Nyhan & M. Passarotti (Eds.), One Origin of Digital Humanities: Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words (pp. 221–227). Springer International Publishing.
Peer-reviewed and invited conference papers
- 28Records
- 2017–2026Years
2026
Hermeneutic Ontology Engineering: LLM-Assisted Schema Induction for Oral History Knowledge Organisation
Zhang, J., Vlachidis, A., & Nyhan, J. (2026). NKOS Workshop 2026 at DCMI 2026, Seoul, South Korea. In press, DCMI 2026 Conference Proceedings.
Modelling the memory of Digital Humanities through LLM-Driven Hermeneutic Framework
Zhang, J., Vlachidis, A., Nyhan, J., & Elleringmann, F. (2026). Digital Humanities 2026, Daejeon, South Korea. Abstract in the DH2026 Book of Abstracts.
Designing an Ontology of Memory and Recollection: Experiences from the Mixed Methods Digital Oral History (MeDoraH) project
Vlachidis, A., Zhang, J., & Nyhan, J. (2026). iConference 2026, Digital Memory Panel, Edinburgh, UK.
Exploring International Knowledge Exchange During the Late and Post–Cold War Period Through Mailing List Archives
Humbel, M., Prishchepova, V., Varfolomeyev, A., Zhang, J., Nyhan, J., & Vlachidis, A. (2026). Workshop: History of Digital History between East and West, C²DH, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
The potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) in Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development, promise or peril?
Vlachidis, A., Zhang, J., Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2026). TELL Winter School 2026, Trans-European Learning Libraries, Thessaloniki, Greece.
2025
Implementing FAIR principles for interoperable oral history collections through mappings to Dublin Core
Humbel, M., Vlachidis, A., Zhang, J., Schmidt, F., Prishchepova, V., Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2025). MTSR 2025, 19th International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research, Thessaloniki, Greece. In press, Communications in Computer and Information Science (Springer).
Mixed-Methods Digital Oral History: Enfolding semantic web technologies and historical-interpretative analysis
Nyhan, J., Vlachidis, A., Flinn, A., Humbel, M., Schmidt, F., & Zhang, J. (2025). Poster, DFG event celebrating the 100th funded project, Germany.
Towards a Network of Recollection in Oral Histories
Zhang, J., Schmidt, F., Vlachidis, A., Humbel, M., Nyhan, J., Flinn, A., Prishchepova, V., Varfolomeyev, A., & Elleringmann, F. (2025). The Connected Past 2025, Coimbra, Portugal.
Leveraging mailing list archives for digital history research: A case study on mining the Humanist discussion group
Humbel, M., Zhang, J., Prishchepova, V., Varfolomeyev, A., Nyhan, J., & Vlachidis, A. (2025). UCL Festival of Digital Research, Innovation & Scholarship, London, UK.
Mixed-methods Digital Oral History: Reflections on Limits, Horizons and Emerging Findings
Nyhan, J. (2025). Offenes Forschungskolloquium Digital History, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. Invited lecture.
Oral History as Data? Critically approaching the digital turn in method, meaning and recollection
Nyhan, J. (2025). UCLDH Susan Hockey Lecture 2025, London, UK.
On the born-digital turn in oral history: recharting and reimagining the cultural circuit?
Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2025). DigiCAM25: Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory Conference, London, UK.
Possibilities / impossibilities for shared authority in the digital oral history paradigm?
Flinn, A., & Nyhan, J. (2025). European Social Science History Conference 2025, Leiden, Netherlands.
2024
Towards a multimodal oral history: Prospects and dangers for oral history in the digital age
Nyhan, J. (2024). Korean Oral History Association 15th anniversary symposium, Seoul, South Korea.
Contesting, Remaking, and Reimagining Absence among and with Digital Methods: A 3-Project Based Examination
Nyhan, J. (2024). MPIWG Digital Humanities Brown Bag Lunch, Berlin, Germany.
Exploring uncertainty and laughter in oral histories – multimodal digital oral history approaches
Nyhan, J., & Flinn, A. (2024). 2024 IFPH World Conference of Public History, Belval.
Histories of Digital History: An Integral Part of the History of the Humanities?
Zaagsma, G., Flinn, A., Nyhan, J., Lejeune, E., & Weber, K. (2024). The Making of the Humanities XI, Lund (Panel 9A).
2023
New Sources for the History of the Humanities: Exploring oral history sources
Nyhan, J. (2023). History of the Humanities: Stories, Sources, and Challenges Summer school, Leiden, Netherlands.
Democratising access? The interface of new technologies and archived life stories.
Flinn, A., Boyd, D., Morgan, C., & Nyhan, J. (2023). The Life Story in Oral History Practice: A Two-Day International Symposium, London.
Oral History in the Digital Age [Keynote]
Nyhan, J. (2023). International Summer School “Oral History Meets European Studies. Sources, Tools and Methods in the Digital Age”, Luxembourg.
Towards a Digital Hermeneutic Proving Ground? Multimodal Oral History: Prospects and Limits [Keynote]
Nyhan, J. (2023). Digital Hermeneutics II: Sources, Analysis, Interpretation, Annotation, Curation, Hagen.
2020
Where does the history of the Digital Humanities fit in the longer history of the Humanities? Reflections on the historiography of the ‘old’ in the work of Fr Roberto Busa S.J.
Nyhan, J. (2020). The Inevitable Turn: Challenges and Perspectives in Humanities Computing, Milan.
2019
New findings and new questions about the origins of Digital Humanities: On the state of the art of histories of the Index Thomisticus project of Fr Roberto Busa S.J.
Nyhan, J. (2019). Invited Lecture for the ‘New Horizons: Confronting the Digital Turn in the Humanities’ seminar series at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
2018
Voices heard, voices silenced: On hidden contributions to the emergence of Digital Humanities c.1954-67
Nyhan, J. (2018). British Society for the History of Mathematics meeting, History of Computing beyond the computer, Oxford.
2017
Uncovering ‘hidden’ contributions to the history of Digital Humanities: The Index Thomisticus’ female keypunch operators
Nyhan, J., & Terras, M. (2017). Digital Humanities 2017, Montréal.
Reverse Engineering the First Humanities Computing Center.
Jones, S. E., Nyhan, J., Rockwell, G., Sinclair, S., & Terras, M. (2017). Digital Humanities 2017, Montréal.
The social history of Digital Humanities: An oral history perspective
Nyhan, J. (2017). The Making of the Humanities VI conference, Oxford.
What are the longer-term origins of the asymmetrical power structures that shape so much of the practice of Digital Humanities
Nyhan, J. (2017). ITUG-Jahrestagung, Darmstadt.
Workshops
- 1Record
- 2011Year
Lecture series
- 2Records
- 2022–2024Years
Voices Unbound: Lecture Series on Digital Oral History (2024)
A lecture series co-organised by TU Darmstadt, University College London, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) and the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte. We invited speakers to present work on recent technological developments that may hold promise for digital oral history. The seminar series aims to appeal to (digital) oral historians, digital humanists and scholars of the history of information, memory and knowledge systems.
Multimodal Digital Oral History (2022)
This seminar series was organised by the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg, TU Darmstadt, and University College London. Multimodal Digital Oral History engages with oral history artefacts in all their representational modalities: transcript, sound, waveform, metadata and more. They are positioned as analytical categories of inquiry and also as sites of data-driven analysis; where reflexivity is a core aspect of digitally-mediated research; and as an endeavour that nevertheless remains attuned to oral history as a subjective and intersubjective meaning-making process, situated in space, time, culture and technology.
Related research
Further research by team members that is thematically or methodologically related, but does not formally belong to one of the OHL projects, is listed below.
- 7Records
- 2021–2025Years
2025
The Semantics of Emotion: Exploring Synonym Rings to Evaluate Emotive Contexts in Translations Across Sinhala and English
Alahapperuma, M., & Vlachidis, A. (2025). In M. Sfakakis, E. Garoufallou, M. Damigos, A. Salaba, & C. Papatheodorou (Eds), Metadata and Semantic Research (pp. 349–362). Springer Nature Switzerland.
Decentralising digital humanities: Exploring blockchain technology and ‘web3’ for the Sloane Lab and Towards a National Collection (TaNC)
Valeonti, F., Vlachidis, A., Nyhan, J., Bikakis, A., Kotarski, R., & Jovanovic, P. (2025). Journal of Documentation, 81(1).
2024
Socio-cultural challenges in collections digital infrastructures
Humbel, M., Nyhan, J., Pearlman, N., Vlachidis, A., Hill, J. D., & Flinn, A. (2024). Journal of Documentation, 81(1), 56–85.
Investigating absences in cultural heritage collections: A Sloane Lab case study
Metilli, D., Hughes, A., Vlachidis, A., & Nyhan, J. (2024). Digital Humanities 2024, Arlington, VA, U.S.A.
Exploring Cultural Heritage Collections: The Sloane Lab Knowledge Base.
Metilli, D., Vlachidis, A., Pearlman, N., Sadek, J., Valeonti, F., & Nyhan, J. (2024). UCL Festival of Digital Research & Scholarship, London, UK.
2022
Natural language processing for under-resourced languages: Developing a Welsh natural language toolkit
Cunliffe, D., Vlachidis, A., Williams, D., & Tudhope, D. (2022). Computer Speech & Language, 72, 101311.
2021
Named Entity Recognition for early-modern textual sources: A review of capabilities and challenges with strategies for the future
Humbel, M., Nyhan, J., Vlachidis, A., Sloan, K., & Ortolja-Baird, A. (2021). Journal of Documentation.