News & Events

'Datafication of Historical Sources with AI: a Practical WorkshopLink opens in a new window' was held on 5 February 2026 in the George Green Library, University of Nottingham. It was organised by Liudmila Lyagushkina.

The event attracted significant interest from PhD students across 10 different universities, representing disciplines such as History, Law, Classics, Archaeology, and Economics. Most attendees were funded by the ESRC MGS DTP or the AHRC M4C DTP.

The program featured guest speakers from the Alan Turing Institute, the University of Cambridge, the Science Museum, and the University of Sheffield. Presentations covered a "Brief History of Language Modelling" and a roundtable discussion on the practical application of AI in heritage research, specifically focusing on Automatic Text Recognition and the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) as research assistants.

In the afternoon, participants engaged in hands-on sessions using Google Colab to connect to OpenAI GPT models. These sessions demonstrated how to extract information from various historical sources, including unrecognised tables and Excel spreadsheets. Approximately one-third of the attendees brought their own data to test these AI methodologies.

Organizers noted that the high engagement demonstrated the relevance of AI across different disciplines. For those interested in the technical aspects, materials remain available via the workshop's GitHubLink opens in a new window page.