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The Digital Historian’s Toolbox

Preview · 19 tools · 6 datasets · 75 projects · seeded October 2026

The tools and datasets historians actually used, and where.

Pull out a drawer to see what’s filed inside. Every card separates research that used a tool from the benchmarks that tested it.

  1. Mistral OCR (2 uses)
  2. World Historical Gazetteer (1 use)
  3. Gephi (1 use)
  4. Voyant Tools (1 use)
  5. eScriptorium (1 use)

Research + corpus-building uses. Benchmarks don’t count.

The drawers

A tool can be filed in more than one drawer
  • DRAWER VIII

    Public Datasets

    Open corpora and collections others have built and shared. Each card says how the text was made and what you’re allowed to do with it.

    Guide cards

    Counts research and corpus-building uses in the window, plus “I’m using this now” check-ins. Benchmarks don’t count.

    • dataset · No. 105

      Canadiana

      Canada’s largest open collection of digitised historical print and archival material, including Héritage’s millions of pages of microfilmed Library and Archives Canada records.

      At a glance
      Holder
      Canadian Research Knowledge Network
      Launched
      1999 (free since 2019)
      Coverage
      Over 60 million pages, 1500s to mid-1900s
      Licence
      Personal and research use; no open licence
      Cost
      Free
      Access
      Website; no API or bulk download yet
      Historian’s notes
      How the text was made OCR of microfiche for print. Héritage is mostly handwritten and largely not searchable, apart from a Transkribus pilot on Indian Affairs letterbooks.
      Known gaps and biases OCR damages names more than common words. Legacy subject headings are still being revised.
      What you can do with it Data mining and bulk downloading are prohibited without CRKN’s written permission.
      Used in research1
      Used to build corpora2
      Tested in1
      Visit website
      Add a project that used it See it on the network Suggest a correction

      Nobody has said they’re using it in 2026 yet. “I’m using this now” asks you to sign in with ORCID. One count per person per year; it adds to Trending, and names are never shown.

      Last updated 14 Oct 2026 Not yet reviewed by the editors · Version history