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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 VII

    Mapping & GIS

    Historical places, boundaries and movement on maps.

    Guide cards

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

    • tool · No. 072

      Recogito

      Browser tool for annotating texts, images and maps together, especially tagging place names and linking them to gazetteers so they can be mapped. Recogito Studio is its newer, institution-hosted successor.

      At a glance
      Maker
      Pelagios Network; Studio by Performant Software
      Released
      2016 (Studio: 2024)
      Licence
      Open source (Apache-2.0; Studio AGPL-3.0)
      Cost
      Free; paid hosting available for Studio
      Runs
      Web browser, hosted or self-hosted
      Skill
      No code (self-hosting needs IT)
      Historian’s notes
      Where your sources go Original: a private workspace on the Pelagios server until you share. Studio: stays on whichever instance you use.
      How it’s been tested Usability-tested on museum records (JOHD 2025); reviewed for classicists (SCS 2019).
      Known problems on historical sources Automatic place and person suggestions were wrong about half the time in one review. Misses minor places and struggles with old spellings and Indigenous names. The original has not been updated since 2019.
      Used in research1
      Used to build corpora2
      Tested in1
      Guides1
      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