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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. 103

      Trove newspapers

      National Library of Australia portal to hundreds of millions of digitised Australian newspaper articles, mostly 1803–1954, with OCR partly corrected by volunteers.

      At a glance
      Holder
      National Library of Australia
      Launched
      2008–09
      Coverage
      Over 200 million articles, mostly 1803–1954
      Licence
      Pre-1955 public domain; API terms unclear
      Cost
      Free; free API key, renewed yearly
      Access
      Website; API v3 with key; no bulk download
      Historian’s notes
      How the text was made Machine OCR from microfilm; raw accuracy ranged from 71% to 98% in one test. About 6% of articles have been corrected by volunteers.
      Known gaps and biases A copyright cliff after 1954. Funding favoured the WWI years and New South Wales papers. Only about 1,790 of an estimated 7,700 titles are included.
      What you can do with it API keys can be cancelled and terms have changed without consultation; one leading researcher no longer recommends relying on it.
      Used in research2
      Used to build corpora2
      Tested in0

      No published evaluations found yet.

      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