Manfred Thaller

The historical workstation project

Since 1978 research in the development of software dedicated to the specific problems of historical research has been undertaken at the Max-Planck-Institute für Geschichte in Göttingen. From a background of practical experiences during these years, a concept of what an appropriate ‘workstation” for an historian would be has been derived. It stresses the necessity of three components: (a) software, derived from a detailed analysis of what differentiates information contained in historical sources from such present in current material, (b) databases which are as easily available as printed books and (c) knowledge bases which allow software and data bases to draw upon the information contained in historical reference works. A loose network of European research projects, dedicated to the realization of such a setup, is described.

Have Very Large Data Bases Methodological Relevance

The Humanities, like all provinces of Academia, have been considerably influenced by the “micro computer revolution” of the last few decades. While, as other fields, the Humanities, too, have their fair share of persons who are doubtful about the praiseworthiness of these developments on more general grounds, a specific argument has been raised in the Humanities, which, in our opinion, is fairly unique to them.