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Blog > Digital Humanities Lab: Recent Highlights and Ongoing Work

Digital Humanities Lab:
Recent Highlights and Ongoing Work

DH Lab Updates

June 24th, 2025

The past several months have been marked by new activities, enhancements to our research infrastructure, and new collaborations at the DH Lab. Below, we share recent highlights and updates on work currently in progress.

  • Projects

  • Virtual Repository of Photographers' Sales Catalogues

    We completed the automatic transcription of the Photothek's collection of historical photographers' sales catalogues. The extraction was carried out using AI-based tools; however, the complex and heterogeneous formats of the catalogues presented several challenges. The project aims to create a searchable database that will allow users to perform advanced searches on catalogue entries, with options to filter and sort records by negative number, artist, and other information contained in the catalogues. The project was also presented in the framework of a DH Day session on transcription techniques.

  • Research Fieldwork App

    A mobile-first platform is currently being developed to address the fragmentation of data generated during research fieldwork. Media and notes are often stored across different devices and systems, and limited connectivity in field settings further complicates coordination and sharing. The platform offers a simple, modular structure that supports collaboration across institutional boundaries, allowing teams to collect and connect materials in a single environment, assign user roles, and continue working offline with automatic synchronization once connectivity is restored. The result is a unified system for organizing and sharing fieldwork materials across time, location, and research groups.

  • Historical Archive of the KHI

    In collaboration with the staff of the historical archive of the KHI, the DH Lab is developing a platform to allow access to the archive's Findbuch (), Kopierbücher (), and the correspondence between 1910s-1920s.

  • Plant Matters

  • Florentine Arabic // العربية الفلورنسية

    The collaboration with Alex Dika Seggerman on the project “Florentine Arabic” has continued to develop. Work is currently underway on a map section designed to visualize different types of locations associated with the artworks, enabling spatial exploration of the collection and revealing relationships between sites. Alongside this, ongoing developments in advanced search functionality are improving access to the collection and supporting more flexible ways of navigating the data. The project will be presented on July 6.

Above: Alinari: “Dresda, Dintorni”, 1906, p. 5.; below: transcription of the first entry.

  • Infrastructure & Collaborations

  • Pharos

    The collaboration within the PHAROS consortium continues to be a fundamental activity. As part of this work, participation in the PHAROS General Meeting in Florence (23–25 March 2026) provided an important opportunity to engage with partner institutions, contribute to discussions on the consortium’s current developments, and align on shared technical and organizational priorities. The results of this collaboration include the new website artresearch.net, launched at the end of 2025, which was also the focus of a DH Day presentation.

Screenshot from the artresearch.net landing page

  • Community & Events

The events are regularly announced in the Events section on our website.

  • DH Day Series

    Our DH Day events continue to attract strong engagement. These sessions provide an open forum for discussion, idea sharing, and support around topics in digital humanities. In the latest meetings we had the opportunity to discuss best practices when using AI Chatbots; we compared different data management tools and knowledge management platforms; transcription techniques were also the center of discussion. Finally, we presented the artresearch.net platform, developed in collaboration with the member institutions of the Pharos consortium. Presentations and materials are available in the Resources section.

  • AI & Creativity Reading Group

    This reading group remains a lively interdisciplinary space focused on artificial intelligence, creativity, and society. It brings together scholars from diverse fields to examine key issues at the intersection of technology and the humanities. The latest sessions focused on the topic of "AI and Memory".

  • Project presentation: Florentine Arabic

    The digital platform developed in collaboration with Alex Dika Seggerman for her project "Florentine Arabic" will be presented on July 6 (see event page).

We warmly welcome collaboration and inquiries from the community!

Resources