"Inventarium": A Digital Study of Estate Inventory Descriptions

We invite you to an online seminar by Vyacheslav Tymoshchuk, which will focus on the "Inventarium" project—a volunteer initiative that combines traditional methods of historical research with modern information technologies. The project's goal is to create a unified public registry of estate inventories on Ukrainian lands.

During the event, we will explore the experience of creating this resource and the possibilities for using digital tools in historical research. In particular, we will focus on the geographic localization of historical settlements, the integration of old maps with modern geographic information systems, and the challenges of standardizing historical data.

Using "Inventarium" as an example, we will explore how the combination of traditional source criticism, digital technologies, and volunteer collaboration opens up new opportunities for historians, local historians, and genealogists.

We will focus on:

• Interdisciplinary research: the application of modern digital tools for searching, processing, and analyzing archival sources.
• Innovative methods of spatial analysis: georeferencing historical maps, integrating them with modern GIS, and using artificial intelligence to locate vanished settlements and reconstruct historical boundaries.
• Challenges of working with primary sources: the peculiarities of deciphering ancient shorthand, the difficulties of historical toponymy, and the systematization of information that has been recorded over the centuries according to various principles.
• Opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration: bringing together historians, engineers, programmers, analysts, and amateur researchers to study and preserve historical heritage.

The seminar aims to trace the path from searching for individual archival documents to creating structured digital databases that serve as the foundation for new historical research.

We will also discuss the prospects for the digital humanities: the transition from studying individual sources to the comprehensive analysis of large sets of historical data, the identification of spatial and social patterns, and the development of an open research infrastructure.

The event will  take place online. To participate, please, register via this form.

The working language is Ukrainian with simultaneous interpretation into English. 

The event will take place within a series of seminars and workshops around specific cases of urban history digital platforms/projects, "Urban History Digital Infrastructures: Sharing Expertise and Networking Cities", organized by the Center for Urban History, with the support of the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St.Gallen.