The Past as a Data Space: Archival Platforms and Their Transformative Potential

Drawing on their long-standing experience at the intersection of archives, digital humanities, and data infrastructures, Thomas Aigner and Daniel Jeller explore how large-scale digitisation and archival platforms are transforming the past into a dynamic, interconnected data space. The presentation highlights how platforms aggregating archival images, metadata, and extracted text can unlock new forms of research, genealogical discovery, spatial analysis, and public engagement. Using concrete project examples, the speakers demonstrate how archival data - once dispersed across institutions and formats - can be linked, indexed, and enriched to create powerful research environments and innovative user experiences.