What the Archive Is
The HISTONETICA Archive differs fundamentally from classical archives. It is not a collection of static documents, but a relational data environment in which historical sources are captured as machine-readable full texts together with their metadata.
Documents are not merely made accessible, but systematically interconnected—with people, places, institutions, concepts, and events. In this way, a semantic space emerges that enables historical research across disciplinary and linguistic boundaries.
The archive is therefore not a repository, but a research infrastructure: a tool for analysing history not in isolation, but as a space of relationships.
Architecture and Perspectives
Technical Architecture
The technical structure of the HISTONETICA Archive is implemented, tested, and fully operational. The system is based on relational databases and a high-performance full-text and search infrastructure that enables complex queries and relational analyses. Custom-built tools support the controlled digitisation of historical sources—from OCR processing to the structured linking of content. The architecture is designed not to store historical sources in isolation, but to systematically represent their relationships. The quality of the archive grows with its depth: the more data are integrated, the denser and more meaningful the reconstructible historical relational spaces become.
Current Status
The HISTONETICA Archive currently operates as a productive research environment within ongoing scholarly work. The infrastructure is in active use and is being continuously expanded. At present, the archive serves the systematic processing and analysis of selected source corpora. In parallel, data models, capture processes, and analytical pathways are being further developed and tested. The next development phase aims at a gradual institutional opening—through collaborations with archives, pilot collections, and joint research projects.
Multilingual Access
The HISTONETICA Archive follows the principle of full-text processing. All documents are available both in their original form and as machine-readable, structured texts with relational metadata. AI-supported translation enables content to be translated into multiple languages without replacing or altering the originals. Users always work with the original sources, while translations broaden access. In this way, the archive becomes not only technically, but also linguistically inclusive, enabling historical research across national and disciplinary boundaries.
Outlook
In upcoming development phases, the archive is to be gradually opened and expanded. The goal is to establish a sustainably usable relational research environment for cooperative, cross-institutional research. The focus lies not on the mere expansion of holdings, but on the deepened modelling of historical relationships. The archive is intended not only to preserve historical sources, but to relate them to one another and thereby open up new perspectives on history.