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The volume of historical sources in Dutch archives is immense: diaries, correspondence, municipal registers, reports, and countless other traces of the past. But how can these collections be made searchable? Literary scholar and cultural historian Dirk van Miert has been appointed Professor by Special Appointment in the History of Knowledge from a Digital Perspective at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��. His work focuses on the historical knowledge society and on making vast bodies of source material digitally accessible.

Kilometres of archives and millions of books

The new chair, established on behalf of the , is housed within the Faculty of Humanities. Van Miert has been Director of the Institute since 2021, which forms part of the  (KNAW). It works to enrich our understanding of history and culture, for example by making large collections of historical sources and archives digitally accessible. 

This ‘mass digitisation’ offers far more than just improved access, Van Miert explains. “Researchers can now search collections much more quickly and details that were once overlooked are now revealing fresh information, from linguistic information to the history of science. This opens the door to new opportunities for research. I want to show students what can be discovered in this way.”

“We are delighted with this new chair and with Dirk van Miert’s appointment,” says Thomas Vaessens, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. “At a time when digitisation plays such a central role in historical research, reliable and searchable data are essential. Thanks to Van Miert’s expertise, researchers can analyse and interpret historical information in new ways, while students learn to use innovative tools to explore complex historical networks.”

Making forgotten voices heard again

“Through the digital work of the Huygens Institute and our partners, we are now able to read the stories of people who were previously unheard,” says Van Miert. “I myself focus mainly on seventeenth century letters. You can see that letters written by women and people of lower social standing have often disappeared, while people – men – tended to keep correspondence that confirmed a particular image of writers or themselves.”

“Through the digital work, we are now able to read the stories of people who were previously unheard.”

According to Van Miert, archives show how history is shaped by human choices. “Archives are never neutral: people have always decided what was worth keeping and what was not. Archivists and librarians chose which letters were important enough to preserve, and curators made further choices when describing them in catalogues.”

Digitisation can help raise awareness of these decisions. “With a computer, you can look at things on a much larger scale. That’s when it becomes clear how uneven and fragmented many archives are, and how often certain voices dominate. who can actually be found in the archive, and what does that say about its supposed objectivity? The most fascinating part is often what’s not written down but can be read between the lines. And digital tools can help reveal that.”

“Archives are never neutral: people have always decided what was worth keeping and what was not.”

Studying the knowledge society

As Professor by Special Appointment, Van Miert looks forward to involving students in his work. “Together we will explore the knowledge society of a few centuries ago. That includes universities, but also many learned societies and individuals beyond them. People exchanged books and knowledge, and sometimes clashed fiercely. Studying this is not always easy: you have to identify who was involved, which sources belong together, who wrote what, in what form and language, and why, and where those sources are kept. Digital data can be an invaluable aid in that process.”