Consultancy

I’m available for paid commissions, consultancy work and other collaborations to help with your digital history and digital humanities projects.

Contact me

I have many years experience of project management, data creation and digital research, backed up by a deep understanding of historical research.

Digital projects on a small budget

Would you like to make your research and data more accessible online, but don’t have much funding for technical development and maintenance?

Or perhaps you want to make a pilot project, a demo, or test out some ideas before committing substantial time and resources to a digital history project or grant application?

I specialise in making lightweight but robust websites for digital history projects, using software like Quarto, which don’t need expensive infrastructure. They’re easier to maintain than database-driven sites, but can include search functions and interactivity that fulfill many users’ needs equally well.

Although I can’t guarantee long-term stability, nor can many expensive digital history resources after their funding ends. This approach uses Github Pages for hosting, which I believe is a more reliable option for the cash-strapped researcher than many services provided by academic institutions.

I also recommend and give practical support for archiving data in an independent repository like Zenodo, and encourage the use of Creative Commons licences.

Examples

What are the trade-offs?

  • you should expect to be an active collaborator, including potentially needing to learn some unfamiliar tools, such as Markdown (for editing text files) and Github (I can help with these!)
  • there is a presumption that data and content will be open, so it may not be suitable if you have restrictions on sharing (eg for commercial or privacy reasons)
  • the use of off-the-shelf tools reduces costs but constrains customisation, eg
    • relatively simple search features compared to custom-built databases
    • limited visual design options (beyond a choice of themes)
  • limited technical support after completion, though I would undertake essential/security updates for five years

What does it cost?

The basic setup for a small interactive data explorer, given data that’s ready to use, could start from a few hundred pounds. However, prices also depend on the complexity of the design and the amount of data preparation required.

For example, in order to make a map, a dataset has to contain location geocoordinates. The ideal scenario is that location data is already geocoded, making it ready for mapping without any additional work. The next best option is that it contains place names in a consistent format that would enable automated (or semi-automated) lookups using a gazetteer, making processing relatively minimal. However, if place information is not recorded consistently (eg, transcribed directly from historical sources with inconsistent spelling and archaic names), it could need substantial cleaning, standardising and structuring to be mappable.

I can give advice on what you’d need to do to prepare your data, or quote for doing the work for you.

Get in touch and we can discuss your particular needs!

Data analysis and visualisation

If your project has created a large or complex, semi-structured or structured dataset and you’re looking for new ways to represent and understand it, I can help.

I use a range of visualisation tools to create online reports and presentations. I can work with a well-defined brief to create, say, a gallery of visualisations to showcase your data, or a set of charts for a publication. Alternatively, I can work with you in a collaborative, exploratory process to find out new things about your data.

See examples of my work exploring and visualising historical data.

I’m always interested in adding to my skills, and have recently been extending my expertise with interactive visualisations.

And you’re very welcome to get in touch if you’re preparing a grant application and think I’d be a good fit as a named researcher.

Data preparation, processing and publication

I have extensive experience of working with data in a wide range of formats including plain text, CSV, XML, SQL, other databases and spreadsheets. I can take on projects including:

  • data cleaning and wrangling
  • data reshaping and conversion between formats
  • record linkage
  • XML markup, data entry

For example, if you have a set of XML files and no idea what to do with them, I can extract the encoded information and convert it to a spreadsheet or other format.

I can also help with advice on

  • software and tools to use in your digital project
  • database design
  • data management, sharing and re-use

See examples of large and small datasets I’ve created and shared.

Making websites and online editions

I’ve been building websites for many years. I can create lightweight self-contained and easily portable websites, which require minimal maintenance.

In 2020, I also used this approach for a commissioned online scholarly book, London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800.

See examples of my websites.

Contact me