Emergent Histories
New work in the digital history of industry and collections from the Congruence Engine project
Distributed for UCL Press
Emergent Histories
New work in the digital history of industry and collections from the Congruence Engine project
This volume demonstrates how the digital revolution is shaping archival practices in museums and other heritage collections.
For generations, artifacts and information of all kinds have been assembled in diverse collections across the UK. Museum objects, archives, pictures, moving images and media, records of historical places, and even datasets derived from state, commercial, and individual activity have all been carefully catalogued and stored. Yet in most museums and galleries, only a tiny proportion of physical collections are shown in public displays, with vast stores kept in reserves that are seldom used by researchers. These great repositories of cultural capital and the knowledge they hold has been largely untapped—until now. Historical and curatorial practice is likely to be transformed by new digital techniques, including machine learning. This book provides concrete examples of researchers experimenting with these techniques and reflects on the significance of this digital turn. Emergent Histories argues that by digitally reuniting museum collections via virtual records with other heritage collections, they could see more sustained use, transforming historical and curatorial practice along the way.
550 pages | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2026
Table of Contents
List of tables
List of contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Introduction
Tim Boon
1 ‘We are Congruence Engine’: a history of the project
Arran Rees and Tim Boon
2 This project is very white: experiments in resisting inclusion and diversity paradigms
Katerina Webb-Bourne, Arran Rees, Julia Ankenbrand, Helen Graham, and Alex Fitzpatrick
3 Exploring the value of crowdsourcing to enhance collections in the age of AI
Alex Fitzpatrick, Natasha Kitcher, Geoff Belknap, Max Long, and Daniel Belteki
4 Before you begin: processing and transcribing historic data using digital methods
Natasha Kitcher, Daniel Belteki, Max Long, Anna-Maria Sichani, Nayomi KasthuriArachchi, and Felix Needham-Simpson
5 The mind of the curator?: on the cataloguing language of technical museum collections
Ben Russell, Tim Boon, and Jayne Knight
6 Creating a textile machinery nomenclature link via Wikidata
Tim Boon, Ben Russell, Max Lon,g and Felix Needham-Simpson
7 Building an object-enriched bibliography: experiments in linking museum objects and academic literature
Max Long, Tim Boon, and Stephen Weldon
8 A cautionary tale of collections linkage: misadventures in the object records of the Science Museum and Discovery Museum
Daniel Belteki, Bernard Musesengwe, and Tim Boon
9 Towards a natural collection: digital and community histories of river pollution in Bradford
Max Long, Natasha Kitcher, Daniel Belteki, and Robert Hellawell
10 Connecting energy histories digitally: opportunities, challenges and the path forward
Graeme Gooday, Bernard Musesengwe, Daniel Belteki, and Kylea Little
11 A new age for sonic history: empowering audio heritage to illuminate the human dimension of the industrial past
Stefania Zardini Lacedelli, Alex Butterworth, and Stef De Sabbata
12 Generative AI today: using GPT for historical work
Jon Agar, Natasha Kitcher, Asa Calow, and Nayomi KasthuriArachchi
13 Questioning computer vision: new insights on linking collections through visual methods
Natasha Kitcher, Geoff Belknap, Daniel Belteki, Kunika Kono, and Kaspar Beelen
14 Using computer vision to explore and link archive films
Daniel Belteki, Max Long, Natasha Kitcher, Patrick Russell, Tim Boon, Kaspar Beelen, and Stephen McConnachie
15 A village through time: mapping genealogies, occupations and social mobility in Saltaire
Nayomi Kasthuri Arachchi, Alex Butterworth, and Colin Coates
16 Trade directory data, space syntax and the multi-scalar constitution of nineteenth-century Bradford
Yichang Sun, Alex Butterworth, and Sam Griffiths
17 An ontological approach to occupations: modelling work in and around the textile industry
Sarah Middle, Alex Butterworth, Arran Rees, Nayomi KasthuriArachchi, and Felix Needham-Simpson
Index