Archival Data Analysis and Digital Humanities Fundamentals

Archival documents contain a wealth of historical information, but unlocking their full potential requires modern digital analysis methods. This course introduces you to the core principles of digital humanities and quantitative archival research, helping you transform unstructured text and statistical records into clear insights. You will begin by learning essential historical data concepts, standard archival formats, and essential data structures. Through step-by-step written guides and code examples, you will explore practical workflows for working with digitized sources. You will learn to extract statistical data from digitized archival materials, clean and format historical records for structured analysis, apply basic data manipulation techniques using Python data libraries, analyze historical trends and quantitative patterns, create readable tabular formats for long-term historical research, and apply modern data preservation principles to research projects. The content begins with foundational definitions before moving into hands-on analysis workflows using accessible data tools. This course is designed for absolute beginners, historians, archivists, and researchers who want to apply modern analytical methods to historical sources without needing prior data science experience. Start exploring archival data today and enhance your quantitative research skills.