E-research resources, tools and methods for historic place name analysis: JISC–funded Workshop Report: Institute for Name Studies, University of Nottingham: 3 September 2010

A substantial amount of the 'critical mass' of digital data available to scholarship contains place-names, and it is now recognised that spatial and temporal data points, including place-names, are an vital part of the e-research infrastructure that supports the uses, re-use and advanced analysis of data using ICT tools and methods. Place-names can also be linked semantically to contribute to the web of data, and to enrich existing content through linking existing data, and identifying new collections for digitization to strategically enhance existing digital collections. However, existing e-projects rely on modern gazetteers limiting them to the modern and the near-contemporary. This workshop explored how to further integrate the wealth of historical place-name scholarship, and the resulting digital resources generated within UK academia, so enabling integration of local knowledge over much longer periods.