About

Joe Nockels is a Research Associate for the University of Sheffield's Digital Humanities Institute (DHI), responsible for developing the strategic research theme -Digital Representation of Cultural Artefacts, which sets out to advance the state-of-the-art in the digital capture, interpretation and representation of physical culture. In August, he will be joining the University of Glasgow as a Lecturer in Digital Humanities, co-supervising their new Digital Humanities MSc.

His research mainly focuses on AI-enabled Automated Text Recognition (ATR) and its critical use on historical archives, and its impact on the information environment, memory institutions and their users. This has led to research partnerships with the Library of Congress, National Library of Scotland, and Archives Records Council Wales, in foregrounding digital scholarship using such methods.

Other research interests include - libraries as 'third spaces', critical digitisation approaches, AI's impact on copyright licensing, digital sustainability within the Digital Humanities, as well as Text and Data Mining on 19th century religious heritage collections.

Joe completed a PhD from the University of Edinburgh's School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures in 2025, supported by the University of Glasgow, National Library of Scotland and ATR cooperative READ/Transkribus. For more information, see the bio tab.

He also experiments modestly with image recognition, 3D modelling, geospatial data and digital methods for genealogical research.

Production Note:

This site builds on a WIX template, started in 14 px Avenir Light. All views expressed are my own, and definitely not as polished as elsewhere - apologies.

Remarks on the Datafication of History, University of Nottingham, February 4th, 2026

Last week, I had the opportunity to present to a group of historians, mostly PhDs, interested in leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) for Arts and Humani ties research at-scale. This formed part of a workshop, organised by Liudmila Lyagushkina and Finn Cadell , encouraging LLM experimentation, with suitable guardrails and encouragment in place, as a means to critically adopt such technologies and ascertain whether AI automation is truly fit-for-purpose in historical rese

54 minutes ago7 min read

Library Labs, Data Foundry and Handwritten Text Recognition

AI-enhanced Data Foundry header image, with welders - created in Runaway , with the prompt - “add 3 - 6 construction workers to the Forth Bridge structure, welding with sparks” “The following will be very cheeky. If you’re available … how do you fancy doing an impromptu lecture?” It’s nice to be trusted by your former academic supervisors, especially when they invite you to contribute to their newly minted course. In this case, the Library Studies MA delivered by the Univers

Nov 24, 202518 min read

Thoughts from the BRAID Cultural Heritage Forum

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Responsible AI for Cultural Heritage Forum, supported by Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) and hosted by the School of Advanced Study (SAS) at Senate House Library. The day had multiple aims - 1) To soft-launch the RESHAPED platform, a set of AI workbenches and learning materials for cultural heritage practitioners, led by Dr Anna-Maria Sichani. 2) To discuss how to best engage with AI affordances and limitations, against

Nov 10, 20258 min read