About

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Joe Nockels is a Research Associate at the Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield, responsible for developing the research theme - Digital Representation of Cultural Artefacts, which advances the state-of-the-art in the digital capture, interpretation and representation of physical culture.

In August, he will join the University of Glasgow as a Lecturer in Digital Humanities, co-supervising their new Digital Humanities MSc.

His research brings together AI experimentation within libraries and archives with user studies, under a banner of socio-technical analysis, while advocating for critical and values-driven approaches to collections as data.

Joe has previously held research positions at the Library of Congress, National Library of Scotland, and through the AI cooperative Recognition and Enrichment of Archival Documents (READ), who maintain and develop Transkribus. He earned his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, in 2024.

For more on some of Joe's research, see:

Digital Folklore or Fakelore? History and Archives in Practice, Western Bank Library, April 16th 2025

A few weeks ago, The National Archives (TNA) came to town, with our University of Sheffield Special Collections hosting History and Archives in Practice (HAP). Bridging archivists and historians through close conversation, HAP is a key TNA event demonstrating the range of work being done on historical collections, with an emphasis on hands-on research. Of course, applying digital methods to collections is central to archival practice, and offers a way to enhance the co-creati

3 days ago7 min read

Yacks to Hacks, Should Historians Increasingly Code?

I felt old today, on account of visiting my old sixth form at Tapton High School. For the last few years, the school has coordinated with the University of Sheffield to host a set of Humanities and Social Science Seminars. These are intended to offer Tapton students a flavour of what undergraduate programming looks like, in an informal space, between their usual lessons. It also offers a key opportunity for the university to strengthen its connections with schools in the area

Mar 269 min read

Scaling Down, The Place of Limited Studies in the Digital Humanities Landscape

Sinem Görücü / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ In getting closer to my new University of Glasgow role, I have been thinking more about the place of small-scale projects within the broader DH landscape. Is the main aspect of my role to support students in completing smaller projects, from which they can evidence transferable skills to employers? Or - do these tighter, time-bound, projects have greater value to DH, beyond self-learni

Mar 1013 min read

Joe Nockels discusses the near-future impact of AI transcription at-scale

Joe Nockels speaks about how AI platform providers can support precarious users

About

Recent Posts

Digital Folklore or Fakelore? History and Archives in Practice, Western Bank Library, April 16th 2025

Yacks to Hacks, Should Historians Increasingly Code?

Scaling Down, The Place of Limited Studies in the Digital Humanities Landscape

Selected Publications