1. AHDS History Zoe Bliss Acquisitions and Information Officer

2. Who we are  Founded in 1993  Formerly known as the History Data Service  One of the five centres of the Arts and Humanities Data Services Which is funded by the JISC and AHRB  Team of historians and IT specialists  Based in the UK Data Archive, University of Essex

3. What we do AHDS History collects, preserves, and promotes the use of digital resources, which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching.

4. What we actually do  Provide advice and training about creating, describing, using and preserving historical digital resources  Collect and preserve historical digital resources  Provide access to a wide-ranging collection of historical digital resources  Establish thematic special collections, and enrich and enhance selected data collections  Promote standards and best practice in the creation, description, use and preservation of historical digital resources

5. Advice Full advice service to creators of historical digital historical material  Managing a digitisation project  Data development  Documenting a digital resource  Digitisation methodologies  Standards  Sustainability and Preservation Email:info@history.ahds.ac.uk Telephone:01206 872326

6. Publications Guides to Good Practice  Digitising history: a guide to creating electronic resources from historical documents  A Place in History: A Guide to Using GIS in Historical Research Information Papers Case Studies

7. AHDS Collection Over 600 separate data collections transcribed, scanned or compiled from historical sources.

8. Temporal coverage The studies cover a wide range of historical topics, from the fifth century to the mid-twentieth century.  Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Rome, 440-840  Credit, Class and Community: Working Class Belfast, 1930-2000  Trans-National Database and Atlas of Saints' Cults, c.700-2000

9. Geographic coverage  European State Finance Database  Social History of Alcohol in East Africa, 1850-1998  Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1801-1920  Demography of Sri Lanka, 1900- 1954 Primary focus of the collection is on the United Kingdom, it also includes a significant body of cross-national and international data collections.

10. Strengths  19th and 20th century economic and social history  Census data (1881 100% sample; 1851 2% sample; local census returns)  Great Britain Historical Database online  Taxation materials  Welsh and Irish historical statistics  Electoral data  Criminal court records (e.g. a collection of datasets on violent crimes 1600-1900)  Agricultural statistics  State finance data  Economic indicators/industrial production data

11. Further information http://ahds.ac.uk/history/index.htm