The GHI Washington established the blog Href in 2018 in conjunction with the start of the DFG-funded relaunch of German History in Documents and Images under the leadership of the founding editors Kelly McCullough, GHDI’s project manager, and Atiba Pertilla, research fellow and digital editor at the GHI. Katharina Hering, digital project librarian, joined the blog’s editorial team later that year. The goal of Href has been to showcase the use of digitized primary source materials, broadly conceived, for studying, teaching, and researching German and global history. Href proved to be particularly timely during the pandemic, when it offered a forum for authors, many of whom were remote or on-site interns at the GHI, to reflect about the opportunities and challenges of researching German history in a global context remotely.
With the participation of the GHI Washington in the NFDI 4Memory Consortium, an initiative dedicated to the creation of a long-term and sustainable research data infrastructure in Germany, we’ve decided to re-conceptualize Href as a forum where some of the discussions sparked by the 4Memory community, particularly its emphases on “Data Literacy” and “Data Culture,” can be continued and broadened. In line with the traditional role of the GHI as a transatlantic and trans-national bridge, Href continues to be directed at a US and Canada-based audience that is not yet familiar with NFDI4Memory.
The new edition of Href is organized into three series:
1) Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst … Was Historiker:innen und historisch Arbeitende mit digitalen Ansätzen ihrem jüngeren Ich raten würden. This monthly series, established in 2024 and developed in collaboration with Christiane Weber from the VDH (Association of Historians in Germany), features short interviews with emerging scholars discussing their experiences with digital tools and methods. The interviews are predominantly in German.
Contact: Christiane Weber (VHD/NFDI4Memory) and Katharina Hering (GHI).
2) 4Memory Data Literacy: This series includes short articles and interviews on discussions about critical data literacy in the context of the 4Memory framework. The series provides a forum for occasional conference reports, and serves as a platform to support the preparation of the textbook Historical Data Criticism and Sustainable RDM that members of 4Memory’s “Data Literacy” task area are currently developing.
Contact: Katharina Hering: and Daniel Burckhardt
3) Reflections on in studying, teaching, and researching German and global history. The third series continues in our established Href tradition and offers a forum for reflections about digitized primary source materials in studying, teaching, and researching German and global history. The Href team welcomes inquiries for potential submissions.
Contact: Katharina Hering
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Thanks to Atiba Pertilla, Christiane Weber, Kelly McCullough, and Daniel Burckhardt for their helpful feedback and revisions of an earlier draft of this editorial note.