FORTES: Framework for Open Research on Trade and Economic Sources

Public Summary
FORTES tackles a key-challenge in the humanities and social sciences: automatically extracting structured data from complex, handwritten archival tables like ledgers and account books. This open-source project will build reusable digital methods to help researchers and heritage institutions make historical data more accessible and usable. Grounded in open standards (like IIIF, Web Annotations, and RDF), our methods will be tested across diverse collections. FORTES is a collaborative effort, offering training, co-creation workshops, and practical guides to support others. All results will be FAIR-compliant and connect with existing infrastructures, making historical data easier to analyze, share, and reuse.

Institutions

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | University of Amsterdam | Huygens Institute| Utrecht University

Keywords

Tabular Lay-out Recognition, Data Extraction, Open Source Framework, Authority Files, FAIR