Information support of the humanities research in digital era: models of formation and development

The essay investigates the latest trends in information support of the Humanities research, such as the emergence of a new multidisciplinary area of research named Digital Humanities. It is a very new upcoming area which is still going through formation stages. The term is often used as an umbrella for any research in the Humanities that uses computer and information technologies, new media and methods, with both the Humanities and the Digital understood in their broadest sense. Digital Humanities (like Digital History) has not yet developed in Russia and the CIS to the same extent as it has in Western countries, though the Russian History and Computing Association has already been discussing applications of digital technologies in humanities studies for a while. Since the Russian association is comprised primarily of historians, the author analyses not just the Humanities in general but also History and the way it is linked with other disciplines such as Information Science, Arts and the Humanities, as well as Social Sciences. Historical Information Science (or Historical Informatics) is a widespread term in Russia and the CIS, while Digital History itself is viewed as a sub-discipline in the frame of Historical Information Science that deals with the application of contemporary digital technologies to create academic and educational historical resources (databases, digital libraries, digital archives, web-sites), electronic publications of primary historical sources, digital copies of materials stored in museums, archives and libraries.