Between ‘data’ and ‘capta’: the problem of datafication in historical research

The article deals with the problem of datafication in historical research. The author discusses to what extent existing and growing data sets allow historians to solve actual problems of history. Datafication is a process of stable recording of mass observations in different data formats with the possibility of their qualitative and quantitative processing and scientific analysis. Data can be understood and defined in different ways: as a format, as a storage volume, or as a nominal value. If the data often has its own structure, which still needs to be adapted for a particular study, the capta is arranged in the most convenient way to answer the questions of the concrete research for which it is collected. The “digital turn” is being increasingly compared with the “Gutenberg revolution", when book printing radically changed the way we preserve, disseminate and use information. The digital age does something similar to the changes that took place almost six centuries ago. However, in past eras, we cannot find direct similarities to machine-readable data. It is important to take into account that the data in historical research are not just registered signals, but in most cases they are carefully, intentionally and purposefully collected bits of information to solve an important problem, that is the very capta, which will resist to the data which is objective, but too general and in some places dubious in the analysis of long time series. In the current scientific situation, it seems relevant to formulate a clear definition of such concepts as large, medium, or small data.