Previous data sprints
Since 2016, the university libraries at Royal Danish Library have held data sprints for students and researchers. Read about what we have focused on previously.
Photo: Laura Stamer
2023: The digital cultural heritage of the Enlightenment
Datasprint 2023: The subject of the datasprint was the age of enlightenment.
The Enlightenment is probably best known for the love triangle drama between the Enlightenment campaigner Johann Friedrich Struensee, the insane King Christian VII and the young, naive Queen Caroline Mathilde, because the drama is delightfully reproduced in films and comics.
Despite its positive name, the Enlightenment is also known for despotism, tropical colonies, the slave trade, and the maintenance of society's ranking system through violent, crippling punishment, exclusion, and discrimination. The latter appears, for example, in Francisco de Miranda's description of Copenhagen's prisons from 1788, as well as from PA Heiberg's party song from 1790, "Order hanger man på idioter".
The aim of the data sprint was, in addition to giving an insight into how we can carry out computer-based investigations, also to give an insight into the trends, currents and living conditions of the Enlightenment.
2022: Cookies and your data - what do you consent to?
Data Sprint 2022 examined the conditions for navigating the internet in the form of the cookie and privacy policies we are asked to accept several times a day.
2021: Data in Parliament
The topic for Data Sprint 2021 was democracy and political negotiations in the Danish Parliament, and we had the pleasure of holding one of the days at Christiansborg.
Data consisted of digitised minutes of speeches from the floor of the Danish Parliament from 1953 to 2021.
Notebooks for R and Python are available at this page.
2020: The Danish Borderland
The topic for Data Sprint 2022 was an investigation of political currents in Denmark between 1830 and 1870.
Data consisted of digitised Danish newspapers.
Notebooks for R and Python as well as data are available at this page.
2019: The Fall of the Wall
Data Sprint 2019 was held on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 8 and 9 November 2019 and was on the end of the Cold War.
Data consisted of digitised documents from the Wilson Center Digital Archive.
Notebooks for Python are available at this page.
2018: Copenhagen 1885
Data Sprint 2018's purpose was to understand the city of Copenhagen in 1885 as a phenomenon; its people, its streets and its stories.
Data consisted of a digitised census and burial records.
2017: Archive for Danish Literature in 3D: Danish Literature, Data & “Distant Reading”
Data Sprint 2017 was held in relation to a relaunch of the Archive for Danish Literature (ADL) with the aim of investigating how new questions could be asked of classic Danish literature.
Data consisted of digitised texts from the Archive for Danish Literature.
2016: Representing History Through Data
2017 marked the centenary of the sale of the Danish West Indies. At Data Sprint 2016, we started the anniversary year with an exploration of new digitised data.
Data consisted of digitised maps, images, newspapers, and censuses.