Digital Public History Inside and Outside the Box

Abstract

The relationship between history and information technology is long and troubled. Many projects have opened and closed, many pioneering initiatives have achieved success and attention, but often they have not ‘taught’ or left a fruitful legacy. These experiments, studies and conferences have built a rich basis for the relationship between the disciplines, but the difficult connection needs to be further explored. Although no digital history research centres exist in Italy nowadays, it is possible to look at several Italian projects in order to discuss the strange position of the digital issue within public history conferences, the place of history in the large digital humanities environment and finally the definition itself of digital history.