“Coding Early Naturalists’ Accounts into Long-Term Fish Community Changes in the Adriatic Sea (1800–2000)” is a new article in PLoS One by researchers who mined historical data from materials found in archives to understand “fish communities’ changes over the past centuries” which “has important implications for conservation policy and marine resource management” (Abstract). The article explains the difficulty in integrating qualitative and anecdotal historical data with modern data, and their methodology for coding historical data. This article is a great example of how historical materials from archives support all research areas, including current and future scientific research. With so many archives and cultural heritage institutions digitizing their historical materials, more materials are readily accessible online and allow for mining and coding of historical data.
2010-11-26