Michael Goerke (European University Institute, Florence)

Career:

Troughout my study (history, maths, philosophy) I worked in several historical research projects as someone who knew how to deal with computers, and it has increasingly determined my gainful occupations. After graduating in 1986 I got half-time employed at the Max-Planck-Institute für Geschichte in Göttingen, and was appointed in 1988 as a lecturer at the University of Bielefeld, History Department. In 1992 I got then a post at the European University Institute (EUI) as a so-called Historical Computing Assistant, but over the years the demand from the History Department for such a support faded away. Having improved steadily my skills in the realm of IT, and not done historical research at a similar level for a long time, I decided eventually to change business and got hired in 1997 as a systems administrator of the Computing Service of the EUI.

Publications:

What made household sizes different? A case study of family forms in Spenge, Westphalia, in the mid-nineteenth century. (Cambridge, 1987, paper presented to the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure)

Herford in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, in T. Helmert-Corvey and T. Schuler (eds) 1200 Jahre Herford. Spuren der Geschichte (Herford, 1989), pp. 79-102, 641-643.

Editor of Coordinates for Historical Maps. A workshop of the association for History and Computing, European University Institute, 13^th/14^th May 1999 (St. Katharinen, 1994).

Research:

My research focussed around three topics: case studies to test some of the hypotheses of the proto-industrialisation paradigm, urban history seen from a socio-topographical point of view, and the use of computerised techniques and methods in historical research (record linkage in particular).

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