Latest in the first decade of the 21st century, the World Wide Web has become an indispensable resource for historical studies. Not only has it become the standard means of communication and of text productions, it also provides access to historical sources in a hitherto unimaginable, simple and comprehensive way. Moreover, digitised sources become available to electronically supported analysis.

With our own eyes we can observe the development of a new kind of technology-usage in particular scientific and technological communities of today. Digital versions of printed material, manuscripts, and electronic media (e.g. broadcasting) are supplied in an unprecedented quantitative dimension by large scale projects such as Internet Archive and Google Books and by digitisation projects of important libraries. They take the study of communication about science to a new level. This cornucopia poses the challenge of coping with a huge number of documents. Digital research environments and thematic web portals can supply the necessary tools for searching, comparing and visualising these data and for their quantitative and linguistic analysis. In doing so, they help to address and cast new light on relevant issues in the history of science, e.g. the creation, dissemination and deployment of knowledge and practice across all periods. This opens new possibilities for the observation of ‘science at work’.

Yet, the new powerful digital instruments, if applied blindly, might turn out to be a Pandora’s box. The way science works in a digital environment itself deserves close examination, because it affects the status relations of technology and scientific work. Therefore digitisation is, in our view, not only a research instrument. It is also an important object of research, because of its considerable impact on the ways how knowledge works.

How the potential of digital media, tools and working methods can generate new research questions needs to be discussed in this context. This question, among other issues, has been scarcely noticed until now as well as it can contribute substantially to the history of science, technology and medicine.

Accordingly our symposium will unite six state-of-the-art web, Virtual Research Environment and digitisation projects on cultural heritage and historical documents. Each stands for a special type of material, method of presentation or research question in the history of science, technology and medicine. Rooted in different national academic cultures, these projects may also show if and how national styles and strategies have developed in the use of the new medium ‘internet’ for scientific work.