Connecting Threads explores connections between South Indian weavers and Caribbean consumers by linking small and large textile collections and archives to enhance access to global fashion histories. Featuring a PostgreSQL database and interactive visualizations, the paper details its technical development, collaborative methodology, and impact on equity and accessibility in DH.

The paper presents a two-pronged approach for fostering access to and use of digital archival holdings. This approach combines public use of HTR technologies and public involvement in producing interpretative digital scholarship. The framework presented seeks to encourage civic engagement and dialogue around the holdings.

We introduce novel datasets and fine-tuned VLM and LLM models for OCR and word-sense disambiguation for Jawi (a writing system used historically for Malay). Our OCR system that outperforms previous solutions with a Character Error Rate (CER) of 8.66%, and a context-aware word sense disambiguation model that achieves 99.2% accuracy.