Born Physical/Studied Digitally

Born Physical/Studied Digitally is a cross-disciplinary initiative driven by a simple but urgent mission: to unlock the scientific potential hidden within physical archives. Across fields like seismology, legal studies, and the history of science and technology, massive collections of paper documents—ranging from court records to annotated seismic traces—remain largely inaccessible to the computational tools driving modern research.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the BP/SD Consortium is building an open, interoperable platform that enables organizations to digitize, process, and transform these “born physical” materials into rich, searchable knowledge graphs. Our tools allow for everything from automated handwriting recognition and document classification to the ethical handling of sensitive information. Through collaboration with partners like EarthScope, SCALES, and the National Human Genome Research Institute, we’re developing workflows that support academic discovery, public accountability, and innovation.

We are committed not only to technical excellence, but also to justice and inclusion. By reducing the costs of digitization and providing support to under-resourced institutions, BP/SD helps surface the stories and data of people and places historically left out of digital narratives.

Our work is structured around two complementary efforts: the Platform, which provides robust tools for data processing and metadata generation, and the Consortium, a growing network of researchers, students, and archive holders dedicated to reimagining what access to knowledge looks like in the digital age.

Join Us

We invite scholars, archivists, community organizations, and technologists to partner with us. Whether you’re looking to digitize your own materials, contribute to the development of open tools, or help train the next generation of data stewards and historians, there’s a place for you in the BP/SD community.