A project led by Marc Flandreau, professor at the Department of International History of the Graduate Institute, has recently been awarded a three-year grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). "The transcription of global capitalism: Recording techniques, statistical narratives, and the politics of financial registries, 1850–2000" is a historical investigation in what could be called the “information system(s)” that have been responsible for the production and dissemination of price-sensitive stock-exchange information.

Thoroughly anchored in a unique and very extensive collection of surviving primary stock-exchange materials (price lists, financial intelligence and contemporary financial journalism) hosted at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the project (a) seeks to develop a vocabulary and methodology to make sense of geographically and temporally distinct institutional set-ups of the production of financial information. By means of several case-studies, it will (b) show how these set-ups of information production and dissemination can be related to specific modes of information consumption. This serves to reiterate the historical and material (!) mediation of financial information. Related to the latter, the project (c) simultaneously establishes a set of “best practices” with regard to curating its unparalleled collection with an eye on online disclosure for the academic community.

This entails, among others, the formulation of a “smart” catalog (allowing the user to set the parameters of search, etc.), and a data architecture that takes into account the non-textual (numerical) nature of the information contained. Developing “digital humanities” tools for exploring the transnational, multi-market nature of the collection is an integral and important part of this curation effort.