Bringing AI-Powered Technology to Historical Archives
As 2025 wraps up, our development team has been hard at work exploring integration possibilities for Artificial Intelligence in web development. We are thrilled to announce the completion of one of our most exciting AI projects to date: an AI-Powered Publication Search for the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR)!
The Challenge: A Digital Needle in a Haystack
AHSGR’s mission is to collect, preserve, and share the history and cultural heritage of German settlers in the Russian Empire. One of the ways they do this is with a library of more than 300 publications dating back to 1969.
While we had previously built a searchable database for these PDFs, the functionality was limited to broad categories like publication type or year. For a researcher looking for a specific family name or a niche historical event buried deep within a 40-year-old journal, finding that information was significantly time-consuming. For many members, these aren’t just documents – these are the keys to unlocking their family’s legacy. Cumbersome searching was often a barrier to discovering those personal connections.
The Solution: Turning PDFs into a Living Knowledge Base
We saw an opportunity to use OpenAI’s API to breathe new life into these archives. By converting the entire PDF library into a vector database using OpenAI embeddings, we’ve enabled the system to “understand” the actual content of the pages. Our goal was to transform a static archive into a living conversation, making decades of research more easily accessible to all members, regardless of their technical skills.
We implemented this technology in two ways:
- Semantic Keyword Search: Unlike traditional search that looks for exact character matches, this tool queries the entire database and returns results based on the relevance of the content. It understands the context of the search, ensuring that members find the most pertinent documents even if the phrasing isn’t an exact match.
Conversational “Ask an Expert” Search: We integrated a chat-based interface powered by ChatGPT. Members can now ask natural questions like “What were common holiday traditions of the Germans in Russia?” and receive a simplified answer based specifically on AHSGR publications. This tool creates a more efficient, informative experience for researchers, giving them a virtual historian they can chat with at any time. The goal isn’t to replace actual historians, but to help members fully utilize the website’s resources and navigate the documents they already have access to.
Ensuring AI’s Accuracy and Accountability
To ensure the AI remains a reliable research partner, the chat tool cites its sources, providing direct links to the relevant documents so members can verify the facts for themselves and find more information. We’ve included a feedback system where members can rate responses, allowing us to use real-world data to refine and train AI for even better performance in the future.
Ready to Unlock the Potential of AI for Your Website?
This project for AHSGR is just one example of how AI can transform a standard website into a powerful, interactive experience. Whether you have a massive archive of documents that needs organizing or you’re looking for a way to make your site more conversational and user-friendly, our web developers would love to help!