The first part of the first panel of the DHLU 2013 Symposium, chaired by René Leboutte from the University of Luxembourg, explores the topic ‘Distant/close reading’ by means of three presentations. The first, by Sacha Zala and Christiane Sibille, both from the Dodis research group, is entitled ‘Beyond a national historiography? Networking diplomatic documents in the digital age’. In the second, Arianna Betti and Hein Van Den Berg from VU University Amsterdam discuss the subject ‘Creating a digital history of ideas’. To close this part, Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol from the University of Glasgow presents his paper entitled ‘Digital sources in European integration history/international economic history: a frustrated view’.