We’re in the very beginning stages of starting a digital humanities program at our library. We’re looking to discuss best practices, models, successes, failures, and what’s possible.
Some questions we’d like to learn more about and discuss:
How to gather input from users on desired digital humanities offerings in the library?
What are some successful examples or models of Digital Humanities Programs? What’s the range of offerings?
Which are the favorite/required tools to offer with library support?
What resources are necessary/desired? Space, hardware, people, campus partners
Creating a Digital Humanities Lab in the Library, pipe dream?
-Alex Watkins & Thea Lindquist
I’d be interested in talking about this more. There are several programs on my campus that want help with digital humanities: our history department has a “digital history” graduate program…but doesn’t have a centralized way of archiving or showcasing the graduate projects. They are also starting an oral history project for our student veterans. (We have a fairly significant population of military veterans on this campus.)
The modern languages department has 10 years of born digital data that they don’t know what to do with, including some incredible documentation of languages that are at risk of disappearing. I’m trying to get them to do an inventory of the files, but they didn’t use consistant file naming structures. (Several people gathering data over several years = a mess!)
How do I get the faculty started on thinking about this holistically? How can I get the other librarians and the campus IT department to see this as a priority? It’s a little overwhelming for me to think about all the options and potential projects.
Alex and Thea, I have the same questions; thank you for articulating them so well! The reason I wanted to come to this THATCamp was to start exploring possible answers to them.