Bibliographies are arguably data sets of old. Their value for scholars across domains continues unabated – and for practical reason: the compilation of information resources marks a typical initial step in undertaking new research and thus exploring the existing literature. Citation management tools, like Zotero and Mendeley, have made substantive strides toward easier tracking of such resources; easier exporting to different file formats; and, overall, easier sharing with peer researchers.

Bibliographies are also something new again. At Penn State we have had inquiries from scholars asking for more than what Zotero and Mendeley provide, at least out of the box, such as a crowdsourcing functionality for developing web-based bibliographies that could allow for much more open peer contribution; verification (particularly for archival materials); annotation; and UI customization, to name a starting set of features. A few of our scholars are interested in linking a published monograph to a “living” bibliography – a resource that would be updated and enhanced continually via contributions from peer researchers as well as via automated methods. (This request is not unlike, in some ways, publisher requirements for researchers, primarily in the sciences, to link their journals to their data sets – except that such data sets tend to be finite and thus static.)

These inquiries have us wondering: what is the future of the bibliography – its purpose, its art? What is the future of publishing bibliographies, and how can libraries help in this effort, particularly to support authority of bibliographic content but also the dynamic enhancement of it, using best practices and standards? What new data models for publishing online bibliographies should be conceptualized? What other features are scholars interested in when it comes to bibliographies? This session is aimed at fleshing out potential bibliography use cases that leverage tools, ideas, and infrastructure familiar in the digital humanities and that also intersect with issues germane to humanities data curation.

For notes on this session & my participation in others, see: [twitter.com/wscotth].

I would like to propose a session on Digital Literary Archives.

Who should be involved in the design & development of the digital literary archive at the college / university level? Authors . . . Readers . . . Librarians . . . Scholars . . . Publishers . . . Editors . . . Students . . . Programmers . . . Booksellers? Can we imagine an open-access & open-source model for the digital literary archive, one that would build opportunities for collaborative research, creativity, authorship, and publication?

For my contribution to ThatCAMP, I would like to explore new directions for my research, publication, and teaching that are converging in dynamic ways. The changing roles for digital archives define the nexus of that convergence. I recently led the NEH Digital Archives Workshop for the University of Denver’s Digital Humanities Institute [portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?page=2&uid=2185] and will be presenting a related paper in November at the “Reconfiguring Authorship” conference at the University of Ghent [www.rap.ugent.be/node/26]. I have also co-authored (with faculty colleagues at the Penrose Library, Peggy Keeran and Jennifer Bowers) a book chapter in a forthcoming MLA volume, Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives. And I am the founding editor of two electronic, peer-reviewed, MLA-indexed and EBSCO-distributed journals, Appositions: Studies in Renaissance / Early Modern Literature & Culture; and Reconfigurations: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture. These experiences have led me to new questions about collaborative research, teaching, and publishing, which I have recently addressed in a journal article, “WYSIWYG Poetics: Reconfiguring the Fields for Creative Writers and Scholars,” in the Journal of Electronic Publishing (Fall, 2011): [dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0014.204].

How might digital literary archives facilitate new forms and fields of knowledge within and beyond academia? How might such non-conformist DH projects engender new relationships within, across, and beyond Departments and Divisions?

This proposal is less a calculated intervention and more (in the spirit of THATCamp?) a loose whirlwind of things I’ve been thinking about. Also, I notice we have a number of good proposals for discussion sessions—I’m looking forward to Re-Skilling for Research and one on doing DH instruction—so I thought, in the interest of balance, I would try to come up with a session based around making something (or at least trying to).

There are two proximate inspirations for this proposal. The first is the brilliant and beautiful new Web site unveiled by the Rijks Museum (may we all be so good as to copy it): www.rijksmuseum.nl/en. One of the best things about the site is that everyone is encouraged to download hi-res versions of images and to re-use them—and it is dead simple to do. The second inspiration is the great work that Tim Sherratt (@wragge) has done and continues to do with digital collections at a variety of Australian institutions. (Seriously, someone give this man a job.) I particularly recommend looking carefully at the work Sherratt has done with digitized collections from the National Archives of Australia in projects like Invisible Australians.

As I’m sure is the case at everyone’s institutions, we have digitized some wonderful things at Maryland (childrens’ books printed during the American occupation of Japan after World War II, anyone?) but how hard does a prospective (prospecting?) digital humanist have to work to get access to these things? In many places (including MPOW), they have to work way too hard. Bravo to those who have APIs or download functions as easy as the Rijks Museum. For the most part, my hunch is that whether it’s Fedora, DSpace, ContentDM, etc., etc. — we’re often putting collections out there in ways that make them easy (or easier) to search and browse, but not to download, remix, re-make, re-present, and create with.

So, with all that said, what I propose is to devote a session and a small share of our insider knowledge (as the custodians of these access systems and discovery layers) to figuring out how to pull down some of this cool digital stuff and get it ready to use in ways that digital humanists might be apt to want to do. How long does it take? Are the terms and conditions clear? What might it be possible to make or at least concretely imagine making with the goods we can “liberate” from our collective digital collections?

Maybe that all sounds too messy or too hard to do in an unconference session but I’d at least like to try. I think we’ll find out some interesting things by dumping all the crayons on the table and making a mess.

We added a feature to our recent yearbook site at the University of Idaho (www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/gem/) that allows users to digitally “sign” a yearbook.  We released the site in September and just got our first signature yesterday. As you might guess, we expected a bit more engagement.

There are many reasons why the feature has not been that successful, prime among these being that the feature resides below the fold on the yearbook pages, but I am wondering if/what others experiences with user generated content has been like and if anyone has seen any trends with user engagement with DH projects generally.

On a personal note, this is my first THATCamp, and I’m really looking forward to meeting and talking to you all.

Free from some of the constraints of traditional departments and the faculty tenure track, Scholar-Librarians have been very active in producing digital humanities projects. However, there are some challenges to housing these hybrid-professionals and striking the balance between independent research and the traditional service mission of the library is one of the biggest. How might libraries re-imagine some staff roles as they embrace digital humanities work?

Some libraries have their own IT departments while others use their campus IT division. In either model, that support may be highly centralized, highly decentralized or, in some cases, confederated. In this session, I want to compare notes about how these various approaches work, what are the pros and cons, and – if necessary – to try to imagine new ways of conceptualizing IT in the library.

In particular, I am interested in ideas about IT support for Digital Humanities. This often presents special challenges because the work can be experimental and done in collaboration with partners who have very busy schedules.

I would like to propose a panel on digital publishing and libraries. I have more questions than answers at this point but I think this is a potentially exciting direction for libraries.

My interest in this stems from my experience working with a number of online journals at Emory but is also related to the growing collection of digital projects the library has developed in partnership with scholars. At many libraries, such projects are handled on a case-by-case basis but as they become more numerous, libraries will want to develop standard tools and procedures.

If there is a workflow and if the library is providing technical and design support and if the library is hosting the projects, then it would appear that the library is operating as a publisher. In this session, I would like to hear ideas about how we could do better at this job and what sorts of personnel are needed. Could the jobs of existing staff be re-configured or are entirely new positions needed.

I am also interested in the how a library-as-publisher might approach the issue of selecting projects. The library traditionally helps anyone but has no say in whether or not the project is published. This dynamic is likely to change if all stages of the scholarly process – research, development, launching, hosting and archiving – are vertically integrated in the library.

What knowledge, skills and experience are needed by library staff to support Digital Humanities initiatives at the university?  This is different from actually “doing” digital humanities in the academic library.  -Deb Morley, MIT Libraries

Hello all,

I’m interested in hearing how people are collaborating with faculty on digital humanities research projects. My experiences have been limited to obtaining data sets for them, introducing them to DH tools, and/or connecting them to campus centers that have the computing tools they need. But with the rise in libraries becoming research partners who are being written into grants and all, I’d like to learn more about strategies for partnering with faculty on research projects.

I’m interested in discussing what current/upcoming LIS students can do to become involved in the digital humanities. As DH gains momentum, more and more MLIS/MLS students are becoming interested in pursuing work at DH centers and in libraries that support DH, though finding opportunities to learn DH-centric skills and experience in the field is not always easy or obvious. What types of courses–currently offered at most LIS programs–would be most beneficial? What skills are necessary for librarians to work in DH? How can we better connect MLIS/MLS students with DH centers in terms of internships, work experience, project support? In the future, how can LIS programs better support students in the DH community–new course offerings focusing on DH skills, connections to centers, other ways of connecting and involvement?

How have DH projects evolved from “boutique” to modular/sustainable over the years? What are faculty, librarians, and academic technologists at your institution or organization doing to create sustainable, adaptable models that can be used by multiple DH projects? Why have some of the DH projects (Bamboo, etc.) not gained more momentum? How do we share common frameworks and components to make DH projects simpler to build and maintain? How do we resource projects that require maintenance and enhancement over time, and how do we reduce costs by leveraging existing tools and standards?

The DH librarian and Digital Library Program librarians at UCLA have started doing instruction sessions for mostly graduate students, many of whom are in DH.  These sessions have included workshops on Topic Modeling,  Google Maps and Fusion Tables, XML and TEI topics and others (a popular one was on Jquery).  These are all outside of sessions taught for courses, so are essentially library instruction sessions.  What instruction are others able to offer?  We have had challenges in obtaining software, preparing sessions and making them useful for the long term.  It would be great to confer with other librarians doing instruction for DH students and faculty in any capacity, including for regular courses for credit.

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 am interested in discussing the notion of “re-skilling” or training librarians, most of whom have spent their careers as subject liaisons, with the specific knowledge and skills necessary to support digital scholarship. Two recent studies in particular have highlighted the gaps in librarian skills in relation to new research needs: the Research Libraries UK report “Re-Skilling for Research” and the Ithaka S+R History study (“Support Services for Scholars: History Project Interim Report”). Both studies cite the need for librarians to better understand data management and the tools and methods being used by researchers.

The turn to digital in humanities scholarship has been significant. Yet, this change in research behavior has not been accompanied by a major change in the profession of librarianship. While many reference desks are now virtual rather than physical, more research materials are purchased through automated approval plans, and the majority of materials acquired are digital, the fundamental service model of librarianship has not changed. Librarians are still being trained to assist scholars in their research process by purchasing materials, helping with discovery of those materials, and preserving the materials for future generations of scholars.

The staff of digital humanities centers or labs sited in libraries are most often comprised of humanities scholars, Web developers, and programmers. Librarians are sometimes included on staff, but more frequently they serve as consultants on specific projects rather than as full-time members of the center. I would like to explore the idea of a service model for DH with librarians at the center rather than at the margins, envisioning librarians as full collaborators in the scholarly process.

General discussion on the use of traditional GIS and emerging mapping tools to enhance scholarship.  After several projects using a variety of platforms and tools, I’m interested to share thoughts with others who have worked with faculty to add a mapping component to their DH research.  I would also be happy to hear more generally about work involving data vizualization (temporal, textual, etc.)