Category: Digital Humanities

Encouraging Digital Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities: White Paper

The University of North Georgia has released Encouraging Digital Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities: White Paper.

Here's an excerpt:

This project, led by the University Press of North Georgia, and funded by a Digital Start-Up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities focused on exploring the peer review process and increasing its usefulness to presses and scholars publishing digitally. By exploring this issues we have made recommendations for best practices in digital publishing, specifically for small academic presses. Through surveys and a workshop of key stakeholder groups (press directors, college administrators, humanities faculty, and library/technology center directors), we found a strong investment in the "gold standard" of double- or single-blind peer review. Working within the current academic publishing structure (including publishing in print) was a priority, even to presses and faculty members who were actively exploring digital publishing and open access models. On closer inspection, we realized that the various stakeholders valued the current peer review process for different reasons. And we found that the value of peer review goes beyond vetting the quality of scholarship and manuscript content. Based on these findings, we considered ways to obtain these benefits within the current academic structure through innovative peer review processes. At the same time, we looked for ways of offsetting potential risks associated with these alternative methods. We considered cost effective ways to accommodate the needs of the disparate constituencies involved in academic publishing while allowing room for digital publishing. While our findings focus primarily on small academic presses, they also have significant implications for the open access community.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries

ARL has released New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

The liaison role in research libraries is rapidly evolving. An engagement model in which library liaisons and functional specialists collaborate to understand and address the wide range of processes in instruction and scholarship is replacing the traditional tripartite model of collections, reference, and instruction. New roles in research services, digital humanities, teaching and learning, digital scholarship, user experience, and copyright and scholarly communication are being developed at research libraries across the country, requiring professional development and re-skilling of current staff, creative approaches to increase staff capacity, the development of new spaces and infrastructure, and collaborative partnerships within libraries, across campus units, and among research institutions.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

"Does Digital Scholarship Have a Future?"

Edward L. Ayers has published "Does Digital Scholarship Have a Future?" in the latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

Though the recent popularity of the phrase digital scholarship reflects impressive interdisciplinary ambition and coherence, two crucial elements remain in short supply in the emerging field. First, the number of scholars willing to commit themselves and their careers to digital scholarship has not kept pace with institutional opportunities. Second, today few scholars are trying, as they did earlier in the web's history, to reimagine the form as well as the substance of scholarship. In some ways, scholarly innovation has been domesticated, with the very ubiquity of the web bringing a lowered sense of excitement, possibility, and urgency. These two deficiencies form a reinforcing cycle: the diminished sense of possibility weakens the incentive for scholars to take risks, and the unwillingness to take risks limits the impact and excitement generated by boldly innovative projects.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

"The .txtual Condition: Digital Humanities, Born-Digital Archives, and the Future Literary"

Matthew Kirschenbaum has published "The .txtual Condition: Digital Humanities, Born-Digital Archives, and the Future Literary" in a preview issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

Here then are some specifics I have considered as to how digital humanities might usefully collaborate with those archivists even now working on born-digital collections:

  • Digital archivists need digital humanities researchers and subject experts to use born-digital collections. Nothing is more important. If humanities researchers don't demand access to born-digital materials then it will be harder to get those materials processed in a timely fashion, and we know that with the born-digital every day counts.
  • Digital humanists need the long-term perspective on data that archivists have. Today's digital humanities projects are, after all, the repository objects of tomorrow's born-digital archives. Funders are increasingly (and rightfully) insistent about the need to have a robust data management and sustainability plan built into project proposals from the outset. Therefore, there is much opportunity for collaboration and team-building around not only archiving and preservation, but the complete data curation cycle. This extends to the need to jointly plan around storage and institutional infrastructure.
  • Digital archivists and digital humanists need common and interoperable digital tools. Open source community-driven development at the intersection of the needs of digital archivists, humanities scholars, and even collections' donors should become an urgent priority.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities

digitalculturebooks has released Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities, edited by Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Hacking the Academy both explores and contributes to ongoing efforts to rebuild scholarly infrastructure for a new millennium. This book poses important and timely questions about scholarship in the digital age.

  • Can an algorithm edit a journal?
  • Can a library exist without books?
  • Can students build and manage their own learning management platforms?
  • Can a conference be held without a program?
  • Can Twitter replace a scholarly society?

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

"Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars as Amici Curiae in Authors Guild v. Hathitrust"

Matthew Jockers, Matthew Sag, and Jason Schultz have self-archived "Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars as Amici Curiae in Authors Guild v. Hathitrust" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This Amicus Brief was filed in the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit in the case of Authors Guild v. Hathitrust on June 4, 2013. The case is on Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11 CV 6351 (Baer, J.)

Amici are over 100 professors and scholars who teach, write, and research in computer science, the digital humanities, linguistics or law, and two associations that represent Digital Humanities scholars generally. . . .

The Court's ruling in this case on the legality of mass digitization could dramatically affect the future of work in the Digital Humanities. The Amici argue that the Court should affirm the decision of the district court below that library digitization for the purpose of text mining and similar non-expressive uses present no legally cognizable conflict with the statutory rights or interests of the copyright holders.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

Perception Analysis of Scholarly E-Books in the Humanities at the Collegiate Level

ACLS Humanities E-Book has released Perception Analysis of Scholarly E-Books in the Humanities at the Collegiate Level.

Here's an excerpt:

At present, there is significant market confusion regarding e-book selections in the academic marketplace, particularly in the humanities. University acquisition librarians, unsure of what the offerings actually are, have found themselves unsure of where to allocate funds, which has resulted in the postponement of e-book purchases. This paper provides a current assessment of the status of e-book offerings in the humanities.

Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap

"Keeping Up With…Digital Humanities"

ACRL has released "Keeping Up With…Digital Humanities"

Here's an excerpt:

Digital Humanities is not limited to any one field—it is highly collaborative, and draws contributors from many backgrounds—but it does have a solid base in academia. In recent years, related initiatives have emerged at universities (and elsewhere) worldwide. For academic librarians, the increasing prominence of Digital Humanities, its ongoing debates and the issues and opportunities associated with bringing it into the library, are worth noting. In this issue of Keeping Up With… we address some of the most significant "need-to-know" issues for academic librarians interested in Digital Humanities.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Sitemap |

2013 Digging into Data Challenge Grants

JISC has announced the 2013 Digging into Data Challenge grant program.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Today, the third round of the Digging into Data Challenge, a grant competition designed to help develop digital research in the humanities and social sciences launches in Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States. . . .

During the first two rounds of the Challenge, held in 2009 and 2011, nearly 150 teams, representing universities from across Canada, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK, competed to demonstrate how innovative research methods could be used to address questions in the humanities and social sciences. Twenty-two of those teams were awarded grants during those earlier rounds, each of them demonstrating new methods for analysing vast digital resources used for humanities and social science research, like digital books, survey data, economic data, newspapers, music, and other scholarly, scientific, and cultural heritage resources that are now being digitised on a huge scale.

Due to the overwhelming popularity of the earlier rounds, two additional funders have joined for round three, enabling this competition to have a world-wide reach into many different scholarly and scientific domains.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 2 (XHTML website; over 200 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics

Open Book Publishers has released Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The first section offers views on the practical realities of teaching digital humanities at undergraduate and graduate levels, presenting case studies and snapshots of the authors' experiences alongside models for future courses and reflections on pedagogical successes and failures. The next section proposes strategies for teaching foundational digital humanities methods across a variety of scholarly disciplines, and the book concludes with wider debates about the place of digital humanities in the academy, from the field's cultural assumptions and social obligations to its political visions.

| Digital Scholarship Overview | Digital Scholarship |

Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians

Ithaka S+R has released Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians .

Here's an excerpt:

In History, the Ithaka S+R project team found a discipline in transition. An expansion in the nature of the field over the past 50 years has introduced new sources, both in terms of subject coverage and international scope. However, only a comparatively small share of the primary sources required by historians has been made available digitally, tempering the opportunity for new methods to take hold.

Even if the impact of computational analysis and other types of new research methods remains limited to a subset of historians, new research practices and communications mechanisms are being adopted widely, bringing with them both opportunities and challenges.

| Digital Scholarship's 2012 Publications | Digital Scholarship |

Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: The Balanced Value Impact Model

King's College London has released Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: The Balanced Value Impact Model.

Here's an excerpt:

This document synthesizes information from the whole Impact Assessment sector and then proposes the Balanced Value Impact Model as a means to effectively carry out an Impact Assessment relating to the benefits of digitization and digital resources in general. It seeks to help the communities identified above to provide a compelling argument for future work. Thus, you will find in this document information on:

  • Where the value and impact can be found in digital resources,
  • Who are the beneficiaries gaining from the impact and value,
  • How to measure change and impact for digital resources,
  • What makes for good indicators of change in people’s lives,
  • How to do an Impact Assessment using the Balanced Value Impact Model, and
  • How to present a convincing evidence-based argument for digital resources?

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars as Amici Curiae in Authors Guild v. Google"

Matthew L. Jockers, Matthew Sag, and Jason Schultz have self-archived "Brief of Digital Humanities and Law Scholars as Amici Curiae in Authors Guild v. Google" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The brief argues that, just as copyright law has long recognized the distinction between protection for an author's original expression (e.g., the narrative prose describing the plot) and the public's right to access the facts and ideas contained within that expression (e.g., a list of characters or the places they visit), the law must also recognize the distinction between copying books for expressive purposes (e.g., reading) and nonexpressive purposes, such as extracting metadata and conducting macroanalyses. We amici urge the court to follow established precedent with respect to Internet search engines, software reverse engineering, and plagiarism detection software and to hold that the digitization of books for text-mining purposes is a form of incidental or intermediate copying to be regarded as fair use as long as the end product is also nonexpressive or otherwise non-infringing.

| Google Books Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Digital Humanities: Where to Start"

Jennifer L. Adams and Kevin B. Gunn have published "Digital Humanities: Where to Start" in the latest issue of College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

As an emerging field, DH has, thus far, had a broad characterization. As technology and our understanding of it change, so do the limits of DH. There has been some debate as to whether DH constitutes a discipline of its own or is simply an application of new technologies to existing disciplines. In either case, DH can be understood as the place where traditional humanities research methodologies and media/digital technologies intersect. DH is more than the digitization of existing processes, documents, and artifacts. It is often data-driven, answering humanities research problems with multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross-disciplinary approaches within the digital/IT realm. The current challenge for DH lies in establishing itself in traditional academic environments. . . .

There are many useful resources available online, including general sites as well as e-publications, tools, tutorials, and organizations. We have tried to include a representative sample of those we feel are most important or could be most useful for librarians getting started in the digital humanities.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"Developing Humanities Collections in the Digital Age: Exploring Humanities Faculty Engagement with Electronic and Print Resources"

College & Research Libraries has released an eprint of "Developing Humanities Collections in the Digital Age: Exploring Humanities Faculty Engagement with Electronic and Print Resources."

Here's an excerpt:

This article is based on quantitative and qualitative research examining humanities scholars' understandings of the advantages and disadvantages of print versus electronic information resources. It explores how humanities' faculty members at [removed for review] use print and electronic resources, as well as how they perceive these different formats. It was carried out with the goal of assisting the authors and other librarians in choosing between electronic and print formats when performing collection development responsibilities.

| Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications | Digital Scholarship |

Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science Offers Digital Humanities Concentration in M.S. Degree

The Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science is offering a Digital Humanities program concentration in its M.S. in Library and Information Science degree.

Here's an excerpt from the program description:

The concentration addresses the range of issues involved in digital humanities, from digitizing primary sources and creating content systems to analyzing data and exploring new platforms for research and publication.

By the end of the concentration, students are able bring skills in digitization, preservation, metadata, analysis, and technology into academic settings to support faculty and institutional teaching and research. They are also prepared to serve as thought leaders at cultural heritage institutions in the area of digital scholarship and public programming.

| Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting applications for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants. The application deadline is September 25, 2012 for projects that begin in May 2013.

Here's an excerpt announcement:

Proposals should be for the planning or initial stages of digital initiatives in any area of the humanities. Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants may involve

  • research that brings new approaches or documents best practices in the study of the digital humanities;
  • planning and developing prototypes of new digital tools for preserving, analyzing, and making accessible digital resources, including libraries' and museums' digital assets;
  • scholarship that focuses on the history, criticism, and philosophy of digital culture and its impact on society;
  • scholarship or studies that examine the philosophical or practical implications and impact of the use of emerging technologies in specific fields or disciplines of the humanities, or in interdisciplinary collaborations involving several fields or disciplines;
  • innovative uses of technology for public programming and education utilizing both traditional and new media; and
  • new digital modes of publication that facilitate the dissemination of humanities scholarship in advanced academic as well as informal or formal educational settings at all academic levels.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

One Culture. Computationally Intensive Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Report on the Experiences of First Respondents to the Digging Into Data Challenge

The Council on Library and Information Resources. has released One Culture. Computationally Intensive Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Report on the Experiences of First Respondents to the Digging Into Data Challenge.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement, which includes links to additional case studies:

This report culminates two years of work by CLIR staff involving extensive interviews and site visits with scholars engaged in international research collaborations involving computational analysis of large data corpora. These scholars were the first recipients of grants through the Digging into Data program, led by the NEH, who partnered with JISC in the UK, SSHRC in Canada, and the NSF to fund the first eight initiatives. The report introduces the eight projects and discusses the importance of these cases as models for the future of research in the academy.

| Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works | Digital Scholarship |

Modern Language Association Releases "Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media"

The Modern Language Association has released "Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media." This is the first update in 12 years.

Here's an excerpt:

The following guidelines are designed to help departments and faculty members implement effective evaluation procedures for hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion. They apply to scholars working with digital media as their subject matter and to those who use digital methods or whose work takes digital form.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting grant proposals for its Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program.

Here's an excerpt from the program guidelines:

Applications may be submitted for projects that address one or more of the following activities:

  • arranging and describing archival and manuscript collections;
  • cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving images, art, and material culture;
  • providing conservation treatment (including deacidification) for collections, leading to enhanced access;
  • digitizing collections;
  • preserving and improving access to born-digital sources;
  • developing databases, virtual collections, or other electronic resources to codify information on a subject or to provide integrated access to selected humanities materials; . . . .
  • developing tools for spatial analysis and representation of humanities data, such as atlases and geographic information systems (GIS); and
  • designing digital tools to facilitate use of humanities resources.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Journal of Digital Humanities Launched

The first issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities has been published by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

Here's an excerpt from the "A Community-Sourced Journal":

We're pleased to present the inaugural issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities, which represents the best of the work that was posted online by the community of digital humanities scholars and practitioners in the final three months of 2011. . . .

The works in this issue were first highlighted on the Digital Humanities Now site and its related feeds. . . .

Once highlighted as an "Editors' Choice" on Digital Humanities Now, works were eligible for inclusion in the Journal of Digital Humanities. By looking at a range of qualitative and quantitative measures of quality, from the kinds of responses a work engendered, to the breadth of the community who felt it was worth their time to examine a work, to close reading and analyses of merit by the editorial board and others, we were able to produce the final list of works. For the inaugural issue, more than 15,000 items published or shared by the digital humanities community last quarter were reviewed for Digital Humanities Now. Of these, 85 were selected as Editors' Choices, and from these 85 the ones that most influenced the community, as measured by interest, transmission, and response, have been selected for formal publication in the Journal. The digital humanities community participated further in the review process through open peer review of the pieces selected for the Journal. Authors selected for inclusion were given time to revise their work to answer criticisms and suggestions from the community and editors, prior to a round of careful editing to avoid typographical errors and other minor mistakes.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

NEH Announces New Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant Recipients

The National Endowment for the Humanities's Office of Digital Humanities has announced the recipients of 22 new Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants.

The announcement was part of a larger announcement of $17 million in grants for 208 humanities projects. A state-by-state list of these grants is available.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

"Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences"

Nicholas W. Jankowski, Andrea Scharnhorst, Clifford Tatum, and Zuotian Tatum have self-archived "Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the "objects" of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.

For related information, see the SURF Enhancing Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences project website.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Google Digital Humanities Awards Recipient Interviews Report

Virgil E.Varvel, Jr. and Andrea Thomer have self-archived the Google Digital Humanities Awards Recipient Interviews Report in IDEALS.

Here's an excerpt:

As input into the development, design, and improvement of the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), recipients of Google's Digital Humanities Grants were interviewed to identify issues encountered during their projects. This project was guided by the following goals:

  • Increase empirical understanding of how to identify materials for use by scholars.
  • Increase empirical understanding of how to provide better access to materials for use by scholars.
  • Identify meaningful characteristics of content that affect identification, retrieval, and other parameters.
  • Identify data preprocessing and transformation issues encountered by scholars.
  • Provide input to inform the architecture of the HTRC related to representation of collections, faceted browsing, identifiers, etc.

|Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |