This was one of the 10 most highly rated presentations at LIBER's 2016 Annual Conference in Helsinki, Finland.

1. HUMANITIES
DATA
LITERACY
STUDENT PERSPECTIVE ON DIGITAL CULTURAL
HERITAGE COLLECTIONS
MAIJA PAAVOLAINEN @MPPAAVOL
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

2. HUMANITIES DATA
LITERACY
CASE:
DIGITAL
CULTURAL
HERITAGE
COURSE
#Helsinki
DH
HERITAGE
COLLECTI
ONS AS
DATA
DATA
LITERACY
LIBRA
RY
GLAM
ORGANIZ
ATIONS

3. Miriam Posner (2013): Common challenges
for Libraries in DH
• Librarians working as project managers
gathering resources for researchers’ DH
projects
• Relying heavily on individual librarians
effort
• Often without sufficient infrastructure or
administrative power in the library
DIGITALHUMANITIES IN
LIBRARIES
Posner, M. (2013). No half measures: Overcoming common
challenges to doing digital humanities in the library. Journal of
Library Administration, 53(1), 43-52. Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

4. Uni Helsinki Digital Humanities #HelsinkiDH
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/digit
al-humanities-helsinki
Emerging field
• A handful of research projects
• Teaching piloted Academic year 2015-16
• HELDIG centre planning stage
Multidisciplinary group effort
• Humanities scholars working with
developers from computer science
departments
• Methods developed simultaneously with
research, coding not outsourced or bought
DH IN UNI HELSINKI
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

5. HELSINKI DHTEACHING
MODULE
DH1a Introduction to
digital humanities (5sp)
DH2a Introduction to
methods in digital
humanities (5sp)
DH3
Multidisciplinary
Project (5sp)
DH1 Theory and Practice (5-15sp)
DH2 Methods (5-15sp)
Social network analysisSocial network analysisSocial network analysis
Cultural heritage and
the digital
Social network analysisSocial network analysisSocial network analysisData visualization
Digital Humanities 25sp

6. Helsinki DH
• Limited resources for curriculum planning - volunteers and ideas
welcome!
• Simple idea about heritage collections as humanities research data
Librarians need
• Courage to think the idea through and put together a course
• Support and partnership from teaching faculty
• Allocated time from library management
PARTNERS IN DH
CURRICULUM DESIGN

7. • Very gentle, humanities oriented introduction
to digital humanities themes
• Materials in focus: The range and landscape
of (Finnish) digital cultural heritage
collections
• Does going through the collections invoke
research questions?
• What should be taken into account when
evaluating the collections from a research
perspective?
DIGITALCULTURAL
HERITAGE COURSE
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

8. • 5 ECT credits
• 15 students, 5 small groups
• 14 classroom sessions, 10+ visiting speakers
• Speakers from heritage organisations as Finnish National Library,
Finnish National Broadcasting YLE, National Gallery, Society for Finnish
Literature, Helsinki City Museum.. + open culture specialist, linked data
specialist, museum curator for user services
• 2 sessions reserved for groupwork in the library
• 2 sessions for presenting groupwork
• Learning diary and required readings
COURSE OUTLINE

9. Central Heritage
Collections
Open Culture
Movement
Developing research
thinking with
available materials
Possibilities of the
digital: from
browsing to working
with collections as
data
Heritage collection
documentation:
quality and
systematicity of
metadata
Copyright and
Research Ethical
Issues
Library goal:
bringing RDM
thinking into
undergraduate
curriculum
COURSE GOALS:
LEARNINGABOUT

10. • Is the collection available for download
openly? Through an API? Is the metadata
available for download? (vs. only through
a user interface)
• How is the quality of the collection
thoughout? Is it uneven and partly lacking
or is it systematic, informative and rich ?
• How is the data documented? Is the
metadata correct?
• Are there copyright or privacy issues that
restrict the use of the collection as data or
could those issues be negotiated?
HERITAGE COLLECTION
DATAFEATURES
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

11. • Students responding positively and with a surprise to the range of digital
heritage sector
• Heritage organizations pleased to meet students at Uni
COURSE OUTCOMES
Room for more collaboration
and knowledge sharing UNI /
GLAM
• Students ready to think about availability and copyright issues
• More difficult to bring forward the data aspects of heritage
materials or the development of research questions

12. STUDENTS
• Positive feedback on
• Course content
• Working methods
• Timeliness of the issues
• Visiting speakers in a row: difficult to
grasp a whole?
EXPERIENCESAND
FEEDBACK
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

13. TEACHERS
• Goals too ambitious?
• 1-3 year students didn’t grow into to
thinking like a researcher overnight!
• Data viewpoint difficult to grasp
• Extensive reading list didn’t show up in
learning diaries
EXPERIENCESAND
FEEDBACK
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

14. Information literacy: from standards of
finding and recognizing relevant
information (ACRL, 2000)
..to frameworks for taking part in
academic discussion and creating
information, becoming a subject of
knowledge (ACRL, 2015)
Data Literacy (Koltay, 2015)
involves knowledge of quantitative (statistical)
methods, metadata standards and the data
curation lifecycle.
But also the understanding of
data quality: accessibility, usability and
understandability on the basis of context,
provenience and metadata,
data structure of different digital objects and
even developing hypotheses and identifying
problems that a dataset can answer
INFO LITERACY/ DATA
LITERACY
Koltay, T. (2015). Data literacy: in search of a
name and identity. Journal of Documentation,
71(2), 401-415.

15. DATALITERACY/ HERITAGE
DATAFEATURES
ACCESSIBILITY
• Is the collection to be
downloaded openly as
data or can it only be
used through a user
interface?
• What are the relevant
copyright issues?
USEFULNESS of Data
• What is the
provenience of the
collection?
• Is it systematically
representative or
lacking in some way?
UNDERSTANDABILITY
of DATA
• How is the data
documented?
• Is the metadata
correct?
• Is there enough
metadata to bring out
the context?

16. Recognizing research potential of an existing heritage collection
• Identifying problems that the dataset could answer
• Develop hypothesis based on the data
Becoming aware of the data features that enable new quantitative methods
• Access, format, systematicity, metadata
Understanding the context and provenience of the collection
• Extension, representativeness
• Openness, relevant copyright and privacy issues
HUMANITIES DATA
LITERACY

17. Maija Paavolainen @mppaavol
maija.paavolainen@helsinki.fi
Helsinki University Library
http://www.helsinki.fi/kirjasto/fi/etusivu
/
Helsinki Digital Humanities
#HelsinkiDH
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgro
ups/digital-humanities-helsinki
THANKYOU!
Picture Helsinki City Museum finna.fi CC BY 4.0

18. Baker, K. (2013). Information literacy and cultural heritage: developing a model for lifelong learning. Chandos Information
Professional Series, Elsevier.
Hartsell-Gundy, A., Braunstein, L., & Golomb, L. (2015). Digital humanities in the library: challenges and opportunities for
subject specialists.
Koltay, T. (2015). Data literacy: in search of a name and identity. Journal of Documentation, 71(2), 401-415.
Lindquist, T., Dulock, M., Törnroos, J., Hyvönen, E., & Mäkelä, E. (2013). Using linked open data to enhance subject access
in online primary sources. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 51(8), 913-928.
Lahti, L., Ilomäki, N., & Tolonen, M. (2015). A Quantitative Study of History in the English Short-Title Catalogue (ESTC),
1470-1800. Liber Quarterly, 25(2).
MacMillan, D. (2015). Developing data literacy competencies to enhance faculty collaborations. Liber Quarterly, 24(3).
Madrid, M. M. (2013). A Study of Digital Curator Competences: A survey of experts. The International Information & Library
Review, 45(3-4), 149-156.
Posner, M. (2013). No half measures: Overcoming common challenges to doing digital humanities in the library. Journal of
Library Administration, 53(1), 43-52.
LITERATURE