The digital evolution of our society is increasingly affecting and enabling research in the humanities where digital resources and cultural datasets are now being considered as valuable research material. This evolution has increased the need for infrastructures and web environments where researchers from the humanities can collaboratively work on their data and even actively involve citizens. But while this digital evolution also brings new opportunities for service providers, there are many challenges to overcome when collaborating with humanities research groups in the development of their research infrastructures. At LIBIS, a service provider for information solutions at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven - Belgium), we have experienced some of the main issues being the sometimes limited technological knowhow of the researchers, but especially the lack of resources for the continued maintenance and support of the digital humanities infrastructures and datasets after the project funding period has ended. This presentation focusses on a number of Humanities infrastructure projects in which library, archival and museum tools have been used in combination with other open source and proprietary systems to provide a sustainable and innovative environment for different humanities research groups. We like to share our experiences on the active collaboration with the researchers in the writing of project proposals and the design and development of their infrastructures as well as provide a set of recommendations concerning the selection of tools and standards to guarantee a long lasting collaboration.

1. Challenges for researchers in the
Digital Humanities
Custom development vs. sustainable research
infrastructures
Roxanne Wyns
Roxanne.Wyns@kuleuven.be

2. Digital Humanities @ KU Leuven
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DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
Digital Humanities (DH)
Cross-section between IT &
Humanities
• Usage of digital tools and
IT techniques to enhance
research (text mining,
data visualization …)
@ KU Leuven
Emerging and hot
• DH summer school
• Master in DH
• Partner in DARIAH-VL
• Steadily growing number
of projects
& LIBIS
Services for researchers
• Division of LRD
• Part of University Library
• Information solutions and
services for GLAM and
digitally supported research

3. From GLAM to research tools
European projects (FP7)
• Focus on digital cultural heritage tools &
infrastructures
• Evolution towards research tools &
infrastructures since 2013
Hercules infrastructure call
• Flemish investment fund (now FWO)
• For the purchase / development of
infrastructures to support research
• Call opens every 2 years
• Budget divided among main universities
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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Hercules fighting Hydra
Source: commons.wikimedia.org
Some context

4. From GLAM to research tools
Alamire Foundation
• International Centre for the Study of Music
in the Low Countries
• Digitize medieval music manuscripts at high
resolution for research
Proposal writing
• Collaborative approach between
researchers and technical partners (LIBIS,
ESAT)
Revision phase
• Funded, but budget was heavily reduced
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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Manuscript illumination.
Probably created by the workshop of Petrus Alamire for the
Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Lady in 's-Hertogenbosch
(around 1530’s).
Source: idemdatabase.org
IDEM project – Hercules call 2013

5. From GLAM to research tools
Project budget:
• Main budget preserved for storage & long
term preservation
• Limited resources for database, website,
and viewer
• No budget for post-project maintenance
and support
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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IDEM project – Hercules call 2013
Budget cut on post-project
maintenance influenced
the selection of tools

6. From GLAM to research tools
Decision to:
Reuse a combination of existing tools in a
flexible way
Use open source where possible to limit
the license costs
Share the development costs with projects
with similar interests
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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IDEM project (2014 – 2015)
Clear communication on
pros & cons of offered tools
and total cost of ownership

7. IDEM project - tools & infrastructure
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DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
CollectiveAccess
Collaborative research
database
• Web application
• Flexible data modeling
• Suitable for collaboration
• Open source
Rosetta & IIIF Mirador
Preservation & visualisation
of the research objects
Omeka
Online publication and
access to the research data
• Flexible web publishing for
GLAM & scholarly
collections
• Lot’s of plug-ins, strong
community
• Open source
• Long term preservation
• Persistent identification
• Access to high resolution
images in a novel way
• Propriety and open source

8. 8
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
Growing number of partnerships through
investments and diversification of services

9. Development partner in Digital Humanities projects
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DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
NaBuCCo
Near Eastern Studies
• Text oriented database and website of
Babylonian sources
• Metadata model focused on research of
texts content
• Web access for researchers, also attractive
for wider audiences
• Post-project sustainability through faculty
support
Magister Dixit
Lectio research group
• Research on the collection of handwritten
lecture notes of the ancient University of
Louvain (1425-1797)
• Digitally restored and online accessible
• Post-project sustainability by the research
group, but …
• Data keeps growing

10. Development partner in Digital Humanities projects
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DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
CCT
Sinology research unit
• Chinese Christian Texts Database
• Research on primary and secondary sources
concerning the cultural contacts between
China and Europe
• Chinese (+ pinyin), western languages
• Migration from MARC standard to relational
data structure
• A standardised version could be suitable for
other humanities researchers
DigitalHusserl
• Funding by the Hercules foundation
• Collaborative research environment with
tools to create virtual editions,
collaboratively annotate and transcribe
Husserl's work (stenographs)
• Extra attention for sustainability
Centre for Phenomenology
& Continental Philosophy

11. DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
11Source: http://www.kazyoung.com/
Challenges

12. Challenges
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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Budget vs. Requirements
Budget for IT usually underestimated by
humanities researchers

13. Challenges
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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Technical knowhow
Things can be challenging,
but awareness and IT
knowledge are growing

14. Challenges
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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Sustainability
Costs for maintenance, storage and
support remains the biggest challenge
for humanities research groups
TB

15. DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
15Source: http://www.kazyoung.com/
Opportunities

16. Opportunity
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Collaboration
Clear
communication on
the limitations and
what to expect (TCO)
Working together to
achieve our goals
Willingness to
collaborate and
share developments
is growing
Alternative financing
mechanisms for
post-project
sustainability
Source:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1329266264789
82555/

17. Benefits for DH researchers
DI4R - Sustainable infrastructures for researchers in Digital Humanities
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• Have access to both financial and personnel
resources to execute technology projects
• Can interpret and translate the research
needs into technical requirements
• Can serve as a bridge between DH
researchers and research infrastructures
• Can provide qualitative, scalable, affordable
and reusable services
• Can link up with other service providers and
vendors to achieve technical innovation
• Are the best guarantee for technical and
financial sustainability
Technical research support
services at the University

18. Information.
Inspiration.
Innovation.
LIBIS
Roxanne Wyns (roxannewyns@kuleuven.be)
into-info@libis.be – www.libis.be
+32 (0) 16 32 22 66
De Croylaan 54 – PB 5592 – B-3001 Heverlee
Thank you !
Questions ?