Digital Humanities (DH) uses computing technologies to investigate traditional humanities questions or asks how computing impacts the humanities. DH is interdisciplinary, collaborative, project-based, and produces non-traditional scholarly outputs. It has grown since the 1960s with initiatives in text encoding, digital scholarship, and DH departments. Academic libraries support DH through consultation, digital collections, text mining, technology, and publishing support. Many libraries house DH centers and participate in DH networks to further collaborate on and advance DH research.

1. Digital Humanities
[and Academic Libraries]
April 21, 2016Sandra Cowan

2. Digital Humanities: DH
o Brief history
o Definitions
o Characteristics
o Field of scholarship
o Initiatives
o Academic libraries

3. DH: Timeline
1949 – Father Roberto Busa’s Index Thomisticus
1960’s - Humanities Computing
1990’s – Text encoding initiative (TEI)
2001 - Digital Humanities
2011 - King’s College London DH Department
20-teens - Digital Scholarship
1949 1990 2001 2016

4. DH: Definitions
UHumanities Digital Technology

5. DH: Definitions
An interdisciplinary area that can be characterized by:
o Using computing technologies to investigate the kinds
of questions that are traditional to the humanities; or
o Asking traditional kinds of humanities-oriented
questions about computing technologies; (Kathleen
Fitzpatrick, director of scholarly communications at MLA); or
o Creating digital resources for study and use in the
humanities

6. DH: Field of scholarship
o International societies
o Scholarly journals
o Conferences
o Education
o Centres

7. DH: Characteristics
• Project-based
• Collaborative
• Digital tools
• Experimental
• Interdisciplinary
• Open access
• Praxis
• Pedagogy
• Non-traditional scholarly products
• Global context

8. http://maker.uvic.ca/

11. http://library.columbia.edu/locations/dhc.html

13. http://dhcenternet.org/centers

14. http://www.arounddh.org/journey/

15. DH: Initiatives
o GO::DH (Global Outlook::Digital Humanities)
• Minimal computing
• Translation commons
• Rewriting Wikipedia project
• Around DH in 80 Days

16. http://iloveepoetry.com/

17. http://www.indianmemoryproject.com/

18. http://www.npm.gov.tw/vrmuseum_en/index.html

19. http://www.eastcree.org/cree/en/

20. https://www.blackfootdigitallibrary.com/

21. http://digitallibrary.uleth.ca/

24. “Every research library is already supporting DH at
some level. Libraries acquire special collections
and other library materials for the humanities,
digitize collections for improved access and utility,
and provide repositories for scholarly publications.”
-OCLC Report, 2014
DH: Academic Libraries

25. DH: Academic Libraries
o Ad hoc consultation & support
o DH Centres
o DH Networks

26. DH: Academic Libraries
o Special collections
o Digital collections & digitization
o Text mining
o Technology
o Cataloguing & metadata
o Preservation
o Digital scholarly publishing & Open access
o Humanities lab
o DH Centres / Networks / Collaborators
o Training and consultation
o Librarians as DH researchers

27. Questions?
Comments?