Digital Humanities (DH) is an interdisciplinary area that uses digital resources and computing technologies to ask humanistic questions. It has grown rapidly in academic libraries which increasingly take a proactive role in supporting and collaborating on DH through services like digitization, tool development, and establishing DH centers. While some libraries take a reactive, service-oriented approach, others see DH as an opportunity for libraries and librarians to become equal collaborators and scholars through initiatives like dedicated DH librarian positions and institutional support of digital scholarship.

1. Digital Humanities
in
Academic Libraries
Sandra Cowan
University of Lethbridge Library
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
SW/PACA Conference
Albuquerque, New Mexico
20/2/14

2. 2005 The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) is an umbrella
organisation whose goals are to promote and support digital research and teaching
across arts and humanities disciplines…
http://adho.org/about

3. April 2007 centerNet is an international network of digital humanities centers formed for
cooperative and collaborative action to benefit digital humanities and allied fields in
general, and centers as humanities cyberinfrastructure in particular.
http://digitalhumanities.org/centernet/about/

4. January 2013 GO::DH is a Special Interest Group of the Alliance of Digital Humanities
Organisations. Supported by the University of Lethbridge. The purpose of GO::DH is to help
break down barriers that hinder communication and collaboration among researchers and
students of the Digital Arts, Humanities, and Cultural Heritage sectors around the world.
http://www.globaloutlookdh.org/category/about-2/

5. January 2013 Special Issue: Digital Humanities in Libraries

6. January, 2013 dh + lib : where digital humanities and librarianship meet
It aims to provide a communal space where librarians, archivists, LIS graduate students, and
information specialists of all stripes can contribute to a conversation about digital humanities
and libraries. http://acrl.ala.org/dh/about-3/

7. "The Board recognizes that Digital Humanities is a
crucial area for our membership and one in which
members have asked ACRL to expand its offerings. The
rapid growth and active participation in the original
Digital Humanities discussion group, has proven that
this is an area of importance to our membership. The
ACRL Board is very excited to include the Digital
Humanities Interest Group among ACRL’s growing
number of interest groups and looks forward to hearing
from you about the projects and initiatives the group
decides to undertake. The Board asked me to extend
their appreciation to you for making available to ACRL
members this new community of practice.“
ACRL Digital Humanities Listserv
Association of College & Research Libraries
New DH Interest Group
January 30, 2014

8. February 6, 2014 Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Research Report

9. Further Characteristics of DH:
• Project-based
• Collaborative
• Digital tools
• Iterative
• Experimental
• Interdisciplinary
• Textual, spatial or visual analysis
• Open access
• Praxis
Digital Humanities
An interdisciplinary area that can be characterized by:
a) Asking traditional and sometimes new humanistic questions using digital
resources; or
b) Subjecting computing technologies to interpretation and critique by humanistic
methods and strategies of questioning.
~Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of scholarly communications at MLA

10. “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

11. https://www.uleth.ca/dspace/

12. http://blackfootdigitallibrary.com/bla/about-us

13. These online collections were locally-developed by the Digitization Team at University
of Lethbridge Library, and contain content provided by the University Library, University
Archives, on-campus departments and community partner institutions.
http://digitallibrary.uleth.ca/

15. DH Centers in Academic Libraries
“As of November 2012, nearly 100 centers are listed, roughly half of
them in the United States. Of those centers, nearly half are located
within libraries and another quarter maintain some informal relationship
with libraries.”
(Sula, 2013)
Scholar’s Lab at University of Virginia
Library Lab at Harvard
Digital Humanities Incubator at University of Maryland
Digital Scholarship Commons at Emory University

16. Academic Libraries : Responses to DH?
1. What is Digital Humanities?
2. Supporters (reactive/responsive to serve patrons’ needs)
3. Full collaborators (proactive)

17. 2. SUPPORTERS
• Responsive/reactive
• Service orientation
• OCLC Report “Does Every Research Library Need a Digital
Humanities Center?”
• Libraries are already providing DH support in many ways
• REACTIVE We’re already doing it – support to faculty, packaging
services, collaborating on DH centers and projects—responding to
the needs of our patrons

18. 3. FULL COLLABORATORS
• Proactive: taking the lead in DH
• DH as away to change to the role of libraries and librarians,
move away from service/support role to active scholarship and
equal collaboration
• DH centers in libraries, librarians as DH scholars
• Institutional support of digital scholarship, rather than ad hoc
and often temporary centers, groups, initiatives
• Responses to OCLC Report = librarians should and do take a
lead role; they ARE digital humanists and academics; they have
a broad/multi-disciplinary viewpoint, more able to synthesize
across disciplines;

19. Library Role/s in DH
• Library as lab/maker-space/classroom
• Digitization
• Digital management and preservation
• Intellectual property rights
• Open access/copyright
• Tool development
• Digital libraries
• Marketing/outreach
• Project management/planning & development
• Grant support
• Collection development
• Metadata
• Preservation/archiving
• Training/instruction
• Discovery/access/finding primary sources
• Stability – infrastructure, sustainability
“The library is a permanent feature of the academy, supported by and
responsive to its users.” (Bryson, et al.)

20. Chris Alen Sula “Digital Humanities and Libraries: A Conceptual Model” from Journal
of Library Administration 53 (1), 2013

21. “In the twenty-first century, digital libraries are as
essential to humanities scholarship as physical
libraries have been in the past. Digital humanities is
an evolving specialization in librarianship.”
York University (Toronto) Posting for Digital
Humanities Librarian

22. Digital Humanities and Academic Libraries: References
Berry, D.M. (Ed.). (2012). Understanding Digital Humanities. New York, NY: Palgrave
MacMillan.
Burdick, A., Drucker, J., Lunenfeld, P., Presner, T., & Schnapp, J. (2012).
Digital_Humanities. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Bryson, T., Posner, M., Varner, S., Page, M., Durante, K., & St. Pierre, A. (2010). Roles of
librarians in digital humanities centers.
http://digitallibrarians.org/node/2496
Posner, M. (2013). No half measures: Overcoming common challenges to doing digital
humanities in the library. Journal of Digital Humanities 53(1).
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01930826.2013.756694
Meeks, E. (2014, Feb 9). Digital humanities curio cabinet [blog posting].
https://digitalhumanities.stanford.edu/digital-humanities-curio-cabinet
Nowviskie, B. (2013). Skunks in the library: A path to production for scholarly R&D.
Journal of Library Administration 53(1), 53-66.
Nowviskie, B. (2014, Feb 8). Asking for it [blog posting].
http://nowviskie.org/2014/asking-for-it/

23. Porter, D. (2014, Feb 12). What if we do, in fact, know best? A response to the OCLC
report on DH and research libraries [dh + lib blog post].
http://acrl.ala.org/dh/2014/02/12/what-if-we-do-in-fact-know-best-a-response-to-the-
oclc-report-on-dh-and-research-libraries/
Schaffner, J., & Erway, R. (2014). Does every research library need a digital humanities
center? OCLC Research Report.
http://oclc.org/research/publications/library/2014/oclcresearch-digital-humanities-
center-2014-overview.html
Sula, C.A. (2013). Digital humanities and libraries: A conceptual model. Journal of Library
Administration 53(1), 10-26.
Vandegrift, M. (2012, June 27). What is digital humanities and what’s it doing in the
library? In the Library With a Lead Pipe.
http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2012/dhandthelib/
Vandegrift, M., & Varner, S. (2013). Evolving in common: Creating mutually supportive
relationships between libraries and the digital humanities. Journal of Library
Administration 53(1), 67-78.
Vinopal, J, & McCormick, M. (2013). Supporting digital scholarship in research libraries:
Scalability and sustainability. Journal of Library Administration 53(1), 27-42.
Water, D. J. (2013). An overview of the digital humanities. ARL Research Library Issues
284. http://publications.arl.org/rli284/3

24. Organizations & Websites
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Digital Humanities Discussion
Group [January 30, 2014 approved as ACRL Special Interest Group]
http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/discussiongroups/acr-dgdh
dh + lib : where digital humanities and librarianship meet
http://acrl.ala.org/dh/
Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO)
http://adho.org/
CenterNet: An International Network of Digital Humanities Centers
http://digitalhumanities.org/centernet/
Canadian Society for Digital Humanities (CSDH)
http://csdh-schn.org/
Global Outlook::Digital Humanities (GO::DH) ADHO Special Interest Group
http://www.globaloutlookdh.org/
Digital Humanities Quarterly
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/about/about.html
ADHO DH & Libraries Special Interest Group under proposal