Simon Tanner discusses digital humanities and cultural value. He introduces the Balanced Value Impact Model for measuring impact and discusses the benefits of digital resources, including introducing new audiences and research areas. Tanner highlights examples of digital collections benefiting communities and economies by opening up access to collections and saving the sector millions. He questions whether digital humanities serves humanities for whom they are intended and who benefits from the research.

1. Simon Tanner
King’s College London
@SimonTanner

2. My Agenda
Digital Humanities
The benefits and value of digital resources & DH
Impact – introducing the Balanced Value Impact
Model
Cultural Value – the Midnight Run
A final thought and some challenges

3. www.kcl.ac.uk/ddh/

4. Department of Digital Humanities
International leader in the application of
.
technology in the arts and humanities, and
in the social sciences.
Innovation Involved in typically more than 30
major collaborative research projects at any
one time.
The highest rated digital humanities
Teaching research unit in the UK. 65% of our
research is judged to be 'world-
leading' or 'internationally excellent' .
Research
DDH has 3 MA programmes:
Digital Asset Management,
Digital Humanities, and
Digital Culture and Society
Innovation partnerships with >500 projects
and 20 countries.

5. Representing Discovering
Illustrating Annotating
Scholarship
Sampling Comparing
Referring
From John Unsworth’s Scholarly Primitives

6. Inter-
disciplinary
Collaboration
Collaboration
Scholarship
Many uses 1st
Tech 2nd
Digital
Scholarship
Many New
Audiences methods
Many
sources

7. digitisation innovate research
strategy & create projects
Collaboration
digital
digital disseminate
scholarship
preservation & consult
strategy
build skills
develop build
&
collections community
experience
Memory Organisation The Academy

8. Making an impact or just a splash?
© H de Smet

9. www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

10. New areas of research enabled
“Old Bailey Online reaches out to communities, such as family
historians, who are keen to find a personal history, reflected in a
national story, and in the process re-enforces the workings of a
civil society. Digital resources both create a new audience, and
reconfigure our analysis to favour the individual.”
Professor Tim Hitchcock, University of Hertfordshire
“Digitised resources allow me to discover the hidden lives of
disabled people, who have not traditionally left records of their
lives. I have found disability was discussed by many writers in the
Eighteenth Century and that disabled men and women played
an important role in the social life of the time.”
Dr David Turner, Swansea University
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

11. Effective, efficient and world leading
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

12. Bringing
collections out
of the dark

13. f. 23 detail

14. Bestowing economic & community benefits
Glasgow Museum's Collection is the city’s biggest single fiscal asset
valued at £1.4 billion. It contains around 1.2 million objects. On average
only 2% of the collection is exhibited to the public at any one time.
Digital access is opening up further access to these collections.
A major impact sought is to increase self-confidence in the populace – to
feel less marginalised, less insignificant, less unheard. Increased feelings
of self-worth through interaction with the Museums will spill over into
every aspect of their lives.
Digitised content & JI SC Collections negotiations
save the sector ~£43 m illion per year
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

15. Bestowing economic & community benefits
In 2008 National Museums Liverpool did a full economic impact assessment.
They found that: "during the Capital of Culture period, 25% of all visitors to Liverpool
visited the Walker Art Gallery, 24% visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum and 15%
visited World Museum, while about 5% of visitors only visited a National Museums
Liverpool venue and no other attraction during their visit.
In total, National Museums Liverpool is reliably estimated to be worth
£115 million to the economy of the Liverpool city region, a spend that supports 2,274
full-time jobs“
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/corporate/reports/EIS_summary_2008.pdf
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

16. Interdisciplinary & collaborative
“The Freeze Frame archive
is invaluable in charting
changes in the polar
regions. Making the material
available to all will help with
further research into
scientific studies around
global warming and
climate change”
Pen Hadow,
Polar Explorer
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/inspiring.html

17. “the measurable outcomes arising from the existence of a
digital resource that demonstrate a change in the life or life
opportunities of the community”
www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/impact.html

21. www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/impact.html

24. www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/impact.html

25. Videos:
http://vimeo.com/49682510
http://simon-tanner.blogspot.com/

27. “That’s the first time, in that room, that I’ve
written what I feel, responded to those
questions and left it up there for anybody else
to read – for the first time in the last 10 years.
I didn’t let myself worry about being judged or
whether it was good enough, whatever, I just
left it out there. And there was some peace
came with that....
I just allowed myself to be and I feel enriched, I
feel energised by that and empowered by that.”

28. Where is the Human in DH?
Are we so focussed upon the digital aspects and the
Humanities subjects they afford in a Digital
Humanities context that we forget the human part?
Who are the Humanities for? Does DH serve them
equally, better or worse than the rest of Humanities?
Have we lost touch with those who benefit from our
endeavours?
We have to square the dichotomy of instrumentalist
versus intangible value viewpoints.

29. Do we dare to ask?
Who benefits from our research?
What do those benefits look like?
For whom are we responsible? When we benefit
someone do we care?
If we allowed our beneficiaries to define success
what would that look like?
Would we like their conclusions and are we
capable of change?
Do the beneficiaries have any say in what the
Humanities are or should be?
If we measure it, does that change it or us or them?

30. With thanks to Alice Maggs for the Impact illustrations
alice.100@hotmail.com