Tag Archives: DH

Call for Nominations: ACH Executive Council

The ACH (Association for Computers and the Humanities) seeks three new Executive Council Representatives to serve a 4-year term (2021-2024). Anyone who is a current ACH member (or who is willing to join ACH if elected) and is willing to represent and advocate for the ACH membership and other digital humanists is eligible. Folks who are new to DH and/or to the ACH are encouraged to bring their viewpoint to the organization’s governance as Executive Council Representatives.

Nominations are due by 12/15/2020.

For more information: https://ach.org/blog/2020/10/26/call-for-nominations-ach-executive-council/.

2nd Annual Conference of the Florida Digital Humanities Consortium (FLDH)

The Florida Digital Humanities Consortium (FLDH) will host its 2nd annual conference at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL on Friday, March 27, 2020. FLDH is a collective of institutions in the State of Florida that seeks to promote an understanding of the humanities in light of digital technologies and research. Founded in 2014, FLDH provides a platform for studying and discussing digital tools, methods, and pedagogies as well as educates teachers, faculty, and the public about the multiple, interdisciplinary ways humanities research and computing impact our world. Each year at the annual conference, FLDH members and guests meet to hear current research, discuss issues of interest, and set goals for future collaboration and digital humanities research.

The conference will last all day and include academic research and teaching presentations in the morning and early afternoon, followed by a THATCamp session and a plenary talk and dinner. FLDH seeks proposals for papers, posters, lightning rounds, roundtables, and panel presentations on any topic related to digital humanities. We welcome proposals not only from those in higher education, including students, faculty and staff, but also from cultural institutions and other organizations doing work in the digital humanities.

Individual abstracts of 200-250 words should be submitted for talks of 15 minutes.

A panel proposal of 150-250 words by the panel organizer(s) and individual abstracts for 3-5 papers can be submitted for panel presentations.

Posters, lightning rounds, and roundtables can be proposed with brief descriptions of 150 words.

All proposals should include name, affiliation, contact email, and needed IT equipment.

The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2020.

You can submit your proposals at https://ufl.libwizard.com/f/FLDH2020

Meet the People of DH

I am delighted to have been part of the “DH for Librarians” project led by Emma Annette Wilson. Always happy to share the work I do alongside my colleague Laurie N. Taylor.

Capture of the DH for Librarians website describing the video Laurie and I did for the project.

ADHO 2020 CFP

The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) invites
contributions of proposals for its annual conference, Digital Humanities
2020: “Carrefours/Intersections”.
(http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#theme)

The conference will be held July 20-25, 2020 at Carleton University and the
University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. Conference Submissions will be
welcomed from August 15- October 15, 2019. More details are available at
dh2020.adho.org.

The theme of the 2020 conference is “Carrefours/Intersections”, a place
where roads or streets meet. We specifically invite proposals that relate
to our sub-disciplinary conference interests
(http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#theme):
First Nations, Native American, and Indigenous Studies; public digital
humanities; and the open data movement. We welcome all who identify
themselves as working in the broad variety of disciplines, methodologies,
and pedagogies that the digital humanities encompasses.

Submissions may include:

   – Posters (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#poster)
   (abstract 250-500 words)
   – Lightning talks
   (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#lightning)
   (5 minutes; abstract 200-250 words)
   – Short presentations
   (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#shortpresentations)
   (10 minutes; abstract 250-500 words)
   – Long presentations
   (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#longpresentations)
   (20 minutes; abstract 750-1000 words)
   – Panels (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#panels)
   (90 minutes; abstract 250 words + 300-500 word overview)
   – Forums (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#forum)
   (90 minutes; abstract 500 words)
   – Pre-conference workshops and tutorials
   (http://dh2020.adho.org/guidelines/conference-details/#workshops-tutorials)
   (2 hours or 4 hours; 250-word overview plus syllabus and/or relevant existing
   tutorials)

Please consult the full call for proposals in your selected language:
Algonquin (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-anishinabeg/),
English (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-english/),
French (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-francais/),
Spanish (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-espanol/),
German (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-deutsch/),
Italian (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/cfp-italiano/)
for more details.

In addition, we welcome nominations for the following:

   – Keynote & Plenary Panelist Nominations
   (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/plenary-speaker-nomination/)
   – Conference Reviewers (http://dh2020.adho.org/cfps/reviewers/)

Questions related to this announcement should be directed to the DH2020
Program Chairs, Laura Estill and Jennifer Guiliano at pc2020@adho.org
Jennifer Guiliano <jenguiliano@gmail.com>

Call for applications: “Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute,” a 2019-2020 NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

Apply for the Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute

Applications are due by February 1, 2019

Thanks to generous funding from the NEH, the Institute is pleased to be able to cover travel costs and offer a small stipend for participants. Participation includes 5 phases, with required attendance at the in-person session (May 20-24, 2019) and for virtual sessions (July-December 2019), along with creation of teaching materials (January-August 2020). Please see For Participants for more information on the Institute phases and funding.

Call for Applications

Call for Applications: “Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute,” a 2019-2020 NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

Deadline: Applications are due Friday, February 1, 2019

Application Information: http://dloc.com/teach/apply

Partners in the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) are pleased to invite applications to an NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities entitled “Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute.” This Institute is designed for anyone who teaches or supports Caribbean Studies courses or sections dealing with Caribbean Studies in courses. This Institute is also aimed at people who are interested in learning ways to utilize digital collections and implement digital tools and methods into their teaching and collaborative practices. We seek participants who are looking to create new resources for teaching Caribbean Studies in multiple fields and varying types of institutions, as well as enhance the community of practice for engaging with DH. We welcome applications from professors, instructors, graduate students, and library faculty and staff.

Participants will gain DH teaching experience and in-depth knowledge of how to utilize digital collections in teaching. The Institute will provide training in tools (Scalar, TimelineJS, StoryMapJS, Mapping), processes, and resources for developing lessons, modules, and/or courses. Twenty-six participants will acquire concrete digital skills and DH approaches for teaching and research utilizing Open Access digital collections. Through participation in an enhanced community of practice for DH, they will also learn to create Open Access course and teaching materials that blend DH and Caribbean Studies.

Program:

Comprised of introductory readings, a week-long in-person session (held May 20-24, 2019 at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida), and virtual sessions and online communication in the year following through August 2020, the Institute is structured to give participants the time and space to learn new approaches as well as integrate them into research and teaching. The overall goals of the Institute include gaining expertise in digital tools, with digital collections, and as part of a community of practice. Over the course of the program, participants will be supported in collaborating together and in developing teaching materials to be shared as Open Access.

See the Institute website for a more detailed schedule: http://dloc.com/teach/schedule

Institute Directors and Faculty:

Please see the Institute website for details on the directors and faculty: http://dloc.com/teach/faculty

Application Details:

The Institute will select 26 participants who regularly teach Caribbean Studies courses or sections dealing with Caribbean Studies in courses in related fields (e.g., history, literature, cultural studies, Black Studies, Global Studies). The classes can be at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and instructors, librarians, staff, and graduate students can apply. As we mentioned earlier, we are interested in recruiting participants who are looking to create new resources for teaching Caribbean Studies in multiple fields and varying types of institutions, as well as enhance the community of practice for engaging with DH.

Please see the Institute website for more details about stipends and conditions of award for participants: http://dloc.com/l/teach/forparticipants

Application to the Institute should include:

An up-to-date CV (short version, preferred).
A statement of interest (1-2 pages) that provides:
- description of current teaching assignments and responsibilities
Optional:
- description of a course, proposed course, or sample syllabus that engages with the Caribbean through the themes of migration, mobility, or sustainability.

Please send materials by February 1, 2019 to laurien@ufl.edu.

Applications will be reviewed by the selection committee (Taylor, Huet, Ortiz, Rosenberg, Asencio, and Felima).

The team will notify participants of acceptance by March 15, 2019.

The Institute’s priority will be to select a diverse mix of participants from institutions across the US, including specifically recruiting from Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, HBCUs, and HSIs given the rich collections, communities, and teaching connections related to Caribbean Studies. Priority also will be given to select participants from various humanities fields. Additionally, while Florida is the third most populous state, Caribbean Studies spans the whole of the US as a home to the diaspora. For those selected from Florida, priority will be given to those from institutions not represented on the project team.

More Information and Questions:

Please see the Institute website (http://dloc.com/l/teach/dhinstitute) for further details. Questions may be directed to laurien@ufl.edu

Final Acceptance

For final acceptance starting in March, participants will confirm:

Attendance for the in-person Institute and virtual sessions
That by June 2020 they will submit two DH assignments, developed by taking part in the Institute, for inclusion in dLOC’s Teaching Guides & Materials Collection for use by others. As with all materials in dLOC, participants retain all rights and may elect to share their materials via other repositories and websites.

Please contact the project director, Laurie Taylor, with any questions: laurien@ufl.edu

Logo of the NEH

This Institute has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this Institute, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.

George A. Smathers Libraries in partnership with the Digital Library of the Caribbean Receive $231,093 National Endowment for the Humanities Grant Award

In partnership with the Digital Library of the Caribbean, University of Florida researchers led a collaborative project, which has been awarded $231,093 to host a week-long, in-person workshop and five additional monthly virtual workshops on collaborative Digital Humanities (DH) and Caribbean Studies. The project is entitled Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Advanced Institute. The lead researchers will open a call in October to select participants for the program. Participants will gain DH teaching experience and in-depth knowledge of how to utilize digital collections in teaching. The Institute will provide training in tools, processes, and resources for developing lessons, modules, and/or courses. Twenty-six participants will achieve: 1) acquisition of concrete digital skills and DH approaches for teaching and research utilizing Open Access digital collections; 2) participation in an enhanced community of practice for DH; and, 3) creation of Open Access course and teaching materials that blend DH and Caribbean Studies.

Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Advanced Institute is the most recent of ongoing initiatives by UF and the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) for building capacity and community for Caribbean digital libraries, from digitization for access and preservation, to building upon digitized materials for research and teaching. The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. The dLOC partner institutions are the core of dLOC. dLOC partners retain all rights to their materials and provide access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections. This is the first Advanced Institute with UF and dLOC, and it will enable greater engagement with more community members on critical needs and opportunities in the digital age for research and teaching.

Laurie Taylor, PhD, UF’s digital scholarship librarian and the dLOC’s digital scholarship director, is the lead investigator, and is collaborating with the co-principal investigators, Hélène Huet, PhD, European studies librarian; Paul Ortiz, PhD, Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program in the Department of History; and Leah Rosenberg, PhD, professor of Caribbean Literature in the Department of English.

Workshop Announcement: Information Analysis: The Role of Visualization Tools and Cloud Computing Platforms in Collaborative Research and Teaching

It is my pleasure to announce the following FLDH sponsored workshop that will take place just before HASTAC 2017. Capture .
See here the full workshop announcement: http://fldh.org/fallworkshop/

Webinar announcement: "Beyond Trinkets: The Value of 3D in the Library,” May 10, 2017, at 9:30am (Miami Time)

Date pending for: Caribbean Memory

Recordings of all webinars will be available in dLOC soon after the webinar.
Please join us for next stage conversations from the webinars, to take place at ACURIL’s 2017 annual conference, focusing on Interdisciplinary Research in the Caribbean: http://acuril2017puertorico.com/
Twitter: #digcaribbeanscholarship
Twitter: @dlocaribbean

Issues in Humanities Data Sharing

I would like to share with you the gist of the presentation I gave to the National Federation of Advanced Information Services 2016 Humanities Roundtable in Atlanta in September 2016.
For this talk, I focused on one of the biggest barriers to humanities data sharing: fear. Fear can take many forms, but the one I wanted to discuss was the fear of not getting credit.
This fear of not getting credit is what framed my talk. First, I explained how this fear has impacted, and in some cases inhibited, my work as a digital humanist. Second, I discussed how I have tried to overcome this fear. Third and finally, I discussed how, as a liaison librarian, I am trying to help faculty and graduate students overcome their own fears of not getting credit for their work.
Fear as a Digital Humanist
First, it is important for me to point out that the fear of not getting credit has prevented me from sharing more information as part of my digital humanities project, Mapping Decadence. Where did this fear originate and why did I become afraid of putting too much information on my website?
The fear was instilled in me at the very beginning of graduate school, years before I started developing my project. Some faculty members made it clear that publishing articles was the most important thing I could do to advance my career. While my digital project was interesting and “trendy”—and thus an asset on the job market—what mattered more were the articles I could base on this project. As such, when I started working on my DH mapping project, I was advised not to put too much information online. Doing so, I was warned, might enable other scholars to steal my work (and thus prevent me from getting my articles in print).
Retrospectively, I should have realized that making my research available online would only enhance my profile and help me on the job market. And so it did.
Just as importantly, sharing my research allows me to fulfill my original goal for Mapping Decadence. The reason I wanted to create a DH project in the first place was to be able to share my work/data with everyone who has internet access. I don’t believe our research should only be only accessible to a happy few.
What are the steps I have taken to try to overcome my fear of not getting credit? (spoiler alert: I still worry about not getting credit)

I listened to colleagues and collaborators who told me that my project would be greatly enhanced by sharing more information. These individuals include:
- Kathy Weimer (Head of Kelley Center for Government Information, Data, and Geospatial Services at Rice University) during a GIS workshop for the international DH conference in Sydney, Australia;
- Miriam Posner (DH program coordinator at UCLA)’s students who reviewed my project for a class (I found these reviews by chance when googling my website);
- Paige Morgan, DH librarian at the University of Miami.

In each case, my reviewers consistently informed me that I needed to share more data.
- Some of the information that I was encouraged to share has or will be easy to add to the project. These modifications include noting the sources of my data and adding legends to my maps.
- Nevertheless, there are others kinds of information my reviewers asked me to share that will pose greater challenges – not least because of my deeply-instilled fears. These include sharing my analyses/results. This kind of modification to the project remains a roadblock, as I am on the TT and I need to publish an analysis of my data in article form for tenure.

Dealing with others’ fears as a liaison librarian
Finally, as a liaison librarian, I have tried to help faculty and graduate students overcome their fear of not getting credit. Let me start by sharing a little anecdote: I met a professor once who explained that s/he only presents papers that have already been accepted for publications because s/he does not want their research stolen. I am sure we all know someone who does this kind of thing. But I have to say, this is so far from the way I see and do things that, as a liaison librarian and a scholar, I have been actively working to help others deal with their fears.
This is why I believe that “education” is the keyword here. The first step I take is talking about the advantages of putting one’s work online (enhancing one’s scholarly profile, earning colleagues’ goodwill, etc.). The second step I take is reminding scholars that there are large and important aspects of their work that they can share without revealing their conclusions or endangering their publications.
What are my strategies to provide education that would help scholars overcome their fears?

Educate colleagues about the Institutional Repository (IR@UF where I work for instance). Many people believe that, simply because they’ve published an article on a topic, it is now widely available to others. Introducing colleagues to the IR thus helps acquaint them with larger research accessibility issues while directing them to institutional resources that will help put their work before a wider audience.
Provide education through Digital Humanities working groups: help organize talks and invite speakers who have experience in the digital world, promote the events to my patrons and incite them to attend the talks/workshops, etc.
Use examples that show colleagues how sharing data can result in positive career outcomes. Rather than seeing data sharing as an invitation to data theft, I want scholars to view data sharing as a way to boost one’s profile, attach one’s name to a project, and advance other scholars’ work in the process. The benefits of sharing thus far outweigh possible risks.

This is not to say these strategies always work. It can be hard to get meetings with faculty to discuss IR/DH/data and it is much easier when this is done on a 1-on-1 basis. But little by little, my hope is that humanities scholars will overcome their fear and see the benefits of data sharing.

Webinar Series: Caribbean Scholarship in the Digital Age

carribean
Caribbean Scholarship in the Digital Age is a webinar series showcasing digital and/as public research and teaching in Caribbean Studies. The series provides a collaborative space for professionals to share on projects and experiences to foster communication and support our shared constellations of communities of practice.
Please join us for an upcoming event featuring innovative digital work in Dominica on January 18, 2017, at 11am (Miami Time).
Presenter: Dr. Schuyler Esprit, Dominica State College, Create Caribbean Inc.
Click here to participate in the online event: http://ufsmathers.adobeconnect.com/Caribbean
About the Presentation:
In the small island developing state of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the push towards Information and Communications Technology (ICT) development has risen rapidly on the national agenda. This is true for several sectors, including entrepreneurship and education. However, national efforts to understand the impact of expanding technologies, particularly through the use of digital humanities or humanities computing, has been much slower despite collective enthusiasm among library and museum experts, academics and other intellectuals workers about developing the technological scope and reach of their work. For the most part, efforts and resources to encourage ICT use have minimized these very knowledge and culture nerve centers that inform the content of entrepreneurship through technology. Create Caribbean Inc. is a research institute located in Dominica, designed on the principles and values of digital scholarship and practicing digital humanities methodologies, and is one of the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean to formalize the confluence of archival studies, heritage preservation, academic research, higher education curriculum development and the wave of technological advancement. Founded in 2014, the Institute has entered into a partnership with the Dominica State College to institutionalize and create national conversation and impact on innovative knowledge acquisition and sharing amidst economic and geographic constraints that create large social gaps in access to libraries, research, cultural activities and technological experimentation. This presentation will explore the best practices of Create Caribbean Inc., the Research Institute at Dominica State College to consider its goals and objectives, growth process, challenges and plans for enhancement and expansion beyond Dominica and into the wider Caribbean. The presentation will outline the role of each of the institute’s core areas – heritage preservation, academic research, higher education curriculum development, college teaching and community outreach – through the lens of the digital humanities and its impact on the Caribbean space. I will also include a discussion of the benefits of adopting digital humanities vocabulary, theory and praxis within the region, adapting those elements to considerations of economic, social and political peculiarities of the Caribbean.
About the Speaker: Dr. Schuyler Esprit is a scholar of Caribbean literature and cultural studies, and postcolonial theory. Dr. Esprit holds a PhD in English literature from University of Maryland – College Park. She is the Founding Director of Create Caribbean Inc. (http://createcaribbean.org/create/), Research Institute at Dominica State College. The Research Institute supports students and scholars to use digital technologies for research, teaching and learning in areas of Caribbean development, especially its culture, history and heritage. She currently works as Dean of Academic Affairs at Dominica State College. Dr. Esprit has also taught and held professional positions at a number of universities in the United States. She is now completing her book entitled West Indian Readers: A Social History and its digital companion, both of which are historical explorations of reading culture in the Caribbean. She has also written the introduction to the 2016 Papillote Press edition of The Orchid House, the 1953 novel by Dominican writer Phyllis Shand Allfrey.
About the Caribbean Scholarship in the Digital Age Webinar Series:
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), in partnership with the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL), the Graduate School of Information Sciences and Technologies of the University of Puerto Rico, and the Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives roundtable (LACCHA) of the Society of American Archivists (SAA), has organized a series of online events, Caribbean Scholarship in the Digital Age, a webinar series showcasing digital and/as public research and teaching in Caribbean Studies. The series provides a collaborative space for professionals to share on projects and experiences to foster communication and support our shared constellations of communities of practice.
Other upcoming webinars in the series include:

Feb. 28, 11am Miami time: Dr. Alex Gil on small axe: archipelagos

11, 11am Miami time: Nathan Dize and Abby Broughton on Colony in Crisis
May 10, 11am Miami time, Dr. Sara Gonzalez on 3D printing services
Date pending for: Caribbean Memory