Tag Archives: digital humanities

Deadline for HASTAC 2017 extended: Now April 17

Call For Proposals
HASTAC 2017: The Possible Worlds of Digital Humanities, November 2-4, 2017
University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
Submissions Deadline:   Monday April 17, 2017
DEADLINE EXTENSION! We recognize that this time of the year is busy with end-of-term projects and grading. We are responding to feedback about the CFP deadline, and to assist those who need a bit more time, we have extended the deadline to Monday, April 17th. This allows two more weekends to get proposals submitted.
In 2017, we invite you to join us at the University of Central Florida to explore “The Possible Worlds of Digital Humanities.” Orlando is known to tourists worldwide for theme parks that bring to life many imagined worlds and narratives, most of which reflect back to us dominant discourses and ideologies. Likewise, digital humanities struggles with building towards a future that is more inclusive and interdisciplinary. This year, we hope to address the unsolved hard problems and explore the new opportunities of the digital humanities. We particularly welcome submissions addressing themes such as:

  • challenges of monolingualism within the digital humanities
  • indigenous culture, decolonial and post-colonial theory and technology
  • technology and education–open learning, peer learning, and issues of access, equity for primary and/or higher education
  • communication of knowledge, publishing, and intellectual property
  • digital cultural heritage and hegemony
  • interdisciplinary goals and conversations in digital humanities
  • digital humanities and gender, race, and other identities
  • simulation, modeling, and visualization
  • games and gaming, including for learning
  • community development including the importance of art and culture districts
  • other unsolved hard problems in digital humanities

HASTAC 2017 will include plenary panels, workshops, roundtables, short “soapbox” talks, project demos, poster sessions, and a curated media arts show exhibition. At HASTAC, we invite you to think about the format of your session as well as the content.
We seek proposals for participant presentations in the following categories:

  • 5-8 minute “soapbox” talks
  • roundtables (be creative with your format — no reading papers!)
  • project demos
  • digital and/or print posters
  • maker sessions or workshops
  • Media arts (new media, games, and electronic literature)

For each submission, we will need the following information from you:
1) complete contact information including valid phone, email, and institutional affiliation, if any;
2) maximum 500-word abstract of the work you would like to present that must discuss its relationship to the conference themes;
3) any technical requirements or other support (including space requirements) that may be required for the presentation.  For exhibitions or other performances, please indicate any equipment that is absolutely required and that you cannot bring with you.  In the event that we cannot guarantee access to the equipment, we regret that we may not be able to accept your proposal.
Digital and/or Print Posters Wanted!
Print posters (4 x 3’) and electronic posters (to be projected) are solicited for emerging projects, ideas, and scholars. In presenting your research with a poster, you should aim to use the poster as a means for generating active discussion of your research. Limit the text to about one-fourth of the poster space, and use visuals (graphs, photographs, schematics, maps, etc.) to tell your story.  Use the regular submission form, but indicate that you are proposing a Poster by checking the appropriate box.
Maker Sessions & Workshops
We will provide some room and resources for individuals or groups to create informal maker spaces, where conference participants can share, exchange, and experiment with new online tools, personal fabrication technologies, open source electronics such as Arduino, and other creative and learning devices and gadgets. To propose a maker session or workshop, please use the standard submission form and indicate that yours is a maker session. Please also tell us how long the session requires!
Media Arts Show
The Media Arts Show invites creative works that engage with the show’s theme, “Soft(ware) Solutions / Hard Problems.” Works of new media, including games, electronic literature, and installations that meld physical and digital components, are welcome. Please provide a detailed description of the work, its purpose, and all technical and physical requirements for display.
All proposals will be peer-reviewed, but we regret that we cannot provide detailed reviewer feedback. We welcome applications from scholars at all stages of their careers from all disciplines and fields, from private sector companies and public sector organizations, from artists and public intellectuals, and from networks and individuals.
How to Submit
Presenters may be first author on only one submission; however, they can appear as secondary authors on other submissions.
Please select Submissions.

Postdoctoral Fellow in Caribbean Studies Data Curation at UF

Guess what? The University of Florida is partnering with CLIR to offer a CLIR/DLF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Data Curation for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

RANK: Postdoctoral Fellow
REPORTS TO: Digital Scholarship Librarian
SALARY: Salary is $65,000
TIME-LIMITED: This is a time-limited position for two years, funded by the Council on Library & Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2017-2019.
JOB SUMMARY
The George A. Smathers Libraries seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow in Caribbean Studies Data Curation to serve the University of Florida (UF), a major, comprehensive, land-grant, research university, which is among the nation’s most academically diverse public universities. The successful candidate will, as part of a dynamic and collaborative team, develop data curation services for Caribbean Studies.[1] The candidate will develop new initiatives in data curation and forge new collaborations and relationships that extend the Libraries’ capacity to support the University’s interdisciplinary research and technology initiatives – building upon a foundation of library-campus collaboration to date and work of the Data Management/Curation Working Group, Latin American & Caribbean Collections, and UF’s role as a founding partner and technical host for the international collaborative Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC).
Reporting to the Digital Scholarship Librarian (also the dLOC Digital Scholarship Director), the Postdoctoral Fellow will contribute to the development of long-term data management infrastructure for specific needs for Caribbean Studies; liaise with internal and external experts in Caribbean Studies to identify needs for data curation; liaise with the dLOC team to extend supports and content within dLOC; and serve as a consultant with researchers on Caribbean Studies data curation data issues. The Postdoctoral Fellow will collaborate with the dLOC Digital Scholarship Director, dLOC Technical Director, UF Data Management Librarian, and UF Latin American & Caribbean Collections Librarians and Archivists to develop and conduct trainings for librarians, archivists, and researchers on data curation practices, resources, and processes from a situated perspective for Latin American & Caribbean Studies.
The Postdoctoral Fellow will join the existing team that is building a full system (with training, outreach, liaison duties, policies, procedures, technologies, tools, workflows, etc.) of data curation, and will support extending and enriching the team by contributing subject-specific knowledge from Caribbean Studies. As part of the dynamic team, the Postdoctoral Fellow in Caribbean Studies Data Curation will serve as the primary liaison for and provide consulting support to identify, store, describe (curate), retrieve, and re-use data for Caribbean Studies, particularly data not available in public or government repositories and especially for creating the attendant intellectual infrastructure through a mix of activities ad products (e.g., database entries in dLOC, webinars, teaching, supervising interns, policy development, procedure and workflow development and refinement).
The Postdoctoral Fellow will have the opportunity to lead new initiatives, including the new partnership with the UF Press for supporting enhanced monographs by hosting data sets, online exhibits, archival research materials, and other research files within dLOC as part of new scholarly publications. The Postdoctoral Fellow will serve as a core contact with the UF Press to implement services and workshops on data curation as part of creating enhanced monographs, journal articles, book chapters, and other publications with dLOC as the data repository.
The successful candidate will perform outreach and facilitate communication between the Libraries and Caribbean Studies research groups at UF as well as Caribbean Studies researchers and partners in dLOC. The Postdoctoral Fellow will pursue professional development opportunities, including research, publication, and professional service activities in accordance with the standards for library faculty; serve as a Principal Investigator (PI), co-PI or grant team member on externally funded projects; and engage in research and professional activity at the national and international level.
RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Contributes to university-wide initiatives to develop and design policies, services, and infrastructure to enable faculty and students to preserve and make available, and thus maximize the utility of, their research data.
  • Collaborates on the development and delivery of onsite and online/webinar trainings in Caribbean Studies data curation.
  • Collaborates on the development and teaching of for-credit courses, as applicable, in Caribbean Studies data curation.
  • Provides training for UF students, faculty, and staff and dLOC partners on data curation best practices and standards, and available UF and dLOC services.
  • Serves as a member of the UF-dLOC team to facilitate campus-wide data curation activities and initiatives; and, serve as a member of the dLOC team to facilitate data curation activities and initiatives across the dLOC community.
  • Works closely with the Digital Production Services and other entities (e.g. dLOC, other partners, other organizations) on relevant digitization projects.
  • Collaboratively supports decisions or recommendations on cataloging, location, preservation, maintenance, and retention of library resources and data for curation.
  • Formally assesses, through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, campus-wide and dLOC community data curation needs and current support resources and activities.
  • Works with library departments, technical experts, and the dLOC community to develop infrastructures and services that enhance access to Caribbean Studies data.
  • Partners with UF units and the dLOC community to implement Caribbean Studies data curation and publishing services and workshops.
  • Partners with the UF Press to implement services and workshops on data curation as part of creating enhanced monographs, journal articles, book chapters, and other publications with dLOC as the data repository.
  • Performs outreach using a variety of methods and tools to actively promote activities, events, and initiatives.
  • Serve as a core library consultant to UF and dLOC community faculty, researchers, and project teams as a collaborative team member for data curation throughout the research process.
  • Develops and maintains awareness of current tools and methodologies for computationally centered, data-driven research (data mining, visualization, text mining, etc.).
  • Develops and maintains awareness of emerging trends and best practices in Caribbean Studies, digital humanities, data curation, and e-scholarship in all disciplines.
  • Participates in appropriate professional organizations on the state, regional, national, and international levels and pursues professional development goals, including publication.

 QUALIFICATIONS
Required:

  • PhD in a relevant field
  • Fluency in English as well as Spanish and/or French
  • Ability to significantly contribute to the development and implementation of a vision for a Caribbean Studies data curation program
  • Ability to creatively develop, assess, and promote the use of library services, technologies, and collections
  • Excellent interpersonal skills including the ability to work effectively with individuals at all levels
  • Excellent oral and written communication skills
  • Ability to initiate and manage collaborative projects including the development of policies
  • Strong interest in collaborating on grants
  • Strong interest in the development and delivery of training
  • Capacity to work creatively in a complex, rapidly changing academic environment and to respond with agility to changing needs and priorities
  • Instruction or teaching experience
  • Successful track record of collaboration regarding scholarly issues and/or technologies
  • Strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Preferred:

  • Successful track record in project development and management
  • Grant experience
  • Knowledge of funding agency requirements for data management plans
  • Professional experience with issues and technical challenges related to the life cycle of research data and digital curation
  • Demonstrated experience employing data curation and digital curation practices and technological applications to enhance library management and access
  • Experience with digital preservation standards and best practices and knowledge of repository platforms
  • Experience with web technologies
  • Experience with metadata issues related to the discovery of academic resources

GUIDANCE AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT

  • Regular meetings with supervisor
  • Regular team meetings with digital scholarship, data management, digital libraries, Latin American & Caribbean Collections, and the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
  • Introductions to national and international leaders through participation in conferences
  • Grants Management training and support from the UF Libraries’ Grants Manager
  • UF’s and the Libraries’ Professional Development opportunities
  • Support for development and delivery of training from the UF Libraries’ Instruction Consultant and Training Program Coordinator
  • Opportunities and support as part of the collaborative team on the campus-wide Data Management/Curation Working Group and the Digital Humanities Working Group
  • Opportunity for joint appointment with the Center for Latin American Studies and affiliate faculty with the UF Informatics Institute, each with additional grant and professional development opportunities

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
The University of Florida (UF) is a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. The state’s oldest and most comprehensive university, UF is among the nation’s most academically diverse public universities. UF has a long history of established programs in international education, research and service. It is one of only 17 public, land-grant universities that belong to the Association of American Universities. UF traces its beginnings to a small seminary in 1853 and is now one of the largest universities in the nation, with more than 50,000 students. For more information, please consult the UF homepage at http://www.ufl.edu. UF launched the UF Rising initiative in 2014 to bring UF to national preeminence with strategic hires and investments across the university. UF Rising’s largest single investment is in the new UF Informatics Institute, with other strategic investments in bioinformatics and other areas that leverage UF’s excellence for its diversity, complexity, and comprehensiveness. For more on UF Rising, see: http://rising.ufl.edu/.
GEORGE A. SMATHERS LIBRARIES
The libraries of the University of Florida form the largest information resource system in the state of Florida. The UF Libraries consist of seven libraries; six are in the system known as the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The libraries hold over 5,800,000 print volumes, 8,100,000 microfilms, 630,000 e-books, 121,016 full-text electronic journals, 889 electronic databases, 1,300,000 documents and 766,000 maps and images. The libraries have built a number of nationally significant research collections, including the Latin American & Caribbean, Judaica, Florida History, Children’s Literature, and Maps and Imagery Collections. The Smathers Libraries are a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), and LYRASIS. The library staff consists of more than 400 FTE librarians, technical/clerical staff and student assistants. The organizational chart is available at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/orgchart.pdf.
The UF Libraries have a long-standing history of excellence in digital curation with the UF Digital Collections along with collaborations across campus for digital humanities, digital scholarship, and data management and curation activities. For recent news, see: http://acrl.ala.org/dh/2014/07/23/intertwingularity-digital-humanities-university-florida/. The UF Libraries led creation of the campus-wide Data Management and Curation Task Force which started in 2012 (which became the Data Management and Curation Working Group in 2016) with representatives from the Libraries, Research Computing, and the Office of Research.
DIGITAL LIBRARY OF THE CARIBBEAN (dLOC)
UF is a founding partner and the technical host of the international Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). Since creation in 2004, dLOC has into the largest open access collection of Caribbean materials with over 2 million pages of content, 42 institutional partners, and over 3 million views each month. dLOC is founded on a core of shared governance where all activities are governed by partner institutions with an equitable and partner-driven model where partners retain all rights to materials and determine all materials to contribute. dLOC partners commit to shared values for community and capacity development. Now in its second decade, dLOC focuses on digitization, digital curation for collection development, and skill and capacity development to support building intellectual infrastructure, teaching resources, integrated approaches to teaching, digital scholarship, and collaboration with scholars for new initiatives and programmatic supports. dLOC provides training and collaborates with partners to pursue new funding opportunities and initiatives, including data curation.
RESEARCH COMPUTING AND THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH
UF created Research Computing in 2011, with the vision to enable radical collaboration across campus. UF was the first university to fully connect to the Internet2 Innovation Platform’s three components. Research Computing is home to HiPerGator, the state’s most powerful supercomputer. For more on Research Computing, see: http://www.rc.ufl.edu/. In 2013, the Office of Research supported the over 5,000 funding awards for a total of over $640 million in sponsored research funding. For more, see: http://research.ufl.edu/.
COMMUNITY
Gainesville, Florida and the surrounding community are home to approximately 257,000 people and both the University of Florida and Santa Fe College. Situated just over an hour from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, the city is surrounded by over 40 nature parks, including many spring-fed lakes and rivers. In 2015, Gainesville was named the “Best Midsize College City in America” by WalletHub and ranked no. 7 on Livability.com “Top 10 College Towns”. Gainesville is known as an innovative municipal government and an innovative city. Gainesville continues to receive national recognition as a top-rated city. Some of Gainesville’s accolades are listed at the Gainesville Awards and Recognition link. The Guide to Greater Gainesville combines award winning photography and compelling articles that capture all of the reasons for calling Greater Gainesville your next home. The area has numerous cultural institutions and is a haven for sports fans. Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee, and St. Augustine are all within a two-hour drive.
BENEFITS
Vacation days, paid holidays, and sick leave days; retirement plan options; insurance benefits; tuition fee waiver program; no state or local income tax. Prospective employees should review the information about employment and benefits at UF available at http://hr.ufl.edu/benefits/.

[1] Caribbean Studies as defined by the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) as “within the area of the Caribbean archipelago, the mainland countries including the Guianas, and the states of the United States which border on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico” (https://goo.gl/DHSrxa).

Thank You. Merci.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank everyone who has accessed, shared, or used the World War I diary of my great-grandfather Albert Huet. Since February, it has been viewed more than 1,700 times. I can’t believe it. And neither can my grandfather, who is amazed that his dad’s story would be interesting to so many people.
In an effort to further enhance the project, I would now like to know how colleagues are using Albert Huet’s diary. I’m therefore requesting that anyone who has used the diary in her/his research or teaching to let me know (hhuet at ufl.edu) how it has helped you. I’m eager to learn about your experience and to link your projects/assignments/articles/books on my website.
Merci d’avance.

Women's Instructional Writings in Nineteenth-Century France: A Digital Bibliography

Hello everyone,
On May 22, Bénédicte Monicat and I gave a talk on her digital bibliography project (entitled “Women’s Instructional Writings in Nineteenth-Century France”) at the Women’s History in the Digital World 2015 Conference.
You can now find our presentation in the Bryn Mawr College repository as well as in ScholarSphere, Penn State’s repository. Any feedback on this project is greatly appreciated so don’t hesitate to message/e-mail me if you have any questions or comments.

SHARP 2015

I will be presenting on Mapping Decadence at SHARP 2015 this July in Montréal. This is very exciting because SHARP has a Digital Project Showcase, which is where I will be talking about my very own digital mapping project. Looking forward to it and to visiting Montréal. It will also be great to have some feedback from colleagues on where to take my project next.

Mapping Decadence

Two weeks ago, I attended the WSFH conference (Western Society for French History) in Atlanta. I organized a panel about Digital Humanities. I entitled it “Humanities in a Digital Age: Using Digital Tools for Research and Teaching”. The panel was webcast and recorded. I will put a link to the video as soon as it will be available.
My own talk was called Mapping Decadence:Visualizing Relationships Between Writers and Publishers. I will talk about it and publish it soon.

A case against voting on DHThis

Yesterday, at 11 am EST, a new website called DHThis launched. DHThis describes itself as “the first entirely crowdsourced outlet for digital humanities.” The idea behind it is that people can register for free on the website, submit articles, and link to blog posts that they have written, putting their work before the DHThis community. Then, users have the opportunity to upvote or downvote articles. The ones with the most votes will appear on the front page of the site; the least liked will disappear after a few days.
I strongly dislike this voting concept. Let’s imagine that I post something I wrote and fifteen users downvote it, without commenting on it. As an early career scholar, I do not yet have the benefit of an established reputation. An overwhelmingly critical response to a piece might have a negative impact on my professional reputation, with possible long-term consequences. And I don’t believe that’s what the digital humanities are about. I imagine it more as an open, collaborative community, which, to me, is not represented in this voting system.
I am also unclear as to how long the articles can remain on the homepage. Does that depend on the number of votes they receive? What if an article gets twice the number of votes as any other article? Will it stay on the homepage forever?
Alternately, the articles featured on the homepage could change daily or twice a week. They would be randomly chosen from among the articles submitted by the users. It would not depend on a vote.
Ultimately, if I go to DHThis, it won’t be to cast a vote but to learn about what people are doing and what is happening in the world of digital humanities in the hopes of broadening my knowledge.