Text Encoding in the Digital Humanities

March 12, 2010 at 12:18 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing

I was recently looking for a good article on Text Encoding in the Humanities and found this article written by Allen H Renear. It is a good introduction to Text Encoding and posits a excellent argument on why it is important.

This chapter will provide a general orientation to some of the historical and theoretical context needed for understanding both contemporary text encoding practices and the various ongoing debates that surround those practices. We will be focusing for the most part, although not exclusively, on “markup”, as markup-related techniques and systems not only dominate practical encoding activity, but are also at the center of most of the theoretical debates about text encoding (link)

Cite as: A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/

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Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities

March 11, 2010 at 1:46 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing

http://www.dariah.eu/

What is DARIAH?

DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) is a project to support the digitisation of arts and humanities data across Europe. (((Strictly speaking, that should be “DRIAH.” Maybe history was dry enough already.)))

DARIAH brings together researchers, information managers and information providers. It gives them a technical framework that enables enhanced data-sharing among research communities. (((One quails at the awesome power of state-supported European digital culture.))) (link)

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The Past’s Digital Presence: Database, Archive, and Knowledge Work in the Humanities

February 24, 2010 at 3:15 pm · Filed under conferences, digital humanities, humanities computing

This conference recently held at Yale looks very interesting. One of the organisers, Miriam Posner, also has a Digital Humanities blog (link).

How is digital technology changing methods of scholarly research with pre-digital sources in the humanities? If the “medium is the message,” then how does the message change when primary sources are translated into digital media? What kinds of new research opportunities do databases unlock and what do they make obsolete? What is the future of the rare book and manuscript library and its use? What biases are inherent in the widespread use of digitized material? How can we correct for them? Amidst numerous benefits in accessibility, cost, and convenience, what concerns have been overlooked? (link)

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4th Symposium, Cultural Heritage Knowledge Visualisation, CHKV

February 23, 2010 at 10:45 am · Filed under conferences, digital humanities

Second Call For Papers

4th Symposium, Cultural Heritage Knowledge Visualisation, CHKV

A symposium in the 14th International Conference Information Visualisation, 26,
27-29 July 2010, London South Bank University, London, UK.

http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV10/ Click on Symposia hypertext

Important Dates:
1 March 2010: Submission of papers
16 April 2010: Notification of Peer Review Result
30 April 2010: Submission of camera-ready
7 May 2010: Early registration closes

Paper Format Guide: (Not more than 6 pages – excess pages at 25 GBP per page.)
http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV09/INSTRUCTION.htm

Over the last 2 decades we have seen a shift from the physical confines of the
‘houses of knowledge’ – traditional museum, cultural galleries, knowledge
institutes – to more online, mobile, accessible interactive displays of
cultural heritage knowledge. From books, physical displays and site-specific
places of cultural heritage significance, many more can now access these
repositories remotely. As touring 3D installations, interactive online
applications, images, text, audio and video, access to cultural heritage
knowledge has never been so accessible. What does this mean to those who’s
heritage is on display? What protocols are needed to protect the integrity of
the knowledge included? And, what new knowledge do we gain through these
technological interventions and expositions of cultural heritage? These are
only some of the many questions raised in this emerging field of Cultural
Heritage Knowledge Visualisation.

The symposium seeks original projects that deal with, but are not limited to,
the following topics:
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Digital Classicist

February 22, 2010 at 2:28 pm · Filed under conferences, digital humanities, humanities computing

Call for Presentations

The Digital Classicist will once more be running a series of seminars
at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, with
support from the British Library, in Summer 2010 on the subject of
research into the ancient world that has an innovative digital
component. We are especially interested in work that demonstrates
interdisciplinarity or work on the intersections between Ancient
History, Classics or Archaeology and a digital, technical or
practice-based discipline.

The Digital Classicist seminars run on Friday afternoons from June to
August in Senate House, London. In previous years collected papers
from the DC WiP seminars have been published* in a special issue of an
online journal (2006), edited as a printed volume (2007), and released
as audio podcasts (2008-9); we anticipate similar publication
opportunities for future series. A small budget is available to help
with travel costs.

Please send a 300-500 word abstract to by
March 31st 2010. We shall announce the full programme in April.

Regards,

The organizers
Gabriel Bodard, King’s College London
Stuart Dunn, King’s College London
Juan Garcés, Greek Manuscripts Department, British Library
Simon Mahony, University College London
Melissa Terras, University College London

* See http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/4/ (2006),
http://www.gowerpublishing.com/default.aspx?page=637&calctitle=1&pageSubject=1064&sort=pubdate&forthcoming=1&title_id=9797&edition_id=12252
(2007), http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/index.html (2008-9).

– Dr Gabriel BODARD (Epigrapher & Digital Classicist) Centre for Computing in the Humanities King’s College London 26-29 Drury Lane London WC2B 5RL Email: gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1388 Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 2980 http://www.digitalclassicist.org/ http://www.currentepigraphy.org/

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DHO Summer School 28 June – 2 July 2010, Trinity College, Dublin

February 22, 2010 at 10:26 am · Filed under collaboration, digital humanities, humanities computing

Registration is now open for the 2010 Summer School. Please see the registration page for further details.

The Digital Humanities Observatory in conjunction with NINES and the EpiDoc Collaborative is pleased to offer the DHO Summer School 2010. It will bring together 60 Irish and International humanities scholars undertaking digital projects in diverse areas to explore issues and trends of common interest. Workshops and lectures will offer attendees opportunities to develop their skills, share insights, and discover new opportunities for collaboration and research. Activities focus on the theoretical, technical, administrative, and institutional issues relevant to the needs of digital humanities projects today.
The full summer school package offers participants four week-long workshop strands to choose from, a second day–long workshop and two lectures all on innovative topics by leading experts and theorists in digital humanities with additional options of private consultation time with a digital humanities specialist and evening social activities.
For those unable to attend the full Summer School, it is possible to register for the one-day workshop and/or one or both of the lectures (link)

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The Google Book Settlement 18th February 2010

February 9, 2010 at 3:18 am · Filed under books, digital humanities, digitisation

I am just reading Professor Robert Darnton’s new book titled ‘The Case for Books’. Darnton is a well know book historian, especially of the French Enlightenment, and made the bold career move to become Harvard’s Librarian. Admittedly ‘the Case for Books’ is not that good, especially for those who have been involved in academic publishing debates for quite some time. In the quest to reach larger audiences, the book appears to have lost some rigour and Darnton’s first-person monologue is a little too personal at times (he should keep a blog). Still, there is a lot of information on the Google Book project, especially as it relates to the looming legal decision in which I am admittedly not on top of.

Here is a initiative from the UK’s JISC (The Joint Information Services Committee) who have attempted to create a ’social software’ solution for broader public consultation. Almost always these social software solutions do not work (as it the case here) as the sites lack of community feedback. Still there there is an excellent summary of the case and key issues (link to JISC’s site).

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What is Culture24?

February 9, 2010 at 2:57 am · Filed under art, communuity informatics, digital humanities

Culture24 exists to promote and support the cultural sector online and to serve the needs of online audiences. We are a not-for-profit online publisher, working across the arts, heritage, education, and tourism sectors.

A wonderful initiative. Also, check out there data-feeds that contain data from 4300 cultural venues across the UK…wow! (link).

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Manuscript account of Newton’s apple made public

January 19, 2010 at 12:53 am · Filed under digital humanities, digitisation, humanities computing

The manuscript is one of a number published online to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, and can be accessed at www.royalsociety.org/turning-the-pages (from the Age)

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TEI by example

January 16, 2010 at 2:23 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing

The Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) of King’s College London, and the Department of Information Studies of University College London, are pleased to announce that funding has been secured to develop the online resource “TEI by Example”. Featuring freely available online tutorials walking individuals through the different stages in marking up a document in TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), these online tutorials will provide examples for users of all levels. Examples will be provided of different document types, with varying degrees in the granularity of markup, to provide a useful teaching and reference aid for those involved in the marking up of texts (link).

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Digital Humanities in India

November 29, 2009 at 4:29 pm · Filed under conferences, digital humanities, humanities computing

I am  not sure if there is a defined ‘Digital Humanities’ field in India (where I am at the moment), but there is activity occurring in numerous places. The Library Science is one area to find Digital Humanities activities in India as per this International Conference on Digital Libraries in New Delhi early in 2010.

TERI invites your attention to ICDL 2010, the third conference in the Institute’s ICDL (The International Conference on Digital Libraries) series. ICDL 2010 is proposed to be organized during 23-26 February 2010 in New Delhi. The theme of the conference is ‘Digital Libraries : Shaping the Information Paradigm’ and the focus is on the strengths and potential of digital libraries and their role in education, cultural, social and economic development (link).

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The Digital Future is Now: A Call to Action for the Humanities

November 20, 2009 at 10:18 am · Filed under digital humanities, e-science

This paper is based upon the Keynote lecture given at Digital Humanities 2009 in Maryland, USA by Professor Christine Borgman (link).

ABSTRACT
The digital humanities are at a critical moment in the transition from a speciality area to a full-fledged community with a common set of methods, sources of evidence, and infrastructure – all of which are necessary for achieving academic recognition. As budgets are slashed and marginal programs are eliminated in the current economic
crisis, only the most articulate and productive will survive. Digital collections are proliferating, but most remain difficult to use, and digital scholarship remains a backwater in most humanities departments with respect to hiring, promotion, and teaching practices. Only the scholars themselves are in a position to move the field forward. Experiences of the sciences in their initiatives for cyberinfrastructure and eScience offer valuable lessons. Information- and data-intensive, distributed, collaborative, and multi-disciplinary research is now the norm in the sciences, while remaining experimental in the humanities. Discussed here are six factors for comparison, selected for their implications for the future of digital scholarship in the humanities: publication practices, data, research methods, collaboration, incentives, and learning. Drawing upon lessons gleaned from these comparisons, humanities scholars are “called to action” with five questions to address as a community: What are data? What are the infrastructure requirements? Where are the social studies of digital humanities? What is the humanities laboratory of the 21st century? What is the value proposition for digital humanities in an era of declining budgets? (original link to paper).

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Ordnance Survey maps to go free online

November 18, 2009 at 12:46 pm · Filed under creative commons, data, digital humanities

The government is to explore ways of making all Ordnance Survey maps freely available online from April, in a victory for the Guardian’s three-year Free Our Data campaign. The move will bring the UK into line with the free publication of maps that exists in the US.

Gordon Brown announced the change at a joint event in London today with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who is now information tsar advising on the handing over of private government data to the public (thanks to Andy W for the link).

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On being critical…

November 17, 2009 at 4:19 pm · Filed under digital humanities, eresearch, humanities computing

A recent post I placed on Humanist; one of the most important academic initiatives in the Digital Humanities run by Professor Willard McCarty of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King’s College London. In this post, I sort of hijacked the subject somewhat but this needed to be said because as I see it, the otherwise wonderful infrastructure agenda in the Digital Humanities in this instance lacks clarity and purposefulness.

From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: critical thinking

What I think all this has to do with computing is in our understanding
better what computing has to do with the culture in which it has surfaced.
The utilitarian argument (”the computer is useful”) is so trite, so dull, so
incapable of supporting for long the professional activity we would like to
see given a better place in the sun. The principle of reprocity that governs
human relations says we need to be useful for sure, but to attract the sort
of students we want as well as keep ourselves alive intellectually I’d think
we need to offer something with a real bite to it. What has that bite? Not a
totally paranoid vision, though the thrill of the threat of it is a start.

Dear Willard and Humanist,

This is an interesting argument and given the institutional arrangements of the Digital Humanities, they aren’t going to be resolved quickly. I think where we find ourselves in the Digital Humanities is wedged somewhere between a contemporary version of CP Snow’s Two Cultures argument. But rather than wedged between ‘Science’ and ‘Humanities’ we find ourselves stuck somewhere between highly skilled technical  labour and academic labour. They are both two very valuable and different cultures with divergent approaches to work, merit, aspiration, and research significance. This division is especially problematic in the UK context given the history of the class system where working class kids went to technical school and middle class kids were given the opportunity to become academics. This of course changed significantly with mass tertiary education and the rise of the Polytechnics.

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Call for Nominations for the 2011 Antonio Zampolli Prize

October 27, 2009 at 5:35 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing

The Antonio Zampolli Prize is an award of the Alliance of Digital Humanities
Organisations (ADHO). Now in its inaugural year, the prize will be given
every three years to honour an outstanding scholarly achievement in
humanities computing. It is presented by the Alliance of Digital Humanities
Organizations (ADHO) on behalf of its constituent organizations: the
Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), the Association
for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) and the Society for Digital
Humanities/Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs (SDH/SEMI).
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