Digital Humanities What is Digital Humanities Digital humanities

Digital Humanities

What is Digital Humanities? “Digital humanities is a diverse and still emerging field that encompasses the practice of humanities research in and through information technology, and the exploration of how the humanities may evolve through their engagement with technology, media, and computational methods. ” (“DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: About, ” n. d. )

Wait, WHAT? Infohumantechexlploragement? Pretty much. Image Source

The humanities include… Literature of all languages Law Cultural Studies Philosophy Gender & Sexuality Studies History African Studies East Asian Studies Anthropology Geography European Studies Religious Studies Performing and Visual Arts Linguistics and Languages Classics (Ancient Greek & Roman Studies) And more!

In more relatable terms, DH • uses technology to research the humanities in different ways, and • encourages scholars to explore how the humanities can change and grow by using that technology. • The field of DH also focuses on process just as much as product (Note, 2014).

Example #1 – Basic digitization As many of us know, Project Gutenberg has spent the last 40+ years working to digitize tens of thousands of books in an effort to make them publicly accessible, free of charge. Just books. 22/365 by Sunchild 57 Photography is licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 4. 0 Alpha. Server GS 160 by derfian is licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 2. 0

Example #2 – Children’s Lit Archive is part of Ryerson’s Centre for Digital Humanities and includes an online catalogue and online exhibit space where students have expanded on their descriptions of some of the books.

Example #3 – Constructing Scientific Communities Conscicom. org Based out of Oxford and Leicester, this project aims to bring the public together with professional scientists. By looking through scientific journals from the 19 th century, “citizen science” volunteers hope to help professionals develop new tools and methods for scientific communication. This is a highly collaborative project, involving conferences and other public events. Image by jwyg is licenced under CC BY-SA 2. 0

Tools Omeka: Free, open-source content management system for displaying collections online. Ant. Word. Profiler: Free software that analyzes word frequency Crowdmap: $10/month, online maps focusing on a specific topic that collaborators can contribute to. There are TONS of resources on Di. RT, both free and paid applications to help researchers make the most of their DH projects.

Why should we care? Libraries play an important role in providing resources to humanities researchers. Digital humanists tend to complete their work in Digital Humanities Centres, which are usually very close to, or part of, academic libraries. Knowing about this field means knowing about potential employment opportunities for the future!

Potential Job Titles • Digitization Specialist • Digital Humanities Research Liaison • Research special • Collections Assistant • Digital Liberal Arts Specialist

References DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: About. (n. d. ). Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http: //www. digitalhumanities. org/dhq/about. html Note, M. (2014). Digital Humanities Primer. Retrieved from http: //www. slideshare. net/margotnote/digital-humanities-primer