[en] Does your historical collection need a database-driven
website?Adam Crymble, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Abstract
[en]
There are plenty of good reasons for building a website for your collection,
including learning a new skill, protecting fragile resources from constant
handling in the archives, adding interactive functionality that is only possible
on the web, and opening access to users who cannot visit in person.
But often there are better ways to share your collection. Websites are expensive
and a lot of work. Committing to building a website is like committing to build
and maintain a library for the foreseeable future.
If you're reading this, you must already be enthusiastic and have a great idea.
This flowchart is not meant to dampen that enthusiasm. Instead, it is written to
make sure you ask yourself some of the tough questions too, to make sure your
project is viable before you make a big commitment.
[en] Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural CollectionsMitchell Whitelaw, University of Canberra, Australia
Abstract
[en]
Decades of digitisation have made a wealth of digital cultural material available
online. Yet search — the dominant interface to these collections — is incapable of
representing this abundance. Search is ungenerous: it withholds information, and
demands a query. This paper argues for a more generous alternative: rich, browsable
interfaces that reveal the scale and complexity of digital heritage collections.
Drawing on related work and precedents from information retrieval and visualisation,
as well as critical humanistic approaches to the interface, this paper documents and
analyses practical experiments in generous interfaces developed in collaboration with
Australian cultural institutions.
[en] Deconstructing Bricolage: Interactive Online Analysis of Compiled
Texts with FactotumTomas Zahora, Monash University; Dmitri Nikulin, Google; Constant J. Mews, Monash University; David Squire, Monash University
Abstract
[en]
Textual bricolage, the unacknowledged re-use of chunks of existing texts within a new
composition, spans the liminal space between authorized, publicly shared, and
de-authorized texts. While it can result in unique literary juxtapositions, bricolage
also challenges the boundaries of authorial ownership. Understanding the methods and
responses to textual bricolage reflects how a culture engages with textuality. Yet
such study is often hindered by the sheer extent of compared texts. In this article
we explore the potential of using Factotum, text similarity recognition software with
visual interface, for analysing textual bricolage. Using examples from medieval and
recent texts, we discuss different compilation techniques as well as the interaction
between the notions of authorship, plagiarism and intertextuality.
[en] Textual Artifacts and their Digital
Representations: Teaching Graduate Students to Build Online
ArchivesDeena Engel, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University; Marion Thain, New York University
Abstract
[en]
Co-teaching a digital archives course (ENGL-GA.2971) for
graduate students in the English Department allowed us to
bring together our expertise in both research and pedagogy
from two fields: English Literature and Computer Science.
The course built on a core pedagogical principle in Computer
Science of teaching through projects rather than from
unrelated one-off programming or web development
assignments. Teaching the Text Encoding Initiative after
students had completed hands-on projects (using xHTML, CSS,
and a digital archive working in a standard content
management system) enabled the building of technological
skill sets in a logical and complementary manner. From a
literary perspective, building a digital archive — and
teaching text encoding — enabled an in-depth consideration
of textual materiality, the processes through which literary
scholarship must inform technological building decisions,
and the ways in which the act of digitization can be used to
ask new questions of the text (or to prompt the text to ask
new questions of itself). This paper will survey our
techniques and approaches to interdisciplinary teaching,
culminating in our usage of text encoding for exploring
issues of textuality through digital presentation.
[en] Humanities Unbound: Supporting Careers and Scholarship Beyond the
Tenure TrackKatina Rogers, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Abstract
[en]
As humanities scholars increasingly recognize the value of public engagement, and as
the proportion of tenure-track faculty positions available to new graduates continues
to decline, many humanities programs are focusing renewed attention on equipping
graduate students for careers as scholars both within and beyond academe. To support
those efforts, the Scholarly Communication Institute has carried out a study
investigating perceptions about career preparation provided by humanities graduate
programs. The survey results help to create a more solid foundation on which to base
curricular reform and new initiatives by moving the conversation about varied career
paths from anecdote to data. The findings make it clear that there are a number of
effective interventions that programs can undertake. Many of the skills that people
working beyond the tenure track identify as crucial to their positions — things like
project management, collaboration, and communication — are also highly beneficial to
those working within the professoriate. Structuring courses and projects in a way
that emphasizes the acquisition of these skills not only contributes to the success
of students who pursue employment outside the tenure track, but also to the vibrant
research, teaching, and service of those who pursue academic roles. With the
availability of new data to work from and the recommendations above as possible
guiding principles, graduate programs have a robust set of tools available that can
help facilitate curricular assessment and new initiatives. As the importance of
assessing the effectiveness of existing structures and considering potential benefits
of reform continues to grow, humanities programs have a strong incentive to
demonstrate the ways that their graduate programs contribute to the vitality of the
university and the broader public sphere. Equipping graduate students with the skills
and literacies needed for 21st century scholarly work — from technical fluency to an
understanding of organizational structures — is critical to ensuring continued
rigorous and creative research, scholarship, and teaching.
[en] “By the People, For the
People”: Assessing the Value of Crowdsourced, User-Generated
MetadataChristina Manzo, Simmons College, USA; Geoff Kaufman, Tiltfactor Laboratory, Dartmouth College, USA; Sukdith Punjasthitkul, Tiltfactor Laboratory, Dartmouth College, USA; Mary Flanagan, Tiltfactor Laboratory, Dartmouth College, USA
Abstract
[en]
With the growing volume of user-generated classification systems arising from media
tagging-based platforms (such as Flickr and Tumblr) and the advent of new
crowdsourcing platforms for cultural heritage collections, determining the value and
usability of crowdsourced, “folksonomic,” or
user-generated,
“freely chosen keywords”
for libraries, museums and other cultural heritage organizations becomes
increasingly essential. The present study builds on prior work investigating the
value and accuracy of folksonomies by: (1) demonstrating the benefit of
user-generated “tags” - or unregulated keywords typically meant
for personal organizational purposes - for facilitating item retrieval and (2)
assessing the accuracy of descriptive metadata generated via a game-based
crowdsourcing application. In this study, participants (N = 16) were first tasked
with finding a set of five images using a search index containing either a
combination of folksonomic and controlled vocabulary metadata or only controlled
vocabulary metadata. Data analysis revealed that participants in the folksonomic and
controlled vocabulary search condition were, on average, six times faster to search
for each image (M = 25.08 secs) compared to participants searching with
access only to controlled vocabulary metadata (M = 154.1 secs), and
successfully retrieved significantly more items overall. Following this search task,
all participants were asked to provide descriptive metadata for nine digital objects
by playing three separate single-player tagging games. Analysis showed that 88% of
participant-provided tags were judged to be accurate, and that both tagging patterns
and accuracy levels did not significantly differ between groups of professional
librarians and participants outside of the Library Science field. These findings
illustrate the value of folksonomies for enhancing item
“findability,” or the ease with which a patron can access
materials, and the ability of librarians and general users alike to contribute valid,
meaningful metadata. This could significantly impact the way libraries and other
cultural heritage organizations conceptualize the tasks of searching and
classification.
[en] Close Rereading: A review of Jessica Pressman, Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2014)Shawna Ross, Arizona State University
Abstract
[en]
This review of Jessica Pressman’s Digital Modernism: Making
It New in New Media (2014) emphasizes the field-building
significance of Pressman’s innovative approach to analyzing electronic
literature, an approach that reinvigorates the dated methods of New Criticism
for use in the digital humanities. Pressman identifies a genre of contemporary
electronic literature, “digital
modernism,” and uncovers continuities linking it with early
twentieth-century modernism. In spite of an uneven style that oscillates between
belabored scholasticism and brilliant description, Digital
Modernism rigorously wrangles a wide array of data points —
historical, literary, and technological — to create an account of contemporary
electronic literature relevant for digital humanists, literary scholars, and New
Media scholars. This review contextualizes the work within new currents in
modernist scholarship, reflects on the modernism and digital modernist
“canon” Pressman assembles, and then provides chapter
summaries, with an emphasis on Digital Modernism’s
reinvention of close reading for the twenty-first century.
