WHAT CAN YOU BRING TO THE TABLE?

The Digital Humanities and Archivists

Brooklyn Historical Society

• A nationally recognized urban history center devoted to preserving the history of Brooklyn

• Some exhibits but primarily a research center for both scholars and students

Project CHART

Cultural Heritage Access Research and Technology

Cross-institutional, collaborative project focused on digitizing and making publicly available Brooklyn-based photo archives

• Given CHART’s digital focus, is BHS contributing to the digital humanities

• What about archivists in general?

The Digital Humanities: Definitions

A nexus of fields within which scholars use computing technologies to

investigate the kinds of questions that are traditional to the humanities. – Kathleen

Fitzpatrick, Pomona College

The Digital Humanities: Definitions, Continued

A bridge between the traditional practices of research and the

opportunities afforded by technology, providing scholars with new ways of

looking at old problems, and the methods, tools and frameworks to support them in novel avenues of

enquiry. –King’s College London Digital Humanities program

Digital Humanities

Uses new, digitally available METHODS • To

Exploit humanities-driven CONTENT

Examples

Using Google Books Ngram Viewer to analyze literature

UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Opens

up new research methods by using linked data and data mining

How do Archives and Archivists fit into Digital Humanities

The best projects are collaborations between scholars, librarians/archivists, and computer scientists

But, librarians and archivists in low attendance at conferences

Librarians/archivists not seen as generating content or compelling tools that advance research methods

Archivists need to create new tools in order to exploit digital assets

(not just collect documents)

Is BHS contributing to digital history?

CHART is collaborative—all three institutions leverage their collections through this partnership

It generates clean, interoperable data Merely scanning is not a lasting addition But the shared portal could be a new tool

through which the public can interact with Brooklyn’s history

Education Initiatives

Engaging with faculty and students to create archives-centered curriculum

Forging partnerships with both scholars and students

Conclusions

With CHART and its education initiatives, BHS is making strides in digital history

But in order to remain relevant in the field, archivists and librarians will need to:

1. Develop and teach tools for data analysis (data and text mining, linked data)

2. Engage in large scale initiatives, as opposed to ad-hoc projects

References

Borgman, C. (Fall 2009). The digital future is now: A Call to Action for the Humanities. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 3 (4). Retrieved from:

http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/4/000077/000077.html /000077.html Cunningham, L. (Feb/March 2010). The librarian as digital humanist: The collaborative role of the research libraries in digital humanities projects. Faculty of Information Quarterly 2 (2), p. 1-11 Fitzpatrick, K. (May 8, 2011). The humanities, done digitally. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Humanities-Done-Digitally/127382/ King’s College London (2011). School of arts & humanities, digital humanities, research. Retrieved from: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/ddh/research/index.aspx New York Public Library (2011). Digital humanities and the future of libraries: A conversation in honor of Dr. Paul LeClerc with Kari Kraus, John Orwant, Dot Porter, and Doug Reside. Retrieved from: http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2011/06/16/digital-humanities-and- future-libraries THAT Camp (June 2011). Digital humanities & libraries. THAT Camp Center for Humanities and New Media. Retrieved from:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10OwsdYdTyBQPXLeQ3aVDOmakLF3DI-Mf5zOChkUPgvg/edit?hl=en_US