To follow up on the Leventhal Map collection: Historic Map Works out of Westbrook, Maine has been doing similar work: http://www.historicmapworks.com/About.php. I’m not sure about all the details, but I know that you can use their maps to look at layers of place in a given setting.
Proposal: What Counts as #DH, and Making #DH Count
For more experienced Campers, this topic is well-worn, I know. It’s a discussion I’ve had at every THATCamp I’ve attended. But it’s one that never fails to get me to think. I think it’s evergreen.
Basically, a free-wheeling discussion about advocacy, communication, community, and labor within the digital humanities. Topics would include (but in no way be limited to):
- How do we describe the digital humanities? What “counts” as DH? What maybe doesn’t? Why?
- Are people in adjacent roles, like digital archivists, and digital librarians, “doing DH”? How much does the distinction matter?
- Who are the gatekeepers for all of the above?
- Is critical code theory part of DH’s “big tent?”
- Is DH’s “big tent” really that big?
- Content vs. Making/Programming: The Hack/Yack dichotomy.
- How to make DH-skeptical colleagues (and, oh, say, tenure committees) see the value of DH.
- How to curb or counteract tech-crazed administrators who may not understand that DH is not a panacea.
- How do we do DH outreach and inreach?
- Issues of labor, collaboration, & crediting in DH projects.
- DH and the neoliberal university.
Really, I’m just wanting to establish a space for wide-ranging higher-level conversation. I think it’d be a break from all the tool-learning and skill-building, and a good opportunity to engage critically with the fundamental concept of “digital humanities,” as it undergirds this whole (un)conference.
Some more possible workshops/discussions
I teach a variety of workshops each semester. I think ThatCamp is great fun when it involves collaboration and group learning – but I’m happy to either lead discussions or go over basic principles on some of the topics that I’ve got materials on.
- Data Cleaning – tools to include OpenRefine and basic regular expressions. With the potential for participants to share their own tips and habits.
- Scalar – how to use it, and what it might be used for. Again, very open to a discussion of its relative merits and applications.
- I also work a lot with XML, Text Encoding, and digital epigraphy and would be happy to lead or participate in a session on markup.
Digital Storytelling: Designing a Survey Course That Works For You and Your Students
Hi! I’m currently teaching a graduate-level course on Digital Storytelling at Brown: you can view the course site here. I’m happy to lead a discussion on teaching and thinking about digital storytelling (and what “digital storytelling” might mean, exactly!) with anyone interested.
If we need more specific things to think more about, we might consider:
-What are the challenges of running a “survey” course (vs. a more specialized tool or context-centric course or one more explicitly tied to a historical / temporal period or genre)?
-How do we develop reading lists that acknowledge the range of work being done by various professionals, scholars, and students interested in digital contexts and spaces?
-How do we consider the mechanics and aims of workshops, lectures, readings, and project development in the context of the survey course?
-How might we imagine the roles of community representatives, librarians, archivists, and other potential collaborators with the course or with individual students?
-What prep work, particular tools, and uses of digital spaces are we thinking about?
-How might we use these spaces to focus on our research interests and ongoing projects in creative and ethical ways that also acknowledge the interests of our students and collaborators?
Jekyll (AKA static-site generators)
This afternoon (Friday, 24 March) I’m going to be working through the tutorial on Jekyll from The Programming Historian. I’d be interested in a session at tomorrow’s camp to talk about Jekyll and other static-site generators. I don’t know much about them, but maybe you do? And maybe I’ll know a whole lot more after this afternoon?
Workshops that I can teach at the drop of a hat
I know that THATCamps are participatory and informal, with “no lengthy proposals, papers, presentations, or product demos.” That said, I know from my experience attending Camps that people are often interested in learning and skilling up where possible. For that reason, I’d be happy to teach any of the following workshops, which I have done on multiple occasions at Brown and elsewhere:
- Introduction to Voyant and text analysis
- Introduction to social network analysis with Gephi
- Introduction to topic modeling
- Managing your online identity
- Managing your personal research library with Zotero
Getting Started with Open Digital Collections
Getting Started with Open Digital Collections will provide an overview of how to find and use open access content in museum digital collections.
This session will review:
- Where to find open digital collections
- How to identify open access content
- How to use open collections content (this segment will focus on how to navigate the terms of use that impact how you can use content).
Session Type: Teach
Session Keywords: Digital Collections, GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums), Open Access, Public Domain, Creative Commons, Digitization, Museums.
Background Image: Still Life: Flowers and Fruit by Severin Roesen, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.
Picking Each Others’ Brains: Teaching Tips, Tools, and Techniques
It’s been a few years since the last THATCamp New England. What are you doing now to connect students and researchers with artifacts, projects, and tools? If you’re an instructor, what techniques are you using to inspire and engage your students?
This session is intended to be a forum for sharing what you’re doing, and hearing from other participants.
I look forward to hearing from everyone and leaving with ideas!
Intro to TagTeam
“Intro to TagTeam” will review the basics of TagTeam, a research tool and tagging platform developed by the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP) at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
TagTeam is a platform that supports the social tagging and aggregation of online resources, with the flexibility to manage your tag vocabulary from a folksonomy to an ontology.
This session will provide the background necessary to start using TagTeam by reviewing:
- TagTeam’s basic features and functions
- How to start a hub on TagTeam
- How to start tagging with TagTeam
Session Type: Teach
Session Keywords: Research Tools, Social Tagging, Open Source Software, Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies, Folksonomies and Ontologies.
Let’s Get Proposing!
THATCamp New England 2017 is nearly at capacity. We have fewer than 10 spots left. We are very excited to see a great diversity of campers, including a number of you with fantastic skill sets. The full agenda will be decided on the morning of March 25th, but to help us streamline the process, we would like to get a sense of who is willing to teach what in advance. This will help us make the best possible match between skills and interests. To that end, we’d like to invite proposals from ThatCampers who would like to teach.
Some of you are veteran THATCamp attendees and already know the process, but for those who are new or need a refresher, you can find the guidelines here. Session proposals are usually divided into four categories: make, play, talk, teach. Proposals to teach sessions jointly with other THATCampers are welcome and encouraged.
