RECOMMENDED: Static Web Methodology as a Sustainable Approach to Digital Humanities Projects

Olivia Wikle (Iowa State University) and Evan Peter Williamson (University of Idaho), have published an article in latest issue of the code4lib Journal, on “Static Web Methodology as a Sustainable Approach to Digital Humanities Projects.” Their article advocates for a reexamination of digital humanities platforms through a minimal computing lens, proposing static web development, “Lib-Static,” to reduce infrastructural costs and enhance sustainability. By focusing on transferable technical skills and low-maintenance solutions, this approach aims to empower practitioners and optimize resources for innovative project development. From the abstract:

The web platforms adopted for digital humanities (DH) projects come with significant short- and long-term costs—selecting a platform will impact how resources are invested in a project and organization. As DH practitioners, the time (or money paid to contractors) we must invest in managing servers, maintaining platform updates, and learning idiosyncratic administrative systems ultimately limits our ability to create and sustain unique, innovative projects. Reexamining DH platforms through a minimal computing lens has led University of Idaho librarians to pursue new project-development methods that minimize digital infrastructure as a means to maximize investment in people, growing agency, agility, and long-term sustainability in both the organization and digital outputs. U of I librarians’ development approach centered around static web-based templates aims to develop transferable technical skills that all digital projects require, while also matching the structure of academic work cycles and fulfilling DH project needs. In particular, a static web approach encourages the creation of preservation-ready project data, enables periods of iterative development, and capitalizes on the low-cost/low-maintenance characteristics of statically-generated sites to optimize limited economic resources and personnel time. This short paper introduces static web development methodology (titled “Lib-Static”) as a provocation to rethink DH infrastructure choices, asking how our frameworks can build internal skills, collaboration, and empowerment to generate more sustainable digital projects.

Minimal computing and static infrastructure should be of interest to digital humanities library workers, and anyone, developing and teaching sustainable and accessible digital projects.