One of the findings of the ACRL Digital Humanities Discussion Group’s inital survery was that respondants were interersted in an aggregation service that presented a curated selection of content from the web on digital humanities and libraries. In response to that need, dh+lib is excited to unveil its aggregator, a volunteer-driven service for highlighting and sharing the best content on digital humanities and libraries.
What is it? How does it work?
This content appears on the dh+lib homepage as snippets prefaced by tag distinguishing the type of content.
Once we finish the dh+lib site redesign (coming soon, stay tuned!) it will be easier to tell the difference between this aggregated content and dh+lib original contributions.
The snippets that appear on the dh+lib homepage are selected from the stream of content produced and shared by the dh+lib community. This stream – in the form of RSS feeds – casts a wide net and includes content produced by librarians, archivists, museum workers, faculty, information professionals and technologists, just to name a few.
[pullquote]We currently need editors-at-large for the spring semester – sign up today![/pullquote]
The aggregation process relies heavily on the work of our editors-at-large, who volunteer for one-week shifts to survey the stream of content and select what should be highlighted on the dh+lib homepage. Once the editors-at-large have made their nominations, the editors (currently, Zach Coble, Sarah Potvin, and Roxanne Shirazi), make a final selection decision and post the selected content to the dh+lib homepage.
Are you interested in helping dh+lib? It’s an easy way to get involved in the dh+lib community and great for staying current with conversations in DH. Editors-at-large commit to a one-week shift that involves approximately 45 minutes a day. We currently need editors-at-large for the spring semester – sign up today!
Purpose
The point of this exercise is to share useful resources and build community. It is the hope of the aggregator and the dh+lib site to be both a resource for librarians and information professionals interested in DH as well as a voice for us to participate in the larger DH conversation.
While we are supported by the ACRL Digital Humanities Discussion Group, there is no membership requirement and all are encouraged to participate – both librarians and those working outside libraries. We want to work with you to make the site what you want it to be. We strongly encourage you to share the content you find useful with your friends and colleagues, and to participate in the conversation. We have created individual posts for each piece of content from the aggregator to provide a space for comments and conversation, and we encourage you to take the conversation to other venues.
[pullquote]We want to work with you to make the site what you want it to be.[/pullquote]
Similarly, we would love for you to contribute to dh+lib. We are always looking for posts on how you’re doing or trying to do DH at your library. Or perhaps you have another idea you think would be useful for the site – let us know!
Content Categories
Content featured from the aggregator fall into seven categories:
Recommended: These are indispensable pieces, often a blog post or article, that will be most helpful to the dh+lib community. These pieces should offer a critical analysis of the broader field of digital humanities or the role of libraries, archives, or museums in digital humanities work. Similarly, we are also looking for works of digital humanities scholarship – research that applies digital methodologies to questions in the humanities or applies critical methodologies to the relationship between the humanities and digital technology – with some consideration of libraries, archives, or museums.
Digital Projects: We are interested in featuring new digital projects, both projects that focus on particular research questions and projects that bring particular collections into the digital space.
Posts: These are blog posts that offer a timely analysis of current conversations. They might not fit in the Recommended category but are worth sharing with the dh+lib community.
Resources: This include items such as reports, white papers, conference presentations, and lectures as well as tutorials, tools for digital research, and sources for further information on a topic within the digital humanities.
Calls for Papers: We interpret “CFP” quite broadly, including calls for participation, calls for projects, and requests for feedback, in addition to more traditional calls for papers.
Job Announcements: We are looking for work opportunities that are specifically focused on both digital humanities and libraries. Positions might be postdocs, #alt-ac or tenure track, and will likely be situated in libraries, archives, museums, or galleries.
Funding and Opportunities: Funding and Opportunities is a catch-all category for items that are outside the scope of jobs or CFPs but that offer either learning opportunities or monetary support for digital humanities work.
As many of you have probably guessed, this process is very similar to Digital Humanities Now (DHNow). In fact, DHNow is the inspiration for this project, and I owe the Editors of DHNow a huge thanks, especially Joan Troyano, for their guidance, encouragement, and sharing of workflow materials.
