Introduction We launched dh+lib with an eye towards creating community and facilitating the burgeoning conversation that was developing around the library and information professions and the digital humanities. Naturally, we took note when a special issue devoted entirely to libraries and DH was published by the Journal of Library Administration in January 2013. As ...

The 2013 Digital Humanities and Libraries special issue of the Journal of Library Administration largely focused on how libraries might adapt organizationally to the overall problem of Big Digital Humanities initiatives, exemplified by larger-scale projects requiring substantial librarian and staff hours over the longer term, primarily in the context of large research libraries. However, the ...

Satchel Paige had a saying: “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.” When we speak of forming a vision for libraries in the digital now we expend a great deal of energy looking behind, worrying and wringing hands about what might be gaining or surpassing us. It may arise from a professional timidity, ...

Editor Barbara Rockenbach has assembled an insightful collection of perspectives on the current “digital humanities moment” in librarianship. There is, however, one crucial perspective missing: a historical one. In her introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Library Administration (JLA) devoted to the topic of digital humanities in libraries, Rockenbach highlights several themes ...

Micah Vandegrift and Stewart Varner’s contribution to the Journal of Library Administration special issue on digital humanities in libraries offers readers a wonderful exploration of some key texts for digital humanities scholars as well as connections to how those works can inform the work of librarians (Vandegrift and Varner 2013). The article is full of suggestions ...

Subject librarians’ responsibilities may involve providing virtual and in-person reference services, advanced research consultations, bibliographic instruction sessions, collection development duties, and liaison services. Given the burgeoning interest in DH and the high likelihood that they will be required to possess a certain degree of familiarity with it, how might subject librarians, already overburdened as they ...

The often noted (and equally often lamented) “vagueness” of the overall digital humanities endeavor points to one of its greatest strengths. Though the boundaries of the field, community, or set of practices known by the name “digital humanities” are difficult to establish (as Barbara Rockenbach points out in her introductory piece to the recent issue ...