forum: How can we raise awareness of digital resources?
JISC have recently published a briefing paper entitled Research in the arts and humanities: an overview of JISC activities. The paper gives an introduction to projects and services that help arts and humanities researchers by providing access to sources, publications and collections as well as services and advice on all things digital.
The paper does of course focus on JISC funded activities, but it shows that there are many resources out there that are worth engaging with. However, as we have learned through activities such as the Methods Network, researchers do not seem to be as aware of these resources as they could be.
Now I wonder, what can be done to change that? Is it as simple a matter as sending out briefing papers to departments; setting up a website listing tools and projects? How can we best engage with those who are not in the digital in-crowd and what role could funders such as JISC play in that?
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how I do it
I haven't read the paper.
I manage a web site for images and transcriptions from State Papers Domestic Elizabeth (TNA SP 12) at the University of Hull, and I am asking for transcriptions as well as posting images of documents.
I tell everybody that I meet or correspond with and the word is getting out. My target audience is very small. Those who have shown any interest at all receive an email update on the site, at least twice a year. I also advertised on H-Net (H-Albion) and the site has been discussed there. I have a small amount of stationery which is useful for passing on the address at conferences.
It is working. Some UK universities have links to the site and at least one US professor is using it for teaching; I get emails and transcriptions from his students.
I am not allowed by this discussion board to post the web address correctly but if you put sp12 after www and before hull and ac and uk you will be there.
posting links
Hi Helen (and others),
You can post links on the site, but you have to be logged in with your user account to do that. Unfortunately, we had to introduce this to keep out spam. 'Anonymous' users can take part in all discussions, but the system blocks postings with URLs in them.
The link is: http://www.sp12.hull.ac.uk/
--
Torsten Reimer
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk
Intute Arts and Humanities
Just a quick plug for Intute...
Intute: Arts and Humanities is a JISC-funded service that has catalogued well over 20,000 academic Web resources for researchers, lecturers, and students in the UK, so we already exist as a website listing tools and projects (and more besides). Our catalogue is developed and maintained by a network of information and subject specialists throughout the country, and we endeavour to promote and provide access to the 'best of the web' (or at least those bits of it that are free and publicly accessible).
If anyone is unfamiliar with Intute, do take a look at the website: http://www.intute.ac.uk/
So if people are in the business of raising awareness of digital resources for the arts and humanities, please don't forget to mention us!
Dr. James A. J. Wilson,
Service Manager, Intute: Arts and Humanities.
directory / map?
I think it would be very useful to have some sort of directory of resources or maybe more like a general guide. Intute seems really helpful (thanks for the link!), but when I first discovered digital humanities I would have been so happy to have a more descriptive guide that helps me to get in and shows some sites to start with. Something one can use without knowing what to look for... Just my two cents.
ICT map
Well, there is the ICT Map that may be of help as a *very* general introduction:
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk/resources/ictmap.html
http://www.ahrcict.rdg.ac.uk/ictmap/
Having said that, it is somewhat dated by now...
--
Torsten Reimer
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk
A couple of ideas
JISC can produce medium-size eye-catching posters for each collection and service that it has and send them to any University department or Institution that could make good use of it. For instance, posters of EDINA can be sent to any UK or overseas Arts or Design Departments which will hopefully post them somewhere where their researchers walk around. JSTOR's posters have colonised many departments of the LSE.
Sending out briefing papers to departments does help as long as they actually are distributed, quick to read, and present URLs in a way that will make people want to click on them.
Ariel
Intensified Communication with Institutions
If JISC is to further raise awareness of digital resources, then this presumes that a certain amount of the researches affiliated with a particular institution are either unaware of these resources or simply have disregarded them.
The best means of disseminating information is still through various acts of communication whether direct or indirect forms are utilized. So I suppose that an adequate communication strategy should be adopted. The medium of the eye-catching poster (as mentioned above by Ariel) is an example of an indirect mode of communication. At the same time a closer and direct contact with the institutions that would be interested in a particular resource should be established. For instance, if a new digital resource is about to come up introduction sessions can be held at which every institution will have its own representative. The latter will be responsible for spreading this information across the institution s/he belongs to.
Furthermore, follow-up sessions may occur as the digital resource undergoes changes and improvements.
Invitation to Participate in Poster Session on Digital Projects
I've been reading through these posts and contacting individual institutes in England about a poster session on digital projects that I'm organizing for SHARP 2008 in Oxford. I invite all to participate. SHARP, a group organized for book history and textual scholars, is forging into digital studies with the help of some members. This will be a good opportunity to make our members aware of digital projects all over the world. I'm hoping to include at least 7-10 projects. The deadline is approaching rapidly for submission (November 25). The CFP is below:
CALL FOR POSTERS
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing International Conference
Hosted by the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies
Oxford, England
June 24 - June 26, 2008
This year’s conference theme, Teaching and the Text, is an appropriate opportunity to highlight SHARP’s commitment to digital humanities projects, tools or techniques or work in progress. The session also encourages proposals from any college or university digital humanities program, center or group to present a poster that overviews their program. Posters may include a demonstration, traditional printed poster or a combination of both.
A brief bio and short abstracts (250-300 words) should be submitted to Katherine D. Harris (kharris@email.sjsu.edu) before November 25, 2007. Please include any technical requirements (e.g., Internet access). This panel will undergo the normal review procedure by the SHARP conference committee. One participant for each proposal must be a member of SHARP prior to the conference.
Founded in 1991, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing is a global network of literary scholars, historians, librarians, booksellers, and publishing professionals. With more than 1,000 members in over 20 countries, SHARP works in concert with a number of affiliated scholarly organizations around the world to encourage the study of book history.
The conference theme, Teaching and Text, reflects the historical and contemporary position of Oxford as a seat of learning and a centre of academic and professional publishing. It will be developed through an opening plenary lecture by Professor Juliet Gardiner (author of Wartime Britain 1939-1945), by a panel on the History of Oxford University Press led by Professor Simon Eliot (Chair in the History of the Book at the School of Advanced Studies, University of London), and a final plenary panel chaired by Professor John Barnard (Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Leeds), and featuring as panellists Dr. David McKitterick (Librarian and Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge); Dr. Peter McDonald (Rank Fellow and University Lecturer in English Language and Literature, St Hugh’s College, Oxford); Dr. Sydney Shep (Senior Lecturer in Print & Book Culture and The Printer, Wai-te-ata Press, Victoria University of Wellington); and Professor Kathryn Sutherland (Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism, St Anne’s College, Oxford). Further plenary sessions will be announced later. The AGM will be hosted by Oxford University Press, and followed by a reception. Additional social events will include a banquet at Magdalen College and receptions at Blackwells Bookshop and the Bodleian Library.
Help in finding creative industry suppliers
Digital Services for the Cultural Sector [DiSCS] is a national service aimed at aiding cultural and heritage institutions to find and work with creative industry suppliers. The key aspects of the service are:
1. Directory of suppliers (UK wide)
2. Toolkit to help institutions select and work with a supplier
All services are delivered through the website DiSCS-UK.info
DiSCS was piloted through the North East regional agency of the museums, libraries and archives [MLA] councils and is now being rolled out via the other regional agencies as well as the Scottish Museums Council and CyMAL.
it is more I suspect than awareness
The issue of digital awareness of resources in the arts and humanities (move d, a, r, a, h, into any order you like, is I suspect much more substantial a matter than the JISC paper would have us believe, or than JISC is saying about itself or others. The recent decision of the AHRC over this is evidence.
I spoke recently at the history, classics and archaeology Higher Education Academy workshop on the humanities and sustainable development, and it is clear that people are in such tiny deep siloes, that the concepts humanities, arts, are too general for their concerns and interests.
This is the consequence of the evil of the Research Assessment Exercise and the tyranny of the subject and the form.
These two themes I am trying to explore in a couple of the bots I'm slowly putting together. There has been some discussion in Radical Philosophy over documenta 12 which begins to put a little phlesh onto some of it.
John Lindsay
Reader in Information Systems Design
Kingston University
Kingston Upon Thames