Digital Humanities For Librarians Hardcover

Emma Annette Wilson

Digital humanities for librarians. Some librarians are born to digital humanities; some aspire to digital humanities; and some have digital humanities thrust upon them. Digital humanities for librarians is a one-stop resource for librarians and lis students working in this growing new area of academic librarianship. The book begins by introducing digital humanities, addressing key questions such as, "what is it?", "who does it?", "how do they do it?", "why do they do it?", and "how can i do it?". This broad overview is followed by a series of practical chapters answering those questions with step-by-step approaches to both the digital and the human elements of digital humanities librarianship. Digital humanities for librarians covers a wide range of technologies currently used in the field, from creating digital exhibits, archives, and databases, to digital mapping, text encoding, and computational text analysis (big data for the humanities). However, the book never loses sight of the all-important human component to digital humanities work, and culminates in a series of chapters on management and personnel strategies in this area. These chapters walk readers through approaches to project management, effective collaboration, outreach, the reference interview for digital humanities, sustainability, and data management, making this a valuable resource for administrators as well as librarians directly involved in digital humanities work. There is also a consideration of budgeting questions, including strategies for supporting digital humanities work on a shoestring. . Special features include: *case studies of a wide range of projects and management issues *digital instructional documents guiding readers through specific digital technologies and techniques *an accompanying website featuring digital humanities tools and resources and digital interviews with librarians and scholars leading the way in digital humanities work across north america, from a range of larger and smaller institutions whether you are a librarian primarily working in digital humanities for the first time, a student hoping to do so, or a librarian in a cognate area newly-charged with these responsibilities, digital humanities for librarians will be with you every step of the way, drawing on the author's experiences and those of a network of librarians and scholars to give you the practical support and guidance needed to bring your digital humanities initiatives to life

1538116448

9781538116449

English

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

15 January 2020

248

Dr. Emma annette wilson holds a ba and m.Phil. In english from the university of cambridge, a ph.D. In renaissance literature from the university of st. Andrews, and an mlis from the university of western ontario. For the past 4 years she has worked in the university libraries at the university of alabama running the alabama digital humanities center (adhc). In that time, as the leader of a 2-person team (herself and an it specialist), she has grown the adhc from having 5 digital humanities projects to having over 140, and this volume is an opportunity to share that experience and successful approaches and strategies with an lis and librarian readership. Dr. Wilson has initiated digital humanities collaborations for research and pedagogy in more than 20 different departments across the university of alabama, ranging from partnerships in english, history, art and art history, and modern languages, to perhaps more unexpected areas such as music, diversity initiatives, and clothing, textile, and interior design. Furthermore, a number of these projects include significant inter-institutional collaborations with establishments including somerville college, oxford, and st. Louis public library, to name just a couple. As digital scholarship librarian at the adhc, dr. Wilson established digitorium, an annual digital humanities conference that saw its third iteration in spring 2017. Since its inception in 2015, the conference has grown by over 60%, attracting more than 130 delegates from 3 different continents, 25 different institutions and 10 different subject areas in 2017 alone. Digitorium always includes plenary speaker sessions, and the combination of these with highly diverse panels of speakers from all over north america and europe, all of whom dr. Wilson corresponds with directly and regularly, means that she has built up an extensive network of librarians and scholars practicing in the field of digital humanities, a resource which she intends to draw upon in the making of this book. She has published articles and an edited collection in renaissance literature, but germane to this project her recent work has involved presenting at the ala and acrl and publishing on the role of metadata in digital humanities alongside her colleague, metadata librarian mary alexander, as well as putting together an edited collection on digital humanities for teaching for indiana university press

Emma wilson's digital humanities for librarians is a welcome addition to the reading lists of academic librarians, administrators, and faculty who are engaged in dh work or who are toying with the idea of getting started. Building upon her years of experience at the university of alabama and the convener of several dh conferences, wilson writes from experience as well as with authority and clarity in answering key questions about what dh is and how and why libraries are at the core of this work before diving into five approaches (focusing on metadata, exhibitions, text encoding, digital mapping, and computational analysis) and the corollary skills and framing required by all collaborators who strive to see every project through to a successful launch. In short, wilson has created an essential field guide for starting, sustaining, and accelerating digital humanities projects and collaborative environments where the library and librarians are front and center.--juilee decker, associate professor, museum studies, rochester institute of technology emma annette wilson has drawn on her experience as head of the alabama digital humanities center, university of alabama libraries, to provide a road map for librarians involved in digital services and other related job positions. Digital humanities for librarians is a welcome introduction to this growing, inter-disciplinary field. The author herself is now an assistant professor of english, southern methodist university, and the book has the distinction of being the first single-author textbook on the digital humanities for librarians, and is intended for use in the classroom. Digital humanities for librarians is a useful, well-conceived book, which should be of equal use to both the practitioner and the student.--marta mestrovic deyrup, professor, seton hall university libraries