...that is, what it is for. Not to ask about schools, but sorry, I am a librarian seeking to transition to working with digital humanities. Could I please just ask what training I really need for this? writing code only? Are there off the shelf systems for digital projects that require less technical training? if I could get some answers to these queries, I promise I won't bother you with FINDING the training. I need a better handle on what to look for myself. thanks.
OK, I just joined and saw the highlighted question about what this q and a is
(5 posts) (3 voices)-
tedunderwood
MemberLisa Spiro's piece on "getting started in the digital humanities" is very good.
There are "off the shelf" systems that can address particular aspects of projects. E.g. Omeka, MALLET, Gephi, Voyant. But my experience has been that you often need to be able to code if you want to bind pieces together in new ways. (In my own subfield of text mining, I would change "often" to "always"; this might be less true in other subfields.) However, I'm not a librarian, and people also disagree very strongly about the necessity of coding, so in the end you'll need to make your own decision.
Posted 2 years ago Permalink -
tedunderwood
MemberBest AnswerOh, and a piece that answers your question perhaps even more directly is Miriam Posner's fabulous, incomparable blog post "How Did They Make That?"
Posted 2 years ago Permalink -
Ted has shared two great links. You might also find it interesting to read through the variety of courses on offer at this year's Digital Humanities Summer institute, to get a sense of the methods and skills appropriate to answering different kinds of research questions or assisting with different sorts of projects.
Some other resources that may be of particular interest to you (and me! I'm a librarian, too) are DevDH (still under development) and dh+lib.
Posted 2 years ago Permalink -
PS: my view is that if you are a librarian seeking to get an initial grounding in digital scholarship and to be most generally helpful to the faculty and students in your area, probably the worst thing you could do is devote a lot of time up front to learning to "code." Librarianship has likely already provided you with all the skills you need to get rolling! I'd suggest moving outward from specific cases. Conduct a solid reference interview to figure out what the scholar who has come to you is really trying to do, and then use your research skills to help him or her review the literature and locate past projects in that particular area. Once you find some models, research the technologies behind them and seek ways to learn together! In my experience, you'll build more generalized "digital humanities" capacity at your library by working on a real project (even if it's rather specialized) than if you spent that time either on overviews or on learning a programming language without a specific reason to. Good luck!
Posted 2 years ago Permalink
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