What is DH and Why Does it Matter to Museums?
Notes from my talk with museum studies graduate students in Amelia Wong’s Digital Technologies in Museums course at George Washington University, March 21, 2013.
What is DH and Why Does it Matter to Museums?
Wikipedia definition of Digital Humanities
Debates in Digital Humanities, (open access version): http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/
Check out Father Busa work, Index Thomisticus.
Day of DH 2013— follow on Twitter #dayofDH, read blog, see how different folks define DH. I fall in-line with what
@nowviskie says: You say potato, I say potato. Let’s call the whole thing off. (Or, more seriously: I “define” DH with some reluctance. We’re an interdisciplinary, inter-professional community of practice; we develop and test an evolving set of methods; we undertake fresh work in the humanities and explore ways of making that work visible.)
In 1994, Roy Rosenzweig started the Center for History and New Media because he saw that digital media and computer technology could help democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past.
Different flavors of DH work
- Text and Data Mining: Downton Abbey topic modeling; Data Mining with Criminal Intent.
Easy tools you can use: Bookworm, Voyant tools. - Spatial History, Visualizations: different ways of representing data to answer questions and make visible stories that aren’t always noticeable through text alone: Geographies of the Holocaust; Visualizing Emancipation/; City Nature, Handsome Atlas.
Tools to use: Zotero + Paper Machines; ViewShare; Google Maps and Fusion tables. - Creating and Using Digital Collections: Ways of managing sources, creating intentional collections of works, sometimes collaboratively to increase access to source and put forth a thesis through web project building. See Object of History, Bracero Archive, Modernist Journals Project.
Easy to use tools: WordPress.com; Omeka.net, Scalar, Drupal Gardens, WikiSpaces. - Crowdsourcing: Asking for community participation and sharing in knowledge creation, personal experiences, and expertise. September 11 Digital Archive, href=”http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/tag_game/start.php”>Tag, You’re It, NYPL Menus, Papers of the War Department. AgHeritage, NMAH
Tools to use: Scripto, From the Page, Blogging software, Simple web forms, - Scholarly Communication“, ways of reshaping narratives, that strive to be open access, open peer review, non-linear narratives, using visualizations to tell stories.
See Whale Hunt, MediaCommons, WordPress + CommentPress plugins.
State of the History Museum Web
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My Survey of History Museum Web, 2011 (links to 2004 study); and link to our working document History Museums are Not Art Museums, Discuss!
- History museums in 2004 offered more narratives and stories related to exhibitions than in 2011.
- Nearly 70 percent of history museums provide only a summary or list of exhibitions.
Only 2 museums offered a means for closely examining an object. - Searchable collections databases were available in 17 percent of museums, up from 9 percent in 2004, while 37 percent offer no collections information (not even a summary or finding aide).
- Nearly 70% of history museum sites offer no online teaching & learning materials. Most list programs offered on-site with contact information, only.
MCN 2011 Roundtable
DH and Museum Work
Tim Sherratt: “It’s All About the Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People”:
New ways of Curating, Seeking Input from Outside of the Museum
Read this newly-published article for Museums and the Web 2013 Conference, Susan Cairns and Danny Birchall: http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/curating-the-digital-world-past-preconceptions-present-problems-possible-futures/ This paper looks at the history of museum curation as a profession in order to understand the emergence of ‘curation’ as an activity that happens outside museums in relation to a growing and hyperconnected world of digital information.
Letting Go: Historical Authority in a User-Generated World
QRator project to respond and influence labels if in museum or not.
American Enterprise, at NMAA, started planning “out loud.”
Oh Snap!
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2013/03/guest-post-oh-snap-experimenting-with.html
History Pin: Not from a museum, but collaborative across many institutions, crowdsourced, place-based
How Can I Learn More?
Navigating DH for Cultural Heritage Professionals
DH Now
Journal of Digital Humanities
Bamboo DiRT