SIG Conveners

Zoe Borovsky, UCLA Libraries, USA

Angela Courtney, Indiana University Libraries, USA

Isabel Galina , Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Stefanie Gehrke, Biblissima, France

Hege Stensrud Høsøien, National Library, Norway

Sarah Potvin, Texas A&M University Libraries, USA

Thomas Stäcker, Herzog August Library, Germany

Glen Worthey, Stanford University Libraries, USA

We propose a poster introducing the ADHO Special Interest Group for Libraries and Digital Humanities that allows for both presentation and live discussion. The poster will present the main objectives motivating the SIG proposal, illustrate its history as an international effort, and afford the conveners an opportunity to circulate and discuss the SIG proposal face-to-face with supporters and potential members among international conference attendees. For those DH attendees not directly involved in library work, the poster will be primarily an introduction to the importance of, and issues related to, DH work in libraries internationally.

Mission and Rationale

The ADHO Libraries and DH SIG aims to foster collaboration and communication among librarians and other scholars doing library-related digital humanities work. By establishing this SIG, ADHO serves its mission and provides the connective tissue between ADHO organizations and emerging DH initiatives within organizations of professional librarians such as the Association of College and Research Libraries (part of the American Library Association) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). We believe that creating these connections will lead toward more informed ‘dual citizenship’—that is, of librarians connected to, participating in, and supported by both library- and DH-oriented professional organizations, in league with fellow DH-oriented librarians around the world. By fostering such dual citizenship, librarians and libraries will be well positioned to identify opportunities to initiate and engage with digital humanities projects and scholarship, as well as to collectively address the challenges we face. These challenges include, for example, (a) advocating for financial support, release time, training opportunities, technical infrastructure, and resources to undertake their digital humanities projects; (b) addressing the changing notions of ‘service’ and ‘research’ in light of the collaborative nature of much digital humanities work; and (c) promoting a culture of digital humanities scholarship in the library.

The mission of the ADHO Libraries and DH SIG will be to

• Offer advice and support to these new and emergent associations of librarians engaged in digital humanities pursuits—either projects of their own making or in collaboration with nonlibrarian digital humanists.

• Advocate for initiatives of interest and benefit to libraries as well as digital humanities (e.g., the ‘Collaborators’ Bill of Rights’ white paper, the Digital Public Library of America, the ‘Best Practices for TEI in Libraries’ guidelines, and other tools and best practices related to library-based DH).

• Document how librarians and library-based units meet these challenges.

• Provide information about available resources and opportunities (e.g., training, funding) that encourage collaboration between DH scholars in a variety of roles, especially in libraries.

• Showcase the work of librarians engaged in the digital humanities.

• Promote librarians’ perspectives and skills to the rest of the DH community.

An initial goal of the SIG will center on developing working relationships within and across international library-oriented organizations such as the ACRL DH Interest Group, the Digital Library Federation, the TEI in Libraries Special Interest Group, the Society for American Archivists, the Association for Information Science and Technology, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and others.

Activities

In terms of concrete activities, the SIG would, when possible, coordinate or collaborate with librarian organizations to accomplish the following:

• Researching and documenting existing librarian-led DH projects and DH organizations in which librarians are active partners (e.g., the TEI Consortium SIG on Libraries).

• Organizing conference sessions—ones for librarians at DH conferences, and others focused on DH at conferences intended primarily for librarians (such as ALA, ACRL, ARLIS, DLF, etc.).

• Organizing workshops, training events, and conference sessions aimed at promoting librarians’ involvement in the general DH community and showcasing library-led projects.

Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the issue. Currently, 130 people have actively expressed an interest in joining this SIG, but we believe the potential membership to be substantially greater worldwide. One concrete benefit of presenting a poster at DH2015 will be community outreach, with the aim of reaching these potential members.

Note

A related public Zotero group on the topic of DH in libraries is maintained at https://www.zotero.org/groups/adho_library_sig.