Building Capacity for DH Work in the Library & Beyond

Ashley Sanders, Ph.D.Digital Scholarship Coordinator

Claremont Colleges Library

1. Introductions

Agenda

How do we build capacity for something that is often so new to the very people we’re trying to

assist and support that they, themselves, cannot define what they need?

1. Introductions

2. Firestarter

3. Affinity Map

4. 4 C’s

5. Impact-Effort

6. Case Study

7. Q&A

3 minutes: Complete the following statement:

My ideal DH community…

2. Firestarter

Is…Makes…Does…

Includes…Values…Is not…

1 minute: Choose the 4 most important to you & add them to the poster paper

1. Cluster or group

sticky notes in columns

2. Determine theme for each cluster or column & write it over that grouping

3. Reflection

3. Affinity Map

Affinity Map Summary:

Characteristics of Ideal DH Communities

Institutional Support Funding Staffing Space Resources Support from the top Involves stakeholders @

all levels on campus Understanding of time &

money required to produce quality DH projects

Values Diversity Inclusion: Accessible to

all Open, welcoming to all

interested, regardless of discipline

Friendly Community Includes all voices,

especially those historically silenced

Collaboration

Affinity Map Summary:

Characteristics of Ideal DH Communities

Values/Ideals Open access Honors & instructs

members on IP rights Acknowledges privilege

& power Values methodologies

& epistemologies of humanities

Makes a difference in the humanities

Attitude Always evolving Open to failure Willing to

experiment Playful Creative Unafraid Challenges linear

thinking

Affinity Map Summary:

Characteristics of Ideal DH Communities

What it does Tells stories It’s more than digitization Makes products discoverable Makes connections between

past & present Engages students & brings

them into the humanities Empowers students, librarians

& faculty to become content creators

Provides perspective & insight Makes art

Systems Tech infrastructure to

support digital projects Access to digitized

source material Software Hardware Long-term preservation Responsive design Located in a physical

space – the library

Team Affinity Maps

Team Affinity Maps

Team Affinity Maps

10 minute break

Components:

Parts of a DH program

Characteristics:Features of a DH program

Characters:

People associated with a DH program

Challenges:

Obstacles associated with building a DH program

4. The Four C’s

4. The Four C’s

Each team will be responsible for 1 C. 3 minutes to plan information gathering strategy

What do you want to know? What questions will you ask?

5 minutes to gather information. 1 idea/note. 3 minutes for information analysis.

Analyze & organize your data. Post contents on matrix

Share findings

4 C’s

Components Staffing, support, expertise Technology & tech

infrastructure Expansive, Artistic, Narrative Research tools Projects Repositories Workflows Metadata Physical space Organizational Anchor Participants: students, faculty,

librarians, staff

Characteristics Strong institutional support Schools, departments, IT Diversification in funding Collaborative Accessible/Findable Project idea through

completion Working with students Value-added to institution Showcase projects/products Cross pollination among

disciplines but begins with humanities

Components: Characteristics:

Characters: Challenges:

Components: Characteristics:

Characters: Challenges:4 C’s

4 C’s

Characters DH Center Manager Systems analyst Instructors A/V Specialists Data Viz experts Quantitative/Qualitative data

analysts Advancement officer Risk & info sec specialist Digital preservation expert Graphic Designers GIS expert Visual Resources Librarian Copyright officer Student workers Community members

Challenges Institutional buy-in Determining service needs Encouraging

interdisciplinarity & collaboration

Funding Getting word out Terminology Fuzzy project ideas Process/workflows to

complete projects

Components: Characteristics:

Characters: Challenges:

Components: Characteristics:

Characters: Challenges:

5. Impact & Effort

MatrixWhat do we need to do to build DH

capacity, given the ideas generated in the previous activities?

10 minutes: Generate ideas (1 per sticky note) as a group

High Impact/Low Effort High Impact/High Effort

Low Impact/Low Effort Low Impact/High Effort

5. Impact & Effort Matrix

Impa

ct

Effort

High Impact/Low Effort: Identify powerful faculty

champion(s) Write DH into institutional

strategic plan Identify potential projects Transfer existing content to

repository Kickstarter program for faculty Meet-ups & mailing list List of resources Marketing Inventory talent, interest, tech

capacity Define core values

High Impact/High Effort: Project management Central coordinator to connect

people as team Dedicated financial support Talented people willing to

experiment & fail Create center Offering DH courses Training subject librarians in DH Determine priorities in face of

resource constraints Establish life cycle of rpoject

Low Impact/Low Effort: Inventory which humanities

projects already exist but are not necessarily digital

Low Impact/High Effort: Form a project

committee/advisory group Award competitionIm

pac

t

Effort

High Impact/Low Effort

High Impact/High Effort

Low Impact/Low Effort

Low Impact/High Effort

High Impact/Low Effort

High Impact/High Effort

Low Impact/Low Effort

Low Impact/High Effort

High Impact/Low Effort

High Impact/High Effort

Low Impact/Low Effort

Low Impact/High Effort

Reflection

Take 5-10 minutes to jot down ideas about what

you’d like to try/apply at your home campus

10 minute break

Be sure to check out the ideas of other groups!

Supporting Digital Humanities: Report of a CNI Executive

Roundtable Held Dec. 7 & 8, 2014 (May 2016); See also What We Heard at the Roundtable: Transcript of a Project Briefing, CNI Fall 2014 Membership Meeting, Dec. 9, 2014.

Coalition for Networked Information. Digital Scholarship Centers: Trends and Good Practice https://www.cni.org/events/cni-workshops/digital-scholarship-centers-cni-workshop (Please read the report and at least 3 institutional profiles)

Bethany Nowviskie, Too Small to Fail (October 13, 2012 blog post) http://nowviskie.org/2012/too-small-to-fail/

Alix Keener, The Arrival Fallacy: Collaborative Research Relationships in the Digital Humanities, http://digitalhumanities.org:8081/dhq/vol/9/2/000213/000213.html

Resources

Edward L. Ayers, “Does Digital Scholarship Have a Future?”

Monday, August 5, 2013, EDUCAUSE Review, http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/8/does-digital-scholarship-have-a-future

Nancy L. Maron and Sarah Pickle, Sustaining the Digital Humanities: Host Institution Support beyond the Start-Up Phase (Ithaka S+R, June 18, 2014). http://www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/mig/SR_Supporting_Digital_Humanities_20140618f.pdf

Nancy Maron, “The Digital Humanities Are Alive and Well and Blooming: Now What?”EDUCAUSE Review, http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/8/the-digital-humanities-are-alive-and-well-and-blooming-now-what

Miriam Posner, “Here and There: Creating DH Community,” http://miriamposner.com/blog/here-and-there-creating-dh-community/

Resources