digital humanities Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Academic Insights by Willa Liburd Tavernier

Community Creation

By Willa Liburd Tavernier | November 1, 2023

In a diverse local and global information ecosystem, maintaining community and trust is paramount, but increasingly difficult. Participatory processes and collective action can help address concerns and empower groups. Public open digital scholarship holds promise to achieve these ends. Below I highlight three of the Indiana University (IU) projects I have been involved in that … Continue reading Community Creation →

Neatline allowed Illinois Institute of Technology Libraries to create an interactive campus building timeline.

On the Map

By Carrie Smith | September 1, 2021

Neatline User: Adam Strohm, director of University Archives and Special Collections, Paul V. Galvin Library, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago What is Neatline? Neatline is an open source suite of plug-ins that adds geotemporal functionality to Omeka exhibits and allows users to situate exhibit items in space and time. Its SIMILE add-on provides an interactive … Continue reading On the Map →

Making Discoveries Discoverable

By Carrie Smith | January 26, 2020

The team of librarians who helped shape this course through collaboration with instructors shared their experience at “Metadata Instruction Mobilizing Human Rights Research in the Undergraduate Classroom” on Saturday, January 25 at the ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits in Philadelphia. The project began when a history professor approached Alex Boucher, research and instructional services librarian … Continue reading Making Discoveries Discoverable →

Agents of Influence: Academic Librarians -- Fostering partnerships at the forefront of research

Pioneering Digital Humanities at Stanford

By Timothy Inklebarger | January 6, 2020

In this multipart series, American Libraries presents case studies and interviews with thought leaders looking at research trends in academic libraries. We’ll be covering the topics of social justice, information literacy, digital archives, faculty outreach, and new technology. This is the fifth story in the series. Quinn Dombrowski, academic technology specialist at Stanford’s Division of Literatures, … Continue reading Pioneering Digital Humanities at Stanford →

Angelina Zaytsev (left), collection services librarian at HathiTrust, and Kristina Eden, copyright review project manager at HathiTrust, lead the session "Harnessing Volunteer Power for Operational and Programmatic Success" at DPLAfest 2017 in Chicago. Photo: Terra Dankowski/American Libraries

The Devil Is in the Digital Details

By Terra Dankowski | April 25, 2017

Data and design boost engagement “A digital collection is not just scanned photographs,” said Greta Bahnemann, metadata librarian for the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL), at the outset of “Metadata: Preventing a Digital Junk Drawer.” Metadata should essentially make up half of your collection, she said. Why is metadata so important? Bahnemann and copresenters from the … Continue reading The Devil Is in the Digital Details →

Librarian responses to the survey question: "What does the best model look like for the digital humanities?"

How Librarians and Faculty Use Digital Humanities

By George M. Eberhart | March 3, 2016

The sea change brought about by digital humanities (DH) resources is still rippling through academia. As Stewart Varner and Patricia Hswe write in their special report on “Digital Humanities in Libraries” (American Libraries, Jan./Feb. 2016), libraries are “unsure how they should respond as DH attracts more and more practitioners and its definition evolves to cover … Continue reading How Librarians and Faculty Use Digital Humanities →

Digital Humanities: Bridging the Gap of Library and Faculty Engagement

By Amy Carlton | January 11, 2016

The majority of attendees said they worked in the humanities, but the exact definition of digital humanities is still nebulous. Kathy Rosa, director of ALA’s Office for Research and Statistics, offered a basic definition—digital tools and technology applied to the traditional objects and methods of the humanities. She also pointed to Jason Heppler’s What is … Continue reading Digital Humanities: Bridging the Gap of Library and Faculty Engagement →

Special Report: Digital Humanities in Libraries

By Stewart Varner and Patricia Hswe | January 4, 2016

Digital humanities (DH) is the umbrella term that describes much of this work. It is neither a field, a discipline, nor a methodology. It is not simply the humanities done with computers, nor is it computer science performed on topics of interest to the humanities. DH is the result of a dynamic dialogue between emerging … Continue reading Special Report: Digital Humanities in Libraries →

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Sheila Craft-Morgan writes: “Citations are a key measure of the impact of a researcher’s work. However, research in a variety of disciplines has found that women are less likely to be cited than men; citations contain geographic bias; and the Matthew effect—in which those who begin with advantage continue to gain advantage—leads to more citations for prominent scholars in a specific discipline. These findings contribute to the notion that scholarly knowledge comes from a homogenous group of researchers, thereby overlooking the contributions of other groups.”

American Libraries column, June
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Mel Baldwin writes: “Regardless of why someone comes into a library, every patron should be free to interact with staff, browse materials, and use the internet without fear of harassment or worse. That freedom depends on libraries upholding patron privacy. With nearly 400 active anti-trans bills pending in state legislatures as of April 2024, it is a dangerous time in the US to be gender nonconforming, someone whose gender expression does not align with the traditional male or female binary. And for trans people of color, studies show the risk of discrimination and violence is higher.”

American Libraries column, June
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Greg Landgraf writes: “On a school morning last September, small groups of 5th-graders crowded around tools connected to scientific research—a microscope, a robotic camera, and even a snake named Morgan Freeman—clipboards and pencils in hand. They were at the Melrose branch of Roanoke (Va.) Public Libraries (RPL), judging graduate students from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on their research. The event was RPL’s second Flip the Fair, introduced in 2022 to help graduate students develop skills to effectively communicate their research while engaging local elementary students with STEM topics and the library.”

American Libraries Trend, June
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Aaryn Bierly writes: “Disability Pride Month is traditionally celebrated in July to celebrate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The ADA regulates laws regarding service animals, requires employers to accommodate their employees’ physical and medical needs, stipulates the number and placement of accessible parking spaces and restrooms, and more. One in five Americans has some type of disability that makes working more difficult, and the ADA has made working conditions easier for a significant number of Americans. We’ve got several great lists of books for kids and teens of different ages featuring characters with a range of disabilities.”

Herrick District Library (Holland, Mich.), July 1
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“Many people already turn to libraries as sources of trusted information ahead of elections, and organizations like ALA and the League of Women Voters are hoping to expand those numbers. We’ve curated a selection of resources, tools, and ideas to help inform your library’s approach to this important work.”

WebJunction, July 3
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“A federal appeals court in New Orleans is taking another look at its own order requiring a Texas county to keep eight books that deal with subjects including sex, gender identity, and racism on public library shelves. Llano County officials had initially removed 17 books from its shelves amid complaints about the subject matter. The June 6 order was vacated July 3 after a majority of the 17-member court granted Llano County officials a new hearing before the full court. The order did not state reasons and the hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.”

Associated Press, July 7
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Todd Spangler writes: “In the days after Paramount Global disabled mtvnews.com and mtv.com/news in June—removing a trove of hundreds of thousands of articles about music and pop culture from the internet—the not-for-profit Internet Archive assembled a searchable index of 460,575 web pages previously published at mtv.com/news. The Wayback Machine’s archive of MTV News is not the full complement of what was published over the span of more than two decades. But the new collection at least ensures, for the time being, that much of MTV News’ articles remain accessible in some form.”

Variety, July 2

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