Digital Humanities at Durham

∂ What DH is Application of digital technology or computational research to: Research in Arts and Humanities Cultural heritage practice Museums, galleries, archives, libraries etc Use of humanities methods to study of digital objects or phenomena

∂ What Digital Humanities does Experiments with new and developing technologies Asks how they can be appropriated for humanities research and in the cultural heritage sector Can develop technology which feeds back into computer science research and development Can develop technology which helps underpin technologies which become common Deals with difficult, disorganised, fuzzy data Poses serious challenges for computer science research

∂ Some questions for Digital Humanities research What new tools, applications and models can be created to facilitate new ways of interacting with humanities and cultural heritage resources, and why have so many previous tools failed to be adopted? How should digital resources be created and organised so as to be most easily interrogated? How should digital objects be managed and preserved so as to ensure effective access and use?

∂ Some questions for Digital Humanities research What kind of use is made of digital resources? What do their users need? Can we encourage re-use once they are created? What financial models and practices can support the creation and maintenance of such resources, so as to ensure long term sustainability? How can we apply and refine emergent techniques such as 3D scanning and modelling, image anlysis, or big data science to research in the humanities?

∂ A vision for DH at Durham How can we coordinate what is already happening? What can we offer that other places don't have? –Museums and galleries, special collections, world heritage –Unique mixture of subjects and interdisciplinary work –Small scale, fast reacting How can we best collaborate with organisations outside the university? − Museums, galleries, libraries, archives, private sector

∂ Lessons from elsewhere Need to be at the centre not the periphery – We are not a weird bunch of geeks – Central to faculty and university research strategy People need to understand what we do – Lots of publicity about how great we are – Lots of networking – Proving our worth from beginning Have to be offer benefits to other parts of faculty/university

∂ Need to publicise work new to humanities –But quality vital, single strongest correlation with use Need to take DH outside academia Outreach involving museums, libraries, schools etc –QRator and museums Involvement of public- huge new opportunity Web 2.0 and crowdsourcing –Transcribe Bentham project Outreach and Publicity