A DH State of Mind: Libraries and the Digital Humanities

Background

One of the first questions for many getting involved in digital humanities is what are the “digital humanities”? Participants in the annual Day of DH have offered their own definitions of digital humanities. Not surprisingly, there are many different definitions, but some commonality emerges, mainly around the use of digital technologies to inform humanities research. Keywords like interdisciplinary, collaboration, different, and new also are commonly used. One participant simply offered this as a definition: “TBD” (Bonds, Day of DH, 2014, p. 2). There are differing views of what is and what should be considered digital humanities, and what does and doesn’t make a scholar a digital humanist. Svensson (2012, pp. 44-47) analyzed four statements or descriptions about the digital humanities: from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Digital Humanities, from a white paper from the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities, from a junior scholar perspective, and from a panel at the Modern Language Association Convention in 2011. These different descriptions, and Svensson’s discussion, highlight the differing and evolving views of the digital humanities. He proposes the digital humanities as a “trading zone and meeting place” (Svensson, 2012, p. 52), which encourages participation, interdisciplinarity, openness, and sharing of interests. There is a range of disciplines involved in digital humanities, across the arts and humanities (Sula, 2013, p. 16), with potential for many participants and contributions.