Building the Archive of Digital Humanities Research: Libraries and Data Curation of Digital Humanities

Projects

Harriett GreenUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2013 DLF ForumNovember 5, 2013

Today’s Talk

• Overview of humanities data curation• 3 case studies of digital humanities

curation in libraries• Possible principles for digital

humanities data curation in libraries and areas of focus

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

Humanities DataOur Cultural Commonwealth: The report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences“The complexity of the record of human cultures . . . makes digitization difficult and expensive. Moreover, a critical mass of information is often necessary for understanding both the context and the specifics of an artifact or event, and this may include large collections of multimedia content: images, text, moving images, audio.”

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

DH Data Curation In Libraries

Walters and Skinner, New Roles for New Times: Digital Curation for PreservationMuñoz and Renear, “Issues in Humanities Data Curation”:“Librarians and archivists acting as humanities data curators must embrace roles as researchers in the manner that programmers and software engineers in the digital humanities have come to do.”

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

Case Studies

Interviews with:• Walt Whitman Archive (Nebraska)• Victorian Women Writers Project (Indiana)• Valley of the Shadow (University of

Virginia)Analysis:- What is their level of curation?- What are their needs to implement full

data curation workflow?

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

WALT WHITMAN ARCHIVEhttp://whitmanarchive.org/

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

DATA:- XML files- HTML files- Images- Recordings

WORKFLOW: - XML files stored on

server- Images in variety

of sizes- Storage on optical

discs- Two earlier

versions of the full Archive and website preserved

ANALYSIS:- Beginning to

partner with university archives

- Basic level of data curation

- Basic steps for storage and preservation

VICTORIAN WOMEN WRITERS PROJECT

http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/vwwp/

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

DATA:- XML files of

transcribed texts, annotations and biographical summaries

- HTML files

WORKFLOW:- Submit repository

for creating, editing, versioning, and storage

- Fedora repository for storage

ANALYSIS:- Mid-tier level of

data curation- Strong system and

repository for managing e-texts

VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/ http://www.digitalcurationservices.org/sustaining-digital-scholarship/valley-of-the-shadow/

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

DATA:- XML files- HTML files- Images

PROCESS:- Assessment and

inventory- Reformatted and

upgraded XML and HTML files

- Rescanned images- Migrated files

ANALYSIS:- High level of data

curation- Extensive and

well-supported process for digital curation of the archive

Needs Analysis

Resources

Personnel

Training

Principles for Best Practices

Sustaining Digital Scholarship report• Significant properties: “Those elements

that are intrinsic to the project's identity and purpose. They include those parts of the project that contain the project's scholarship.”

• Curation Levels 1-5: Metadata preservation of the entire project

Data Curation ProfilesDCC Curation Lifecyclegreen19@illinois.edu @greenharr

Areas to Pursue• Workshops and conferences (e.g.,

Humanities Data Curation Institutes)• DH Curation Guide:

http://guide.dhcuration.orgEducation

• SDS Report• Consider your library’s resource

environment

Evaluation rubric for DH

projects

• “The library needs to think of digital curation as a core function of the library and to invest financial and other resources into it accordingly.”—Walters and Skinner, New Roles for New Times

Long term planning for

data curation

Data Curation for Research

Research collaborations

Scholars

Librarians

green19@illinois.edu @greenharr

“Much work remains to build the scholarly infrastructure necessary for digital scholarship to become mainstream in the humanities. . . . Librarians, archivists, programmers, and computer scientists will be essential collaborators, each bringing complementary skills.” —Christine Borgman, “The Digital Future is Now: A Call to Action for the Humanities”

Thank you!Harriett Green

English and Digital Humanities LibrarianUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign

green19@illinois.eduTwitter: @greenharr

Handout: https://uofi.box.com/dlf2013papergreen