Centre for Digital Humanities & British Library Visit

The Centre for Digital Humanities

Today's morning session included presentations by members of UCL's Centre of Digital Humanities

"Digitization and the Humanities"
Dr. Claire Warwick, Director,UCL Centre of Digital Humanities.

According to Dr. Warwick, digital humanities is the "application of digital technology or computational research to research in that arts and humanities."

Its impact includes:

• Greater access to rare and precious  materials
• New ways to read and consume media
• Greater democratization and access 
• The need to understand  what people want from digital spaces

There are "differences between the digital and the physical that are not yet understood." Dr. Warwick cited a recent online only exhibit by the British Museum - "A History of the World in 100 Objects" to illustrate this point. Does looking at one of these objects digitally replace the experience of physically visiting it? Is it actually a superior experience, as one can often view digital objects at close high-resolution and move it a full 360°, as opposed to the common museum experience of viewing objects at varying distances, often behind glass. While an online exhibit does not replace physical visiting, it actually does increase visitation to the physical museum through its promotional aspect.

How does viewing a digital object , such as the Rosetta Stone, differ from physically visiting it? Is one method of "viewing" superior to the other?

Digital environments, such as digital newspapers and Google Books, have also created "new ways to read" and an overabundance of reading options. Much of the Centre's research, such as the INKE Project examines this new way of reading. Questions raised include: How can we read so many books?; What will be the impact of e-readers?; Will we still read print?; What are the real contexts of reading now?

The Centre is also studying ways and levels of engagement by the public in web 2.0 environments and how this can be utilized. One initiative is the Transcribe Jeremy Benthamproject, where the public is invited to assist in transcribing digital scans from UCL's vast collection of the philosopher's letters and other documents. 


"How Do You Read"  
Dr. Kathryn Piquette, Research Associate, UCL Centre of Digital Humanities.

Dr.Piquette's talk involved research on reading currently being conducted at UCL. Surprisingly, there is limited knowledge on how adults read beyond learning how to read. There is also limited knowledge on how reading in new media environments differs from traditional reading. So, what does "reading" mean?

Readers actively "construct" the meanings of text. Aspects include materiality (tools (i.e. reading glasses); materials (i.e. books); and technique (i.e. close reading vs. scanning). Dr. Piquette offered a quote about reading, as a "dynamic activity that unfolds in time [and in space] with different types of processes occurring at different moments." (R. Anderson, 1993)

Reading research  is based on the following theories and methods:

• Phenomenological approach - based material properties, sensory perception, and environment
• Practice Theory - the "practice" of reading as both a solitary and community act
• Ethnomethodology - direct observation of readers for "use-in-context." often accomplished with diaries and follow-up interviews

British Library Visit

The visit included a tour of the Library and the following lectures:

Cooke, Curator - Social Science Collections and Research presented on the Library's  UK Web Archive, an hourly archive of significant British websites. Cooke cited the example of the Gulf oil spill to demonstrate why an hour-by-hour snapshot of websites is valuable. Future historians will now have the resource of examining how BP reacted to the crisis on an hourly basis. This could prove especially useful in examining scandals such as the recently revealed fact that BP was using (now removed) doctored images on the site.

Cooke also spoke about the Datasets Programme, explaining that datasets are "essential components of the scholarly record" and the Library's database of digitized historic newspapers. 

Dr. Sarah Evans, Social Sciences Curator, spoke about the Library's searchable sound archive of oral histories, which will eventually include it's current project Sisterhood and After, a collection of sound recordings of women integral to Britain's womens liberation movement.  Also demonstrated was the digital gallery of the Library's map collection - including the online exhibit, London: A Life in Maps. She also discussed the sound archive's massive Sounds Familiar project, to map examples of all the different accents and dialects in the UK.