AMCV220: Digital Scholarship, Spring 2010

Susan Smulyan (Susan_Smulyan@brown.edu)

Room 211, 82 Waterman Street
Office hours: Tuesday, 2:30-4 and by appointment

Course meets twice a week, T/Th, 1-2:20

Discussions on Tuesdays in the Bopp Room, John Hay Library, Fourth Floor
Labs on Thursday at the CDS Digital Production Center, Rock 202 (two labs will
be held in different spaces as noted below)

OCRA password: digital

INTRODUCTION

Thursday, January 28: Introduction

Tuesday, February 2: DISCUSSION/History of Information

Alex Wright, Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2007). OCRA—PDF
Introduction, Chapters 1, 8-12; pp. 1-21; 143-238

Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1945).

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

Thursday, February 4: LAB/Making images digital

Scanning, video, images, photoshop, energetics
Lindsay Elgin, Digital Photographer, Center for Digital Scholarship

Tuesday, February 9: DISCUSSION/Where are we now?

Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital history: a guide to
gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the Web (Philadelphia :
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/

Debra DeRuyver and Jennifer Evans, “Digital Junction,” American

Quarterly 58:3 (September 2006): 943-980. OCRA – LINK
Yola: Build a Free Website: http://www.yola.com/

Thursday, February 11: LAB/Public Humanities Toolbox

Flickr, ScribD, Google Maps, Wikis, Odeo, API
Al Lees, MA in Public Humanities Student
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ANALOG CHANGES TO DIGITAL

Tuesday, February 16: DISCUSSION/Changing Scholarship

Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of
Information 1-10; 285-389; 399-404; 475-493. OCRA-- PDF
Julia Flanders, “The Productive Unease of Digital Humanities Scholarship”
Digital Humanities Quarterly 3:3 (Summer 2009)
http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/3/3/000055.html#

“Council on Library and Information Resources and The National

Endowment for the Humanities, “Working Together or Apart: Promoting the
Next Generation of Digital Scholarship” March 2009 OCRA-PDF
Asking Questions and Building a Research Agenda for Digital
Scholarship, by Amy Friedlander, 1-15
The Changing Landscape of American Studies in a Global Era,
by Caroline Levander, 27-33
Information Visualization: Challenge for the Humanities, by Maureen
Stone, 43-56

A Digital Humanities Manifesto;

http://manifesto.humanities.ucla.edu/2009/05/29/the-digital-humanities-
manifesto-20/

Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown (Review “Digital Collections”;

“Faculty and Student Projects”) http://dl.lib.brown.edu/index.html

Thursday, February 18: LAB/Omeka

Elli Mylonas, Associate Director, Center for Digital Scholarship
Andy Ashton, Senior Research Programmer Analyst, CDS

Tuesday, February 23: Vacation

Thursday, February 25: LAB/Web Publishing

HTML, Word Press, Drupal
Andy Ashton, Senior Research Programmer Analyst, CDS
Ben Tyler, Digital Initiatives Librarian, CDS

Tuesday, March 2: DISCUSSION/Changing Dissemination

John B. Thompson, Books in the Digital Age: The Transformation of
Academic and Higher Education Publishing in Britain and the United
States, 2005. OCRA – PDF
Introduction: 1-14
Part I: The Publishing Business, 15-80
Part IV: The Digital Revolution, 309-439
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Digital Humanities Now: http://www.dancohen.org/2009/11/18/introducing-

digital-humanities-now/#comments

In Media Res: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/

Media Commons: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/

Thursday, March 4: Project Consultations (Susan + Elli Mylonas + others)

Tuesday, March 9: DISCUSSION/Changing Libraries and Archives

Ken Chad and Tom Miller, “Do Libraries Matter?” Talis Applications, 2005.
OCRA -- PDF

G. Sayeed Choudhury and David Seaman, “The Virtual Library” in The

Companion to Digital Literary Studies, eds., Susan Schreibman and Ray
Siemans (Oxford: Blackwell’s, 2008).
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/

Richard Cox, "Machines in the archives: Technology and the coming

transformation of archival reference" First Monday [Online], 12: 11 (28
October 2007)
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2029/18
94

Council on Library and Information Resources, “No Brief Candle:

Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century” August 2008
(OCRA—PDF)
Part I: A Continuing Discussion on Research Libraries in the 21st
Century, 1-12
The Research Library in the 21st Century: Collecting, Preserving,
and Making Accessible Resources for Scholarship, by Abby Smith,
13-20

A New Value Equation Challenge: The Emergence of eResearch and

Roles for Research Libraries, by Richard E. Luce, 42-50

Leveraging Digital Technologies in Service to Culture and Society:

The Role of Libraries as Collaborators, by Lee L. Zia, 66-74

Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/

Thursday, March 11: LAB/Making digital audio

Location: Orwig Music Library
Ned Quist, Music Librarian
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Tuesday, March 16: Project Presentations I

Thursday, March 18: LAB/Object Modeling I:

Information Structures for text
Julia Flanders, Associate Director, CDS (Director, Women Writers Project)

Tuesday, March 23: DISCUSSION/Changing Universities/Changing Teaching

Randy Bass and Bret Enyon, editors, “New Media Technologies and the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,” Academic Commons (January
2009)
http://www.academiccommons.org/issue/january-2009
“A Brief Introduction to this Issue of Academic Commons”
“Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible Learning”
AND one other essay of your choice from this issue

Mark Sample, “The Open Source Professor”

http://www.samplereality.com/2009/11/08/the-open-source-professor-
screencast/

“Grading 2.0:Evaluation in the Digital Age” HASTAC, Humanities, Arts,

Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, 15 November 2009
http://www.hastac.org/forums/hastac-scholars-discussions/grading-20-
evaluation-digital-age

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration:

http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/

American Council of Learned Societies Commission on

Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Our Cultural
Commonwealth (New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 2006)
OCRA – PDF
Thursday, March 25: LAB/Object Modeling II:
Information Structures for metadata/objects descriptions
Catherine Busselen, Metadata Librarian, CDS
Ann Caldwell, Associate Director, CDS

Tuesday, April 6: DISCUSSION/Changing Museums

Paul Arthur, “Exhibiting History: The Digital Future,” recollections: The
Journal of the National Museum of Australia 3:1 (March 2008)
http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_3_no_1/papers/exhibiting_histor
y/

B. Wyman, et al., “Steve.museum: An Ongoing Experiment in Social

Tagging, Folksonomy, and Museums,” in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.).
Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum
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Informatics, published March 1, 2006 at

http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/wyman/wyman.html

Nina Simon, “Discourse in the Blogosphere: What Museums Can Learn

from Web 2.0” Museums & Social Issues, 2:2 (Fall 2007). OCRA--PDF

Read some of the posts at Nina Simon’s blog, “Museum 2.0,” and her wiki,
“Museum 2.0 Living Archive” including:
“What is Museum 2.0?”
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-is-museum-20.html

“A Simple Argument Why Museums and Cultural Institutions should

care about Social Media,” 13 April 2009,
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2009/04/simple-argument-for-why-
museums-and.html

“What are other museums doing with 2.0?”

http://museumtwo.wik.is/How_Do_I.../What_are_other_museums_d
oing_with_Web_2.0%3f

N. Simon, “Going Analog: Translating Virtual Learnings into Real

Institutional Change,” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the
Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics.
Published March 31, 2009. Consulted January 6, 2010.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/simon/simon.html

Museums and the Web 2009: The International Conference for Culture
and Heritage On-line, “Best of the Web 2009” – do some surfing
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/best/categories.html#exhibition

Museum in A Day: http://museuminaday.com/about/

Wikipedia Loves Art:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Loves_Art

Thursday, April 8: LAB/Spatiality:

GIS (and maybe something on geo-coding, Google Maps, KML)
Location: Rockefeller Library, Hecker Center
Tom Stieve, Scholarly Resources Librarian, Social Science Data

BORN DIGITAL

Tuesday, April 13: DISCUSSION/Social Networking/ Crowd Sourcing

Clay Shirkey, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without
Organizations (New York: Penguin Press, 2008). OCR—PDF
Chapters 1-5, 8, 11; pp. 1-142, 188-211, 260-292.
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P. Bray, “Open Licensing and the Future for Collections” In J. Trant and D.
Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto:
Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2009. Consulted
January 6, 2010.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/bray/bray.html

“For the Common Good: The Library of Congress Flickr Pilot Project,” 30
October 2008. OCRA-PDF

Flickr Commons:
http://www.flickr.com/commons?GXHC_gx_session_id_=6afecb2055a3c5
2c

Thursday, April 15: LAB/Mash-ups

Many Eyes
Andy Ashton, Senior Research Programmer Analyst, CDS

Tuesday, April 20: DISCUSSION/Web 2.0/Open Source

John Willinsky, The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to
Research and Scholarship (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2005) Either OCRA-
PDF or
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10611
Preface, Intro, and Chapter 1

Roy Rosenzweig, “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the

Future of the Past,” The Journal of American History 93:1 (June 2006):
117-46 (reprinted at CHNM) http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-
media/essays/?essayid=42

Stacy Shiff, “Know It All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise?” The New
Yorker (31 July 2006).
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact

Dan Cohen, “The Wikipedia Story that’s Being Missed,” Dan’s Digital
Humanities Blog, 19 December 2007
http://www.dancohen.org/2005/12/20/the-wikipedia-story-thats-being-
missed/

Dan Cohen,
“The Spider and the Web: A Crowdsourcing Experiment”
http://www.dancohen.org/2009/04/16/the-spider-and-the-web-a-
crowdsourcing-experiment/
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“The Spider and the Web: What Is This?”

http://www.dancohen.org/2009/04/16/the-spider-and-the-web-what-
is-this/

“The Spider and the Web: Results”

http://www.dancohen.org/2009/04/29/the-spider-and-the-web-
results/

Dan Cohen, “Is Google Good For History?” 7 January 2010

http://www.dancohen.org/

Paul Duguid, Inheritance and Loss? A Brief Survey of Google Books,”

First Monday, 6 August 2007.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1972/
1847

Kalev Leetaru, “Mass Book Digitization: The Deeper Story of Google

Books and the Open Content Alliance,” First Monday, 6 October 2008
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2101/
2037

Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Thursday, April 22: FIELD TRIP AS220 Fab Lab (Shawn Wallace)

Tuesday, April 27:

Thursday, April 29: Project Presentations II

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STUDENT WORK

1. DISCUSSION WEBSITES
Provide and demonstrating several websites that illustrate one week’s readings.
Look at the websites listed for each week first. Do the readings and then find
other websites to call to our attention. Send the websites to all students at least
two days before the discussion. Be prepared to talk BRIEFLY about why you
chose these websites in class. Information on how the websites were funded;
who sponsored them; how the projects worked would also be appreciated.

2. LAB ASSIGNMENTS
Some lab instructors will make assignments to be done outside of class, to
reinforce what you’ve learned. Each will take no more than an hour. We’ll post
the results to the class wiki or website along with questions you’ve encountered
and get the lab instructors to respond.

3. GLOSSARY WIKI
Let’s see what a wiki can do. Each student will take a word (claimed on 2/2) and
write a definition of it on our course wiki (details on where to find this to follow).
As the semester goes along, each student will be responsible for rewriting or
commenting on AT LEAST two definitions. Can we crowdsource our
understanding of course concepts?

4. PROJECTS
Present preliminary proposal to the class on Tuesday, March 9
Present final project to class + invited guests on Thursday, April 29
Final project due, Friday, May 14
Projects may be done collaboratively, with other students in the class, or to follow
up on other courses or practicums. Of the following, choose one possibility:
A. Build an Omeka site with at least 10 documents

B. Do an equivalent amount of work on a continuing site

See the list of CDS sites, http://dl.lib.brown.edu/index.html
Susan’s sites: Perry Visits Japan; Brown Student Radio
Pembroke Oral Histories
Asian American family photo albums (RGLee)

C. Write a grant proposal to the NEH or equivalent for real of

imagined project (one real project – Beth Belanger at Stonehill
College needs help with an NEH grant for a digital course)

D. Propose a different project (probably includes finding someone

to help with it; explaining what you need to learn and who will teach
you in the project proposal)
We’ll do a lot of talking/consulting about these projects and will help you
organize your thoughts on what is possible in one semester.