Abstract:
“Meeting at the Crossroads: Intersections between Special Collections and Digital Humanities”: This paper explores how special collections can actively promote and participate in the digital humanities. The University of Victoria (UVic), a leader in digital humanities, is home to the Electronic Textual Cultures Laboratory. Special Collections and University Archives is well situated to both reflect and support the work of digital humanists. Approaches range from building collections that respond to requirements of digital scholars to providing support for the long-term preservation of dynamic media produced as scholarly outputs. New collecting areas will provide an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration between the library and the academic community on campus. How can the library, for example, participate in training future digital humanists? This paper investigates how libraries can engage in digital scholarship in meaningful ways and as key partners.; “LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections: A New Model of Institutional Collaboration at the University of Texas”: This presentation will highlight the partnership between the two established anchors of Latin American research and scholarship at the University of Texas, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection and the Institute of Latin American Studies (now the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies) as an innovative model for integrating special collections and related digital initiatives directly into the scholarly enterprise of a major center for humanities, social sciences, and area studies.; “The Impact of Saying Yes: The James Ford Bell Library as Liberal Arts Laboratory”: The James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, has developed into a laboratory for the Humanities. The library is a partner in a new Mellon-funded Consortium for the Study of the Pre-modern World at the U of M, together with two College of Liberal Arts centers, with the aim to re-imagine graduate education on campus. The Bell Library has become the locus for a weekly seminar, the project site for a digital pre-modern workshop, and will soon become the project site for a digital humanities project, “Global Minnesota.” This paper will share participants’ experiences, offer some insights, and raise some questions for other special collections staff to consider when thinking about integrating their collections into the flow of liberal arts education more directly.
Description:
Moderator: Jane Gillis, Yale University; “Meeting at the Crossroads: Intersections between Special Collections and Digital Humanities,” Heather Dean, University of Victoria; “LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections: A New Model of Institutional Collaboration at the University of Texas,” Julianne Gilland, University of Texas-Austin; “The Impact of Saying Yes: The James Ford Bell Library as Liberal Arts Laboratory,” Marguerite Ragnow, University of Minnesota