While not all oral historians identify themselves with the digital humanities, there is a distinct subsection of practitioners who do, and many of the remaining researchers are doing work that is relative to DH, either directly or indirectly. Because of their emphasis on making interviews more accessible to both scholars and the general public, oral historians and digital humanists have a number of intersecting priorities. The new technologies that started becoming available in the 1990s provided a lot of opportunities for presenting materials online, and after working through a range of ethical issues, oral historians took advantage of the new platforms in a wide variety of ways.

Those who conduct oral histories are also in an interesting position for DH practitioners, since while many DH scholars spend their time parsing, analyzing, and recontextualizing already existing records, oral historians are involved in the creation of primary sources as well as in the development of DH research and tools.

This proposed “talk” session would  open a conversation about the roles of oral historians in the digital humanities, what work they are doing now that is relevant, and what products or formats non-oral historians would like to see that would help them with their own work.

Session notes are here.

I’m interested in talking about classroom and class design for the future:

What should the physical space for learning include looking forward?  What are our minimum expectations?  Does the physical classroom matter any more?  [MOOCs, online and blended/hybrid classes raise complicated questions about what parts of classrooms and the things we do in them (like lecture) matter, which don’t matter, and which need to change as new virtual or physical spaces for teaching emerge.] For how long and in what ways will/should the classroom change?

I should say that I’ve been mulling this notion of classroom space for a while (see my post here for one exploration of these ideas) as I’ve been involved in two different major building/renovation projects on my campus, but this could well be something that goes beyond classrooms to something like “learning spaces of the future” that would combine the physical and intellectual space that classrooms, libraries, archives, and museums occupy now and in the years to come.

Anyone else interested in talking about learning spaces?

Jeff McClurken

This month Ithaka released this report: supporting-the-changing-research-practices-of-historians. I would be interested discussing how this report may act a springboard for winder discussions on the role of libraries and archives (henceforth just using libraries) and those who staff these institutions.

My interest comes from three different concerns. I am  the librarian responsible for most of the topics covered at NYU’s Department of History (along with a few other departments).  I am on the board of the International Association of Labour History Institutions, a group of research institutions,  predominantly European and of varying sizes, that focus on social history.  And last and closely tied to the previous two, I am working historian who has published a work in print and a significantly enhanced version digitally.

My talk proposal is related to but somewhat different than Mary-Allen Johnson’s post.  I am more interested in discussing the future role(s) of the library in historical scholarship.  Where is it collaborative and where is it supportive.

andrew