I am so, so lucky and happy. I found out this morning that I have been awarded a Mellon THATcamp fellowship to help toward my attendance at the Bootcamp part of THATCampCanberra at the end of the week. Thank you to the folk at the  Center for History and New Media at George Mason University who administer the Fellowship (and gave the world Zotero, too).

I have put up a couple of proposals for sessions that I am happy to facilitate during the unconference. It is really me saying “this is what I want to learn from you clever folk, please share”, so if I end up going to other sessions, that is just fine. If you read this blog and will not be at THATcamp, but would like to throw some ideas in the mix, feel free to do so in the comments and I will bring them up if the session runs.

Session suggestion 1: Skills to practice and support the Digital Humanities

FORMAT: Facilitated talkfest producing agreed list of specific skills

This may be better as two topics, but many of the skills will be the same.

PART ONE – Improving technological literacy for humanities researchers

What specific skills do humanities researchers need to be sufficiently technologically literate to take advantage of possibilities offered by the digital humanities?

Whose responsibility is it to help them gain these skills?

What model would work to help support researchers to gain these skills? Is there a role for research institutions to provide:

• digital tools sandboxes for researchers
• facilities like the Scholars Lab at UVa
• tech skills clinics in the same model as writing clinics
• support for digital humanities champions and mentors

PART TWO – Preparing professionals to support digital humanities

Information Studies courses at universities claim to be producing graduates who are specialists in metadata, database design, taxonomies and information design. They claim that graduates will be experts in collecting, organising and retrieving digital and physical information.

What specific skills should be taught in Information Studies courses so that graduates can support the digital humanities?

How can libraries and librarians provide better support for digital humanities?

Have librarians and Information Studies departments missed to boat at becoming useful in this arena, or is there still a chance to be usefully involved? If so, what do we need to do?

Session suggestion 2: Sharing the shoeboxes under the bed

The phrase “shoeboxes under the bed” is borrowed from Jo Ransom, the driving force behind Kete Horwhenua and one of my top role models about what it means to be a librarian with both heart and deadly tech skills.

SESSION FORMAT: Facilitated talkfest

This is a tentative exploration of ideas, so if anyone specialises in this, please jump in.

Official government information, historical records and newspaper articles tell part of the story of a community. The digital humanities community is working well to collect and expose this data.

Many communities have “shoeboxes under the bed” containing personal information like family photographs, recipes, memorabilia and artworks. People can be filmed or recorded telling their personal stories. Amateur historians, hobby genealogists, community arts projects, library local history collections, ABC Open are all involved in trying to capture these stories.

“Build it and they will come” models for harvesting this type of data have not proved effective. The internet is littered with beautiful looking sites with great architecture that have no data beyond the initial seeding data that was collected before grant money ran out.

Kete Horowhenua is an example of a successful site collecting many different digital formats and community metadata, harvesting the shoeboxes under the bed.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

What is the best way to create a project to harvest these stories that has community ownership ?

Is there value in creating a model or guidelines to create an easy-to-implement platform for communities that want to harvest their shoeboxes? What features need to be included beside:

• rights management
• remix
• best metadata schema
• conversion to standardised file formats
• exposure to search engines

In a quest to be sparked into ecstatic action toward choosing a PhD topic, I am travelling interstate next week to mix with people who know much more than me about digital culture and about massaging large datasets for cultural good.

Digital Cultural Sphere event

First stop, 6 October is in Sydney to be part of the government consultation on the National Cultural Policy discussion paper. Senator Kate Lundy and Minister Simon Crean are meeting with members of the traditional core arts sectors, creative industries and the cultural sector such as libraries archives and museums. How did I get to be part of it? I just registered at Eventbrite and received support from my workplace to attend. I am not going as an expert, but I am going as a someone who wants to learn as much as I can from the other participants and contribute my point of view if it is useful. Particularly interesting to me are parts of the report that emphasise using new technologies, inclusiveness and telling stories of people in Australia. The event will be livestreamed via video. If you want to contribute feedback or learn more about the discussions taking place around the policy – and I would suggest that this is an important thing for librarians to do – there are many social media avenues available right now and up to the 21 October .

THATCamp Canberra

THATCamp Canberra is a three day unconference for The Humanities And Technology, taking place at the University of Canberra 7-10 October . I have been meaning to blog about it for the last few weeks to encourage as many library types of folk as possible to join in. I know that there are quite a few library folk listed on the page of profiles of the campers, but I would love to see more who would like to work with me on a project to get hands dirty and build a library-y digital data-ish SOMETHING during the weekend.

I will be happy if all I do is learn from the datawonks and codingmavens who care about smooshing cultural data to tell stories. I will be especially happy to attend the Friday bootcamp sessions. Who wouldn’t want to learn about coding and mashing with Paul Hagon or work through an imaginary research project to learn more about Google Refine ?

 I want to fall in love – with a potential research topic

My aim from the week – rather lofty – is to find a PhD topic that I think I can work on for six years part-time and will be happy to have people perceive me to be “expert” in. I know some of the things I am seeking in a topic. I want:

• to make or do or build something new like a tool or crunch a whole lot of data
• NOT to ask a whole bunch of people about their opinions or synthesize and reinterpret only previous research
• something that does not feel like naval gazing
• something that I think will do some good in the world-  like be useful for people in developing countries or provide a foundation or model that will help other people to be useful
• something where the time span – six years – works to my advantage, which suggests some kind of longitudinal study
• something where I get to play with really cool technology that does not become out of date or redundant over the life of the project
• something that forces me to learn some rudimentary coding and love it
• something that somehow fits in with my interests in data remix and preserving community stories and people working together outside traditional organisational structures and acknowledging all voices and letting them be heard and community ownership and community contribution and creativity and fun and …

What is my “so what?” from the weekend of library conferences in Perth?.

For me it was all about energy. Transfer of energy, feeling supportive energy and observing what happens when a group of whirlwinds meet.

It was about having an opportunity to stand in front of a crowd of bright, open new professionals and transfer some of the gifts that I had received from the bosses that I won in my boss lottery. It was about trying to make them feel more able to forgive when they misinterpret what is happening, or when they are being misinterpreted.

It was watching my home viewed through Kim’s eyes as she travelled to places familiar to me, and with her camera made me look again at what I had assumed was ordinary. It was seeing Matthias and Ghylene flitting around groups of engaged and involved people – people thinking, laughing, talking and doing – and then using their cameras to capture that involvement to share with the rest of us. Involvement like Fiona, dressed as a pirate and telling us to fuck Google, doing an interpretive dance to Molly’s words during the powerpoint karaoke.

gigglesigh. (2011). IMG_8361. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/52594745@N03/6162293305/

It was seeing the oversized rainbow buttons that Suzie had printed appearing on lanyards around the conference room in support of the GBLTQ community. It was seeing many nervous presenters sit in the audience with a slight rabbit-in-the-headlights look , then sweep up on to the stage and own the space and communicate their enthusiasm for what they do each day.

It was skipping out from a session to nip to the loo  – and only returning an hour or so later because I had a spontaneous unconference session with Garry under huge windows that were bowing and flexing as the storm outside ruffled curtains somehow, even though the windows were not the type that could open. It was knowing that it was fine to leave my tech gear and bag on my seat because someone kind – Theresa as it turned out – would look out for me and let me know where they were.

It was seeing how two of the people I mentor have grown and developed and are really stepping up professionally. It was one of them seeing where she was a couple of years ago in the behaviour of others, understanding how she has moved closer to where she wants to be, and clicking to understand what I have been saying all along – it is about co-mentoring.

It was taking some down time with Kate for a couple of hours in the speakers’ room as she prepared for her keynote, because we both needed some time without so many swirling words and people. It was feeling the calm comfort of Teresa and Jo when we went to dinner at the sushi train and really understood why it was great to just sit and have quiet adult conversation. It was spending a quiet day before the conference with snail across my kitchen table, studiously avoiding looking at the powerpoint karaoke and feeling not at all comforted by Sue’s confirmation that the slide sets were, in fact – “mean”.

It was hearing from David that someone had told him that he was so glad that he was a dynamic speaker – because during the conference he had seemed so calm, relaxed and laid back that they were concerned that he may be subdued on stage. It was the fabulous five minute interlude during the last session of the unconference where people who have suffered name-butchering from the rest of us let us all know EXACTLY how their names were pronounced.

It was me really testing the waters of “no” to try to push people a little further than they thought they could go. Several times when someone wanted me to step up, or lead or take charge I deliberately said “no, you can do that”. It was a conversation that went something like “why aren’t you leading more sessions, we need you there, you know so much”, with me answering “you know stuff too and you can do it just fine”… and really meaning it. It was seeing how senior and wise Mal and Con are considered by their colleagues and the delightful mix of amusement and stepping up to the mark that they both show in the role.

It was seeing my imaginary online friends in pyjamas, behind cocktails, with headcolds, strutting their professional stuff, on trains, exclaiming over the beauty of the Grove Library, laughing together and reminding each other intensely why it is that we all cluster and flow together each day whether we are in the same space or not.

gigglesigh. (2011). IMG_8301. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/52594745@N03/6162216297/

I am attending Library Camp Australia on Monday 19 September. As a notetaking archive I am setting up a CoverItLive feed of my @libsmatter tweets each day. I am also adding in all tweets using the #libcampoz hashtag and all tweets from the @libcampoz Twitter account (with their permission).

I will activate each window on the morning of the day and hope to remember to close it at night. Press on the grey “play” button to see what is about to happen/is happening/has happened .

You may find it useful too 🙂