November 2010
13 posts
Open Access Week 2010 talk available
The full audio of Mason’s October 20, 2010 Open Access Week panel discussion is now available via our library’s institutional repository. Cliff Lynch of CNI kicks it off at about 4:55. My talk starts at about 31:30 with a shout out to Paul Fyfe’s Open Access Week talk from the day before.
JSTOR Mobile
In case you missed it, JSTOR has released a mobile site. It will be hard to view full page images on the small screen, but the handy “email reference” and “save reference” buttons should make it useful for work in archives and on the go (via ResourceShelf).
Facebook to integrate MS Office Web Apps
The big buzz today is about Facebook’s new messaging service, but what could matter more to teaching, learning, research, and campus life in general is the announcement that documents, spreadsheets, and presentations created in Microsoft Office Web Apps can now be shared and viewed directly within Facebook. Many campuses are considering or have already chosen to sign on to Google Apps....
@kfitz and @amandafrench at Bryn Mawr
Friend of CHNM, Kathleen Fitzpatrick and our very own Amanda French will be at Bryn Mawr this Thursday, November 11, 2010 to anchor the National Undergrad Symposium on Digital Humanities. The symposium aims to explore the ways in which “digital publishing can create new openings for undergraduates to enter significant academic conversations.”
Masters Degree in Digital Humanities at UCL
University College, London is offering a new MA/MSc in Digital Humanities. As there are very few degree programs in digital humanities, this is an experiment to watch. According the organizers, the program “will allow students who have a background in the humanities to acquire necessary skills in digital technologies, and will also make it possible for those with a technical background to...
Tenleytown Heritage Trail
I was very happy to return home this week to find nearly twenty new illustrated narrative historical markers in my neighborhood. The Tenleytown Heritage Trail provides a self-guided tour of the “top of the town,” Washington DC’s highest neighborhood. Beginning at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Street near the Tenleytown-AU Metro stop, the trail chronicles...
Jason Scott at MITH
I am extremely bummed I won’t be in town for this. Next week our friends at the Maryland Institute for Technology and the Humanities (MITH) are hosting a two day visit by Jason Scott, computer historian and documentary filmmaker. On Monday November 8th, Scott will introduce a screening of his latest film, and on Tuesday November 9th, Scott will deliver a talk as part of MITH’s Digital...
Geoffrey Rockwell on Method and Theory
In this post about a recent spate of “cluster hires” in digital humanities at places like the University of Iowa and Georgia State University, Geoff Rockwell notes: “The digital humanities, in part because of the need for practicioners with extensive skills, tend to look undertheorized, and it is. It is undertheorized the way any craft field that developed to share knowledge that...
@alexismadrigal unpacks the Google Books search...
Writing for the Atlantic Monthly, Alexis Madrigal provides insights into how Google indexes book data and uses (or misuses) library metadata.
@sramsay goes on record
Steve Ramsay argues against anonymity online, asking faculty “to consider whether it’s appropriate for someone who is paid to be a teacher and an intellectual to behave like an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot” and reminding us that we “are not political dissident[s] fearing reprisals from a hostile government.” Something good to keep in mind whenever we start to take...
What's a bigger deal than a $300 smartphone? A...
T-Mobile is offering the LG Optimus T, a more or less full featured Android device for free with a two year contract. This could really change things, not only for Android, but for those of us building mobile websites and apps for teaching, research, and cultural heritage. For just the price of a monthly contract ($79 for 500 talk minutes and unlimited SMS and Internet), we’ll soon see smartphones...
Tomboy Notes
It’s the little things that make good software. One of the best little things about Linux/Gnome/Ubuntu is Tomboy, a simple little note-taking package that just plain works. I’m only running Linux about half-time these days—alas, I’ve been forced back to dual-booting Windows for MS Office, easy projector support, etc.—but I’m still running Tomboy full time and syncing across...
Failing Quickly at Google
James Fallows’s much discussed Atlantic Monthly article on Google and the future of journalism contains this little gem from Josh Cohen of Google News: “We believe that teams must be nimble and able to fail quickly.” Something for managers of teams working in digital humanities and cultural heritage to remember.