The project is meant to address two faculty critiques of open-source texts: they are hard to locate and they are of indeterminate quality. By building up a peer-reviewed collection of textbooks, available to instructors anywhere, Minnesota officials hope to provide some of the same quality control that historically has come from publishers of traditional textbooks.

There is no Frigate like a book
To take us lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of Prancing Poetry
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a human Soul.

–Emily Dickinson, www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19730

Alexandria is a port, the busiest seaport in Egypt. Of course it is: where else could the most famous library of antiquity have been built but in a city with a busy port? That’s almost a contradiction in terms, that phrase “busy port” — the safest, most sheltered waters are those that must inevitably be roiled by everyone’s embarkings and disembarkings. Such places earn the hubbub of a hub precisely through their initial state of calm repose.

And if books and pages are ships and horses in Emily Dickinson’s formulation, then libraries too are busy seaports and coaching inns and highways “without oppress of toll.” Libraries and archives and museums, like ports, including airports, are still and primarily places we come to to get somewhere else, to be transported. And this is as true or even more true of digital libraries as it is of physical libraries: on the web, many sites are only as powerful as their ability to get you somewhere else as quickly as possible. Google, notably, does its utmost to get you off Google.com as fas as it can: Google accrues power by giving it away.

I have argued elsewhere — or, rather, elsewhere I have released a small balloon of an idea into the atmosphere — that the DPLA should or at least could be rooted in a physical space, a building. The genesis of that idea did not, in fact, come from my deep love of libraries as places, although that is a love that goes back to my childhood. Standing in a library, for me, is as heady as standing by the ocean, and in both places I always have similar vague impulses to escape to barely imagined islands just across the horizon. But no: the first notion I ever had that a digital library could be a physical library was sparked by nothing less than learning that one exists.

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What is the role of design in modeling digital humanities? Can we imagine new forms of argument and platforms that support interpretative work? So much of the computationally driven environment of digital work has been created by design/engineers that humanistic values and methods have not found their place in the tools and formats that provide the platform for research, pedagogy, access, and use. The current challenge is to take advantage of the rich repositories and well-developed online resources and create innovative approaches to argument, curation, display, editing, and understanding that embody humanistic methods as well as humanities content. Designers have a major role to play in the collaborative envisioning of new formats and processes. Using some vivid examples and case studies, this talk outlines some of the opportunities for exciting work ahead.

Johanna Drucker is the inaugural Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. She is internationally known for her work in the history of graphic design, typography, experimental poetry, fine art, and digital humanities. In addition, she has a reputation as a book artist, and her limited edition works are in special collections and libraries worldwide. Her most recent titles include SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Speculative Computing (Chicago, 2009), and Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide (Pearson, 2008, 2nd edition late 2012). She is currently working on a database memoire, ALL, the online Museum of Writing in collaboration with University College London and King’s College, and a letterpress project titled Stochastic Poetics. A collaboratively written work, Digital_Humanities, with Jeffrey Schapp, Todd Presner, Peter Lunenfeld, and Anne Burdick is forthcoming from MIT Press.

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Digitisation Project Manager vacancy at Tate

Tate is currently looking to recruit a Project Manager to undertake a substantial digitisation project within its archive.

The Digital Asset Manager is directly responsible for the evaluation, selection, implementation, and management of a digital asset management system as well as the creation and management of the metadata, policies, and procedures related to digital assets. The ultimate goal of this position is to ensure that all records are able to be accessed by staff and the general public.  The Digital Assets Manager will:

• Conduct a broad inventory of digital assets stored throughout the Museum.
• Develop detailed requirements for a digital asset management system.
• Train staff on the use of the DAMS.
• Work closely with IT staff to ensure the reliability and security of the DAMS.
• Following best practices, develop policies for the digitization of the Museum’s collections in association with other divisions.
• Develop and/or adopt metadata standards for digital assets and train staff on their proper use.
• Develop policies and procedures for the ingest of digital assets into the DAMS.  Train staff accordingly and monitor compliance.
• Create policies and procedures related to the intake of born digital collections.
• Develop and implement digital preservation strategies.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualified candidate will have 3-5 years of experience managing digital asset management systems.  Preference will be given to candidates that have selected and implemented digital asset management systems and have experience crafting institutional digital preservation strategies;experience and familiarity with a wide variety of DAMS including 2 or more years of experience managing a DAMS; knowledge of current best practices related to DAM metadata, processes, and preservation strategies including 3-4 years working with DAM specific metadata; superior technical communication with staff who have a wide range of technical competence – a writing sample will be required. MLIS or equivalent.  Background in history a plus.