DHNow

Author: Colleen Nugent

News, Resources

Resource: Ushahidi: Free Software for Data Collection, Visualization & Mapping

ushahidi.com is a non-profit tech company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Ushahidi aims to empower organizations and people all over the world to increase public awareness around social events like elections, local crises or resources. It provides free and open access to tools that facilitate the aggregation, presentation and mapping of relevant datasets online.

Job Announcements, News

Job: Department Head, Digital Library Services, Georgia State University Library

The department head sets direction for the library’s technology environment and services through strategic planning, resource allocation and management, assessment, and policy development. S/he encourages creativity in digital and information technology initiatives that respond to and anticipate user needs and ensures that the library’s technology programs, services, and infrastructure are responsive to the academic needs of the Georgia State University community.

News, Resources

Resource: Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 6

Digital Scholarship has released the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version 6. It includes selected English-language articles, books, conference papers, technical reports, unpublished e-prints and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding electronic theses and dissertations. Most sources have been published from 2000 through 2011; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works.

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Citation in Digital Humanities: Is the Old Bailey Online a Film, or a Science Paper?

Recently I was writing a paper for a journal and needed to cite the Old Bailey Online (OBO). Not any particular piece of content contained in the project, but the project itself as an outstanding example of digital humanities work. For those unfamiliar with the venture, it’s a database containing 127 million words of historical trial transcripts marked up extensively with XML; still the flagship project of its kind in this author’s opinion. I found myself struggling to decide who the authors of the project were; that is, whose names was I bound by “good scholarship” to include in the citation. Who deserved public credit?

Job Announcements, News

Job: Digital Projects Manager/Processing Archivist at Boston University’s School of Theology Library

Responsible for managing and developing the digital collections and processing and maintenance of archival and special collections held by the School of Theology (STH) Library. Take the lead in the development of digitization initiatives and manage the library’s digital collections. Work with the Head Librarian to develop a comprehensive digitization plan for the STH Library. Liaise with School of Theology faculty to identify and develop digital projects relating to faculty research and teaching. Identify and select significant items from the library’s archival collections for digitization. Oversee the preparation of materials for digitization, including the creation of metadata and obtaining copyright permissions. Manage student and/or paraprofessional staff involved in digitization.

News, Resources

Resource: Guide to Evagrius Ponticus

The inaugural edition of the Guide to Evagrius Ponticus, a digital-only, peer-reviewed reference work about the fourth-century monastic theologian, has been released. Updated quarterly, it provides definitive, integrated lists of Evagrius’s works, of editions and translations of those works, and of studies related to his life and thought. The Guide also includes a sourcebook of key ancient testimonies to Evagrius and his reception, in English translation.

Editors' Choice

Editors’ Choice: Bibliographic Framework: RDF and Linked Data

With the newly developed enthusiasm for RDF as the basis for library bibliographic data we are seeing a number of efforts to transform library data into this modern, web-friendly format. This is a positive development in many ways, but we need to be careful to make this transition cleanly without bringing along baggage from our past….

My message here is that we need to be creating data, not records, and that we need to create the data first, then build records with it for those applications where records are needed. Those records will operate internally to library systems, while the data has the potential to make connections in linked data space.