The Rare Books & Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Preconference (San Diego, California: June 19022, 2012) will explore a multiplicity of futures for the rare book, manuscript, and special collections community. How are special collections materials being discovered and used today? How will they be discovered and used tomorrow? Who will our users be, and what will they need? What forms will special collections materials take? Join us to learn, discuss, share, and contemplate. Now is the time to shape and prepare, because the future is now.

Projects looking for collaborators and collaborators looking for projects, come mix and mingle in this informal project poster session that offers a face-to-face DHCommons experience. The mixer will take place at the MLA Annual Convention, Thursday, January 5, 2012, 1-4 pm in Convention Center, rooms 3A & 3B. Representatives from projects looking for collaborators or just wanting to get the word out will share information and materials about their projects. This forum will also offer great opportunities for one-on-one conversations about pursuing projects in the digital humanities. If you would like to share your project, please sign up here, but otherwise there is no need to register.

Short paper abstracts are sought for a panel called “Faulkner and the Digital Humanities” to be proposed to the 39th Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, which will take place in Oxford, Mississippi, July 7-11, 2012. The conference title this year is “Fifty Years after Faulkner,” and its broad theme is a re-examination and re-appraisal of Faulkner’s life and work. In addition to traditional approaches, this panel seeks papers that are interdisciplinary in scope, collaborative in nature, and / or use multimedia.

These NEH grants support national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. Through these programs, NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars using digital technology in their research and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities.

Humanities computing is undergoing a redefinition of basic principles by a continuous influx of new, vibrant, and diverse communities or practitioners within and well beyond the halls of academe. These practitioners recognize the value computers add to their work, that the computer itself remains an instrument subject to continual innovation, and that competition within many disciplines requires scholars to become and remain current with what computers can do. Topics in the Digital Humanities invites manuscripts that will advance and deepen knowledge and activity in this new and innovative field.