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What are some challenges to doing DH in the library?
You may be familiar with the scenario: the faculty member groaning (often justifiably) that it’s taken so long to get one simple project off the ground that she’s given up on trying to work with librarians. Or the administrator who wonders why librarians aren’t trying harder to learn new skills. Having actually done some digital humanities in…
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Research tools redux: What I use
I posted recently about tools for managing a research workflow, and one of the points I made is that no set of tools will be right for everyone. I’ve tried and failed to foist my favorite tools on enough people to know that this is true. Still, after I wrote the post, a few people asked…
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Anatomy on film: the imaginary archive
A lot of my research is on medical filmmaking: films that physicians and other medical professionals made for each other. It turns out that there are a lot of these. Doctors have been making movies since the invention of the medium. I’m fascinated by a strain of thought that recurs frequently in discussions of anatomical…
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Opposite sides of the cafetorium: notes from a THATCamp Southeast session on librarian-scholar collaboration
I attended a session at THATCamp Southeast (which Shawn Averkamp proposed) on ways to promote collaboration between librarians and scholars (a subject close to my heart). We took notes together using a collaborative Google doc, and here’s my attempt to summarize. “We get paid to be interrupted!” The academics in the room started out by…
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Google Book Search update: the Internet Archive seeks to intervene
The Internet Archive (which administers the Open Content Alliance) has sought leave to file a motion to intervene in the Google Books settlement. (Announcement, text of motion.)
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The deal with the Google Book Search settlement
Google Book Search has been in the news lately for a settlement it made with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over Google’s plan to scan books. You may have heard that people are pretty worked up about the settlement. It matters for academics because the settlement will in large part dictate…
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I do not understand the point of curated databases
Lately I’ve been volunteering to do usability testing for Yale’s library. Well, “volunteering” is probably too generous a word, since Yale pays pretty well, in the form of iTunes and Barnes & Noble gift cards. I like the gift cards, but I love the excuse to rant about what I do and don’t like about…
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Blogging the Beinecke
Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities is a blog featuring amazing finds from Yale’s phenomenal Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. I like the lesbian pulp novels, the Revolutionary War-era lottery tickets, and the WPA textbooks from the 1940s. The blog is maintained by Tim Young (curator of the Modern Books and Manuscripts collection) and Nancy…
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Libraries I like: Brown’s Friedman Study Center
I liked Yale’s Mudd Library for its endearing obsolescence, but for the Study Space of the Future, you can’t beat the Friedman Study Center in Brown University’s Science Library. The Friedman Study Center, which opened in 2007, is a 24-hour study space designed by the Architecture Research Office. It’s in the basement of Brown’s Science…
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R.I.P., Mudd Library
Who could love a library named Mudd? Especially when the library in question looks like a bunker, has terrible lighting, and offers no good places to sit? Well, I do (or did), and I’ll tell you why.