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Mind the gap! ...posing problems to unify research with digital research

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James Baker
James Baker

際際滷s from a talk I gave at 'Data Driven: Digital Humanities in the Library', College of Charleston, 21 June 2014. Notes: https://gist.github.com/drjwbaker/eba50cd2f2e07e3a9ba5

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Mind the gap! posing problems to unify research with digital research Dr James Baker Curator, Digital Research @j_w_baker
www.bl.uk 2
www.bl.uk 3 Early users of medieval books of hours and prayer books left signs of their reading in the form of fingerprints in the margins. The darkness of their fingerprints correlates to the intensity of their use and handling. A densitometer -- a machine that measures the darkness of a reflecting surface -- can reveal which texts a reader favored. Kathryn M. Rudy, Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer, Journal of Historians of Nederlandish Art (2010)
www.bl.uk 4 Virtual St Pauls Cross Project Notes from talk at Institute of Historical Research, 18 February 2014.
www.bl.uk 5 It should not be assumed that, because DH emphasizes practice and making use of computers, it's therefore naively instrumental or positivist in its assumptions, or that its hands-on doing necessarily precludes theory. Only an impoverished view of theory as pure verbal and written discourse, separate from practice, would produce such an assumption Steven E Jones, Emergence of the Digital Humanities (2014), 179.
www.bl.uk 6 Statistics may serve to reveal or clarify a particular tendency; but how we interpret that tendency - the significance we attach to it and the causes we adduce for it - is a matter for seasoned historical judgement, in which the historian trained exclusively in quantitative methods would be woefully deficient John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (1984; first edition), 197.
www.bl.uk 7 Economic history (like some other fields) is a fundamental part of the discipline, of which every student ought to have some understanding [] Faced with the choice between courses on the history of sport or the history of animals and those on economic, political, social or intellectual history, I would hope students would be able to see that the latter are likely to be of more general use than the former Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (2000; first edition), 202.
www.bl.uk 8
www.bl.uk 9
www.bl.uk 10
www.bl.uk 11
www.bl.uk 12 Michael Hancher: blog, exercise
www.bl.uk 13
www.bl.uk 14 Thank you! @j_w_baker james.baker@bl.uk http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/ 際際滷s: slideshare.net/drjwbaker http://slidesha.re/T3Dp6i Notes: gist.github.com/drjwbaker http://bit.ly/1i4UacS

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Mind the gap! ...posing problems to unify research with digital research

  • 1. Mind the gap! posing problems to unify research with digital research Dr James Baker Curator, Digital Research @j_w_baker
  • 3. www.bl.uk 3 Early users of medieval books of hours and prayer books left signs of their reading in the form of fingerprints in the margins. The darkness of their fingerprints correlates to the intensity of their use and handling. A densitometer -- a machine that measures the darkness of a reflecting surface -- can reveal which texts a reader favored. Kathryn M. Rudy, Dirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts Using a Densitometer, Journal of Historians of Nederlandish Art (2010)
  • 4. www.bl.uk 4 Virtual St Pauls Cross Project Notes from talk at Institute of Historical Research, 18 February 2014.
  • 5. www.bl.uk 5 It should not be assumed that, because DH emphasizes practice and making use of computers, it's therefore naively instrumental or positivist in its assumptions, or that its hands-on doing necessarily precludes theory. Only an impoverished view of theory as pure verbal and written discourse, separate from practice, would produce such an assumption Steven E Jones, Emergence of the Digital Humanities (2014), 179.
  • 6. www.bl.uk 6 Statistics may serve to reveal or clarify a particular tendency; but how we interpret that tendency - the significance we attach to it and the causes we adduce for it - is a matter for seasoned historical judgement, in which the historian trained exclusively in quantitative methods would be woefully deficient John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (1984; first edition), 197.
  • 7. www.bl.uk 7 Economic history (like some other fields) is a fundamental part of the discipline, of which every student ought to have some understanding [] Faced with the choice between courses on the history of sport or the history of animals and those on economic, political, social or intellectual history, I would hope students would be able to see that the latter are likely to be of more general use than the former Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (2000; first edition), 202.
  • 14. www.bl.uk 14 Thank you! @j_w_baker james.baker@bl.uk http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/ 際際滷s: slideshare.net/drjwbaker http://slidesha.re/T3Dp6i Notes: gist.github.com/drjwbaker http://bit.ly/1i4UacS