Discovery, Collaboration, and Dissemination: Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future #DHSI18
Discovery, Collaboration, and Dissemination: Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future
Digital Humanities Summer Institute
William R. Bowen
Iter: Gateway to Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Just passed 20th anniversary, looking forward to 25th. Iter Bibliography, Community, and Press. Iter's mandate is online, Iter meaning a journey or path in Latin, not-for-profit, advancement of learning in study and teaching of Middle Ages and Renaissance through the development and distribution of online resources. Created 1995, incorporated 1997 as a nonprofit partnership. Academic society partners (CSRS, ISAS, MAA, MOISA, RSA, SCSC); projects (DHSI, ETCL, INKE, IRCPS), research centers (ACMRS, CRRS), faculty of information studies (Toronto), U of Toronto Libraries. Marriage of expertise in subject area with info studies and new technologies.
Iter planning. Many planning exercises, collaboratories. Inital Steps, Following a Larger Vision: A Feature oriented Pilot Proposal (APril 2009). Distance, something shifted: bringing the communities into the porject so they could engae in the works and be visible and be visible in a way they couldnt when it was an institutional structure. Iter has metadata, services, bibliography. What sits at center of community? full text resources and ways we connect to them, but key is individuals of the community, contribute to professional output in their own projects. Imagine a 10 year plan, what would enable us more fully to see the professional interaction of the community it serves? Increase functionality. What came out was increased partnerships and shift to imagining how individual could interact in more meaningful way instead of being clients, becoming participants.
Programs: Discovery through bibliography. early statement in 2008 says Iter is creating sophisticated gateway to all relevant sources, bibliographies and databases. Hamstrung by waiting on print publication previously, often 5 year gap between print and bibliography. Notion that had to be comprehensive and timely. 1.43 million records, around 60k records a year produced, not just recent but index entire journals into past. Technical issue is where system of digital pieces don't work together well. Observations related: short term goals: list of 2500 journals working on, expect to have 1.75 million records. Longer term considerations: have been focusing on systematic incorporation of print secondary materials. What if turn to working on primary sources, is that viable? Increase attention to other formats: music recording and others. What is exciting is question of how to deal with born digital materials, huge strategic issues. Challenges: what is eligible for this bibliography? Do you include blogs? How do you assess quality of materials to incorporate? Dealing with traditoinal formats, we have a sense of acknowledged publishers, feel pretty safe we get reputable material. How to achieve that feeling when dealing with open available and outside print constraints? If approach notion of systematized collection of data, how with volume of info out there? Simpler question, maybe: what happens when area you're dealing with changes? New areas being explored, has changed in past 20 years.
Iter Bibliography: "accessible to academic community". Standard systems: metadata - MARC, LCSH, DCC, and added keywords, OpenURL and Zotero enabled. Delivery SirsiDynix with Endeca for faceted search. Lose something moving to MARC, and challenge to adapt things to what we consider formats. (Interface very much like WorldCat, robust and fairly standard interface.) Questions: not convinced we search this dat well in way systems were developed. Extent the subject classifications and headings are useful. Do we rethink in terms of RDF? What is best way to present this data? Connectivity - most of us go into Google where we find immediacy and consecutively. Search metadata and full text at same time, but would be licensing nightmare. Production models: hired research assistants under faculty and staff. If tackle available digital resources, might need something community based and deal with quantity control. Cost: assumption is that cost needs to be managed in way useful to community.
Iter Community - aspire to think through interesting issues. facilitation of scholarly communication and info sharing including media. What can we contribute, how can we enable/leverage our communities in with these materials? Community: Iter people and staff, partners, advisors, graduate research assistants (450), contributors, public. 2 initiatives to mention briefly: conference and conference panels which connect to other aspects of programming; and partnership with development awards where people will come with ideas, see to what extent can help them and think through collaborative or matching funding. Challenge is that have to be careful to articulate what can deliver and also manage process--articulate framework or environment they can provide support within.
IterCommons where people share projects. Collaborating with other organizations (ReKN; Early Modern Digital Review;
Possibilities for teh Future: Do we need another commons? Differences in communication--social media. Listserv still has robust place. How do we better integrate aspirations behind Iter community with other elements of program, like crowdsourcing or public interactions with materials, adding value to what has been collected?
Iter Press: broad mandate to publish/co publish and facilitate online distribution of high quality scholarship. Facilitate shift to digital born. Goal is to explore new ways of knowledge creation, tied to how we work together. Book series, journals, databases, etc. Not as clear is priority to push things like using tech in Medieval and Renaissance studies, but also have different strategies to encourag change in thinking this way.
Business and Production model. Balance practicality with aspirations. Self sustaining through partners and associates (matching funds and in-kind contributions - office space, supervision, faculty time) plus income from subscriptions if needed. Iter needs to find 50%. Turn to subscriptions, international medieval bibliography smaller than theirs where figures are double what Iter charges, Iter can pull down to reasonable costs with help of associate and partners. Heavy reliance on research assistants supervised by staff with graduate degrees in LIS and faculty. Iter press Distribution: 75% USA, 13% Europe, then 7% Canada, and other. Balance of small, medium, and large institutions. Iter Press comments: other models playing with and experiments to share an aspiration to be more flexible and make things more accessible. Journal of Renaissance and Reformation - e-version is now much less expensive than print version. Also made a shift offering online version free to members of communities holding copyright in the journal. Also trying to identify students and faculty who might be interested. Promoting idea of dissemination. Surprising: considerable resistance, slow glacial move from institutions moving from print to digital even though shelf space and online is more flexible. New technologies - played with hybrid of websites to complement digital version, print version will become pale replica of what is available digitally, but might be necessary for RTP which still has a bent toward print. Would like to make it free no matter what.
Iter is a work in progress even after 20 years. In a fast change environment for teaching and learning. Daunting: how much more could and should be done. Growing possibilities of digital humanities.
Digital Humanities Summer Institute
William R. Bowen
Iter: Gateway to Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Just passed 20th anniversary, looking forward to 25th. Iter Bibliography, Community, and Press. Iter's mandate is online, Iter meaning a journey or path in Latin, not-for-profit, advancement of learning in study and teaching of Middle Ages and Renaissance through the development and distribution of online resources. Created 1995, incorporated 1997 as a nonprofit partnership. Academic society partners (CSRS, ISAS, MAA, MOISA, RSA, SCSC); projects (DHSI, ETCL, INKE, IRCPS), research centers (ACMRS, CRRS), faculty of information studies (Toronto), U of Toronto Libraries. Marriage of expertise in subject area with info studies and new technologies.
Iter planning. Many planning exercises, collaboratories. Inital Steps, Following a Larger Vision: A Feature oriented Pilot Proposal (APril 2009). Distance, something shifted: bringing the communities into the porject so they could engae in the works and be visible and be visible in a way they couldnt when it was an institutional structure. Iter has metadata, services, bibliography. What sits at center of community? full text resources and ways we connect to them, but key is individuals of the community, contribute to professional output in their own projects. Imagine a 10 year plan, what would enable us more fully to see the professional interaction of the community it serves? Increase functionality. What came out was increased partnerships and shift to imagining how individual could interact in more meaningful way instead of being clients, becoming participants.
Programs: Discovery through bibliography. early statement in 2008 says Iter is creating sophisticated gateway to all relevant sources, bibliographies and databases. Hamstrung by waiting on print publication previously, often 5 year gap between print and bibliography. Notion that had to be comprehensive and timely. 1.43 million records, around 60k records a year produced, not just recent but index entire journals into past. Technical issue is where system of digital pieces don't work together well. Observations related: short term goals: list of 2500 journals working on, expect to have 1.75 million records. Longer term considerations: have been focusing on systematic incorporation of print secondary materials. What if turn to working on primary sources, is that viable? Increase attention to other formats: music recording and others. What is exciting is question of how to deal with born digital materials, huge strategic issues. Challenges: what is eligible for this bibliography? Do you include blogs? How do you assess quality of materials to incorporate? Dealing with traditoinal formats, we have a sense of acknowledged publishers, feel pretty safe we get reputable material. How to achieve that feeling when dealing with open available and outside print constraints? If approach notion of systematized collection of data, how with volume of info out there? Simpler question, maybe: what happens when area you're dealing with changes? New areas being explored, has changed in past 20 years.
Iter Bibliography: "accessible to academic community". Standard systems: metadata - MARC, LCSH, DCC, and added keywords, OpenURL and Zotero enabled. Delivery SirsiDynix with Endeca for faceted search. Lose something moving to MARC, and challenge to adapt things to what we consider formats. (Interface very much like WorldCat, robust and fairly standard interface.) Questions: not convinced we search this dat well in way systems were developed. Extent the subject classifications and headings are useful. Do we rethink in terms of RDF? What is best way to present this data? Connectivity - most of us go into Google where we find immediacy and consecutively. Search metadata and full text at same time, but would be licensing nightmare. Production models: hired research assistants under faculty and staff. If tackle available digital resources, might need something community based and deal with quantity control. Cost: assumption is that cost needs to be managed in way useful to community.
Iter Community - aspire to think through interesting issues. facilitation of scholarly communication and info sharing including media. What can we contribute, how can we enable/leverage our communities in with these materials? Community: Iter people and staff, partners, advisors, graduate research assistants (450), contributors, public. 2 initiatives to mention briefly: conference and conference panels which connect to other aspects of programming; and partnership with development awards where people will come with ideas, see to what extent can help them and think through collaborative or matching funding. Challenge is that have to be careful to articulate what can deliver and also manage process--articulate framework or environment they can provide support within.
IterCommons where people share projects. Collaborating with other organizations (ReKN; Early Modern Digital Review;
Possibilities for teh Future: Do we need another commons? Differences in communication--social media. Listserv still has robust place. How do we better integrate aspirations behind Iter community with other elements of program, like crowdsourcing or public interactions with materials, adding value to what has been collected?
Iter Press: broad mandate to publish/co publish and facilitate online distribution of high quality scholarship. Facilitate shift to digital born. Goal is to explore new ways of knowledge creation, tied to how we work together. Book series, journals, databases, etc. Not as clear is priority to push things like using tech in Medieval and Renaissance studies, but also have different strategies to encourag change in thinking this way.
Business and Production model. Balance practicality with aspirations. Self sustaining through partners and associates (matching funds and in-kind contributions - office space, supervision, faculty time) plus income from subscriptions if needed. Iter needs to find 50%. Turn to subscriptions, international medieval bibliography smaller than theirs where figures are double what Iter charges, Iter can pull down to reasonable costs with help of associate and partners. Heavy reliance on research assistants supervised by staff with graduate degrees in LIS and faculty. Iter press Distribution: 75% USA, 13% Europe, then 7% Canada, and other. Balance of small, medium, and large institutions. Iter Press comments: other models playing with and experiments to share an aspiration to be more flexible and make things more accessible. Journal of Renaissance and Reformation - e-version is now much less expensive than print version. Also made a shift offering online version free to members of communities holding copyright in the journal. Also trying to identify students and faculty who might be interested. Promoting idea of dissemination. Surprising: considerable resistance, slow glacial move from institutions moving from print to digital even though shelf space and online is more flexible. New technologies - played with hybrid of websites to complement digital version, print version will become pale replica of what is available digitally, but might be necessary for RTP which still has a bent toward print. Would like to make it free no matter what.
Iter is a work in progress even after 20 years. In a fast change environment for teaching and learning. Daunting: how much more could and should be done. Growing possibilities of digital humanities.
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