Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Horizon Report 2017 - Will Be Missed. Rest in Peace NMC



Happy holidays and New Year to you all.   While I look forward to 2018, I'm sad that the New Media Consortium, after so many years of great work, has ended. Best known for producing its “Horizon Reports” on the future of technology at K-12 schools, universities, and museums, I remember every year about this time anxiously anticipating the release of the latest technology trends that the report releases.  Unfortunately, alas, the NMC has abruptly shut down this month after officials discovered the organization was out of money. It's an embarrassing end to an illustrious organization. How "because of apparent errors and omissions by its former Controller and Chief Financial Officer, the organization finds itself insolvent" is beyond me.  I'm too surprised to be even angry at this point, though I think we should be upset at this development. Not even time for us to say good-bye, or a proper sendoff.

Started in 1994, the NMC has served hundreds of college and university organizations, organizing conferences and events, and published reports in its goal of encouraging exploration and use of new media and technologies for learning and creative expression, particularly in 2002 when it began publishing its must-read Horizon Reports.  With that said, I hope these technology trends for academic libraries will not be the last time that we'll see the report coming out with findings.

1. Big Data Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less

2. Digital Scholarship Technologies Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less

3. Library Services Platforms Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years

4. Online Identity Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years

5. Artificial Intelligence Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years

6. The Internet of Things Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years

Though it's filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, it's still too early to say that the NMC is completely gone since the NMC’s assets may still be sold as part of the bankruptcy process and another entity (maybe another nonprofit?) may yet go forward with the annual summer conference. Who know's, it's still too early to say. Maybe that will be our goal moving into 2018 - to wish the NMC back into existence.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

An academic press reimagining the scholarly publication process



I've been following the work of Tom Mullaney, historian at Stanford University for a while now. Stanford University Press, with the help of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is exploring new publishing channels for digital scholarship. From development, to peer review, to marketing, Stanford's digital publishing initiative supports its scholars in conveying their ideas using emerging media and digital tools.  By advancing this new publishing process the purpose is to establish the same level of academic credibility on digital projects as print books typically receive, this hopefully supports the efforts of scholars in the humanities and social sciences that have for so long have worked so hard on digital scholarship that was outside the traditional road to tenure and promotion without reaping the rewards.  This recognition is an important development in the academic and scholarly publishing world.

Mullaney’s project, The Chinese Deathscape, integrates interactive maps with accompanying scholarly analysis, examining the spatial relocation of graves in China over time.  His work, scheduled to be published in spring 2018, is one of six digital-only projects Stanford University plans to release in 2018 and 2019.  The press, in a partnership with Stanford University Libraries, has also been exploring how to copyright the interactive works and ensure that they are archived and accessible in the face of a constantly changing publishing landscape.  This is an exciting development in the field of digital scholarship, and the humanities.  As the initiative proposes:
The nascent fields of digital humanities and computational social sciences have ballooned in recent years. Emergent technologies and scholars’ increasing fluency with these technologies are providing academics with new ways to visualize, analyze, and interpret data. Yet, there are no formal channels for publication or consistent peer review standards for digital projects. Our initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, allows us to advance a publishing process that helps authors develop their concept (in both content and form) and reach their market effectively to confer the same level of academic credibility on digital projects as print books receive.
At my institution, I'm following similar developments with the collaboration between the UBC Press and the University of Washington Press developing a digital publishing platform in Indigenous studies thanks to a three-year grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Together, UBC Press and the University of Washington Press will develop a digital platform for Indigenous multimedia books. Based on Scalar, an authoring and publishing platform, it will offer a suite of tools for linking data and analyses to digital content from around the world and for interacting in culturally sensitive ways with heritage materials.  It's even hired a Digital Publishing Coordinator and Digital Developmental Editor to build the infrastructure.  It's exciting times ahead at UBC and Stanford.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

A new book, "World's Leading National, Public, Monastery and Royal Library Directors"



This is our book on practicing library professionals, but the very first joint interview book project dedicated to documenting on a global scale, the senior leadership and managerial skills, strategic planning as well as professional developments – of the skills and aptitudes that an "effective, total leader" needs in the world of librarianship today.  Each individual library director appearing in this book is highly experienced and greatly respected for their integrity, endeavors and contributions in his or her own right. Their participation in this interview book project, sharing with our readers, their valuable professional practices, unparalleled experiences and unique perspectives, creates such valuable professional learning opportunities for practicing library professionals who continue to communicate with each other on a cross-national, as well as on a cross-cultural level.

As renowned management scholar Henry Mintzberg of McGill University theorizes, “managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.”

So as the individuals profiled in this book will tell us, their roles are manifold and complicated, involving a range of tasks and abilities that require experience, dedication, and creativity that not only keep the library’s operations afloat but thrive under their guidance. We are fortunate that these busy leaders of knowledge are able to generously share with us their time and knowledge in the making of this book. It was simply a pleasure to learn through their experiences and expertise by “picking” their brains about how these library managers not only shape the missions of their respective libraries, but also how they are shaped by their own experiences into become current leadership positions.  The people we interview in this book include the following:

National and state libraries

1 David S. Mao, Acting Librarian, Library of Congress
2 Dr. Johanna Rachinger, Director General, Austrian National Library
3 Caroline Brazier, Chief Librarian, British Library
4 Ana Santos Aramburo, Director, National Library of Spain
5 Marie-Christine Doffey, Director, Swiss National Library
6 Andris Vilks, Director of the National Library of Latvia
7 Prof. Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas, Director General, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania
8 Alberto Manguel, Director, National Library of Argentina
9 Jelena Djurovic, Director, National Library of Montenegro
10 Dr. Claudia Lux, Librarian, Project Director of the Qatar National Library
11 Oren Weinberg, Director, National Library of Israel
12 Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director, The Library of Alexandria (Egypt)

Public and city libraries

13 Pam Sandlian Smith, Director, Anythink Libraries, Adams County (Colorado)
14 Christopher Platt, Chief Branch Library Officer, New York Public Library
15 John F. Szabo, City Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library
16 David Leonard, President, Boston Public Library
17 Felton Thomas, Jr., Director of Cleveland Public Library
18 Mary Anne Hodel, Director/CEO, Orange County Library System
19 Misty Jones, Director, San Diego Public Library
20 Marcellus Turner, City Librarian, The Seattle Public Library System
21 Kate P. Horan, MLS, Library Director, McAllen Public Library (Texas)
22 Dr. Hannelore Vogt, Director, Cologne Public Library
23 Christine Brunner, Director, Stuttgart City Library
24 Sandra Singh, Chief Librarian, Vancouver Public Library
25 Shih-chang Horng, Director, Taipei Public Library
26 Father Maximilian Schiefermüller O.S.B., General Director, Admont Abbey Library
27 Dr. Cornel Dora, Director, Abbey Library of Saint Gall
28 Oliver Urquhart Irvine, The Librarian & Assistant Keeper, The Queen’s Archives

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Call for Papers: Digital Humanities – The Shifting Contexts

I'm so pleased to be working with Megan Meredith-Lobay, who is the Scientific Analyst, Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at UBC together on an exciting project.   We are co-editors of a special edition of Digital Library Perspectives, a journal that explores new understandings and definitions of what is a digital library.   In this issue, we focus on the emerging field of digital humanities, the evolution of the term, and the ways it's being presented and practised by scholars and researchers, particularly examining it outside of the traditional parameters of what one usually considers DH.  So yes, we're looking at shaking up the boundaries a bit, and experimenting with new ideas and processes while we're at it.  But we need your help -- if you have something in the works, please do consider submitting it to this special issue, which will be first LIS academic journal devoting an entire issue to DH.  

Call for Papers: Digital Humanities – The Shifting Contexts 

This special edition of Digital Library Perspectives focuses on the topic of Digital Humanities, with emphasis on the shifting framework of scholars and practitioners who do not necessarily identify themselves digital humanists but use Digital Humanities tools and practices in their work. The Guest Editors of this issue include Dr. Megan Meredith-Lobay (University of British Columbia) and Allan Cho (University of British Columbia).

The co-editors invite contributions on the following, as well as other related topics:
  • Role of LIS in supporting non-traditional DH areas of scholarship, i.e. New Media Studies, Musicology, Archaeology, non-textual DH
  • Emerging areas of research, teaching, learning in the digital scholarship in the social sciences and humanities
  • Beyond “What is DH?” - exploring “Why DH?”
  • Non-traditional DH practice and practitioners: inclusion and exclusion
  • DH in non-western contexts
  • The intersections between DH and digital social science
  • Digital Humanities as Data Science
Important Dates:
  • Papers due: 1 February 2018 
  • First round decisions made: February 2018 
  • Revised manuscripts due: March 2018 
  • Final decisions made: April 2018 
  • Planned publication: Volume 34 Issue 3 (August) 2018
Submission Instructions:
  • Papers should be no more than 6000 words
  • Submissions to Digital Library Perspectives are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system. Registration for an account needs to be created first: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dlp.

Friday, June 16, 2017

#DHSI 2017 - The Evolution of the Digital Humanities (DH)

It's been a while since I've attended my last Digital Humanities Summer Institute.   The colloquium and workshops have evolved since I first attended in 2008.   Back then, the DHSI was about learning the new tools available to us (text encoding initiative, digitization, transcription, etc.)  There was only a handful of courses.   At the time, DH could easily have been mistaken for Web 2.0 (or social software!)   In less than a decade, I've witnessed the emergence and evolution of a cohort of scholars and practitioners who have come back each year and have coalesced into a community of practice, with the DHSI as a stage for informing and encouraging new members to join the fray.

Of course, what I witnessed at DHSI 2017 is a critical mass of scholars and libraries of the need for DH support in the form of facilities and funding.   As a way to become more inclusive, some have instead preferred broader designations as digital scholarship as an embracing term that encompasses DH.  Some have also used data science that collate various faculty to an interdisciplinary lens.  Whether it be political or fiscal, before an institution can embrace DH, it needs to have a paradigmatic shift in mindset in institutional culture from one in which lone scholars conducting DH pedagogy or research can be fully supported with pooled resources.  I've seen not only the new tools, but also the gradual emergence of DH pedagogy and new DH methodologies.

One of the key themes I've heard and seen from the DHSI is the models that institutions need in carrying out DH work.   Institutions vary widely on how far along they are in establishing an institutional framework for DH.  Some have an institutional DH mandate with accompanying staff, but no centre or lab facilities; while others, have the centre and requisite facilities, but not necessarily a mission to coordinate a comprehensive DH plan.    Timing is everything because during the DHSI, Educause and the Centre for Networked Information (CNI) released a working paper Building Capacity for Digital Humanities: A Framework for Institutional Planning.  In my opinion, the authors address some of the fundamental issues with DH planning in higher education that is by far the most cogently articulated on paper.   So where to begin?  Let's start off with the organizational models first, which I find most interesting:

Centralized Model - This model focuses on meeting faculty and student needs by housing most or all DH services in a centralized unit.  In one collaborative space, practitioners can "rub elbows" and share insights easily, and this model is usually set up by a school, or program such as the library to support DH work.

Hub-and-Spoke Model - In this model, expertise, personnel, knowledge, and services are embedded in academic departments, units libraries, and other service points around campus, but coordinated through a central node.

Mesh Network Model - No one unit is dominant in this model.  Rather, each unit that offers DH services pools knowledge to create a linked network of units, groups, and practitioners who contribute their expertise to the overall pool.

Consortial Model - As the most recent model to have emerged onto the DH scene, this model leverages resources and interests across institutions to better support DH initiatives within each institution.  Such partnerships tend to arise organically as DH practitioners look beyond their own organizations to share ideas and knowledge while collaborating on projects.


As I'm writing this, I'm excited about the final day (yes, day #5) of the DHSI.   I'm going to be reflecting more about the stages of progression along the spectrum in which institutions belong to in creating infrastructures that can support and carry out DH work.

Monday, April 03, 2017

Locating Digital Humanities in India: the Emergence of DH in the Global South #digitalhumanities

Courtesy of Pad.ma project (http://pad.ma/)
In my research, I approached digital humanities from a cross-cultural perspective.  In my examination of the field of DH, I can't but help notice the immense scale of the project, the sheer difficulties of not only defining the parametres of what constitutes digital humanities among institution, but also the lofty challenges of defining it among countries.

In a very interesting research report by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, she concludes that locating DH in India as a futile project.   This is particular so, as conversations around the internet and digital technologies have been located within the domain of the developing information and communication technologies in India.   In the Global South, digital usually means rhetoric about the potential to address and even resolve social and economic problems - anything digital translates to “good” and “beneficial.

The ICT-fication, as Sneha put it, of education has been a major objective and challenge within the larger DH vision, specifically because of access, namely the quality of access and the lack of connectivity.  There is an emergence of independent, online archives, seen as a fallout of the hegemony of state-funded archives though, particularly early key projects such as Bichitra, Tagore’s works at Jadavpur University, and Pad.ma.

However, in terms of the logistics of technology, Indic scripts is a persistent problem for digital initiatives in India.  Though in Bengali work has been done to address this by a keyboard software called Avro which stores conjunct letters preserving their separate characteristics - general searching the “anglicized," funding for research and development, maintenance, and sustainability is difficult to obtain.

The research infrastructure has been primarily for the natural sciences - humanities often end up being inadequate, in terms of financial and intellectual investment.  For example, in the case of Bangalore, with so much infrastructure at its disposal, there has been minimal development in the humanities.   And other places like Kashmir, there is strict regulations of access to the Internet due to security concerns.  Consequently, the need to have an archive metadata tool that can work with different Indian languages at the moment is difficult, if not impossible.  So even with technology a concern, there are other key points in consideration:
  • Post-Colonial Considerations - The “incompleteness of the archives” is not well preserved by British administrators before independence.  Still a contentious among archivists and historians, the viability and usefulness of this incomplete history of India produces problems for academic research of the digital humanities in India.
  • Small Steps by the Academic Institutions - Indian Institute of Technology at Indore and Hyderabad have engaged in DH and cultural informatics - through modules in existing courses and seminars.  Small steps are being taken in this very early era of DH in India. 
  • Academic Cultural Resistance - Just as with Western scholars, there is resistance from humanities departments ranging from lack of expertise to concerns about too “technological”
Indian researcher Radhika Diwan is currently conducting research into the state of digital humanities in India, tracing the history and development of Indian DH and reviewing prominent DH projects and the analysis and data collected through the interviews with DH scholars.  So the future is bright, with prospects of more to come.

Monday, March 20, 2017

My Stroke of Insight - By Neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor


A dear friend and mentor of mine had suffered a tragic stroke recently.  A stroke is the last illness anyone would want: the debilitating consequences can take a lifetime to heal, a lifetime changes within a fraction of time.  I'm truly at a loss for the suffering that my friend faces.  As a librarian, I do what I do best in times of tragedy: I read and understand what I'm up against.   I am reading as much about stroke and strategies for recovery.   I'm fortunate to come across My Stoke of Insight, a brain scientist's personal journey through stroke, and her process of recovery as I know it's one of the important titles in the field.   I read the book and here are the important points about stroke patients and what we need to remember. If you find it useful, please share it with others, especially with caregivers who have friends and loved ones who suffered a stroke.   Here's how Bolte Taylor recalls in her journey to healing:

1. I desperately need people to treat me as though I would recover completely (Regardless if it would take 3 months, 2 years, or 20 years, or a lifetime, I need people to have faith in my continued ability to learn, heal, and grow)

2. Honour the healing power of sleep (Value sleep, as it physically heals cell; Brain is the ultimate authority on what it needs to heal itself)

3. I need people to love me, not for the person I had been, but for who I might now become (At the essence of my soul, I am the same spirit. But with brain wiring now different, I might have new interests, likes, and dislikes)

4. I need those around me to be encouraging. I need to know that I still have value. I need to have dreams to work toward. (Accept me as the person I am at the moment, permit me the freedom to evolve as a right hemisphere dominant personality)

5. I need people to celebrate the triumphs I make everyday because my success, no matter how small, inspire me (focus on my ability, not my disability)

6. I need people to come close and not be afraid of me (I desperately need their kindness; I need to be touched, stroke my arm, hold my hand, or gently wipe my face)

7. I need my visitors to bring me their positive energy
(I appreciate when people come in for just a few minutes, take my hands in theirs, and share softly and slowly how they are doing, what they are thinking, and how they believe in my ability to recover. It's difficult for me to cope with people who come in with high anxious energy. Extremely nervous, anxious, or angry people are counter-productive to my healing)

Sunday, March 05, 2017

One Belt, One Road, and Beyond - A Look at the Collections of Libraries, Archives, and Museums

I'm pleased that my research partners from across the Pacific Ocean, Dickson Chiu (University of Hong Kong) and Patrick Lo (University of Tsukuba) will be giving a talk at the University of Hong Kong Libraries.   Our book is a labour of love (perhaps more labour than love it seems at times).
The genesis of it come from a common theme that we hear too often about the challenges and trials of librarians who face continuously shrinking budgets, increased workloads, and the constant change in information technologies.  But as we gradually worked our way through these discussions, we realized that such themes go beyond just libraries, but includes cultural institutions as archives, museums, and to a certain extent, art galleries – what is now more commonly known as a whole as LAMs.

One might ask, why focus on LAMs? We argue that the present convergence is actually a return to traditional unity. These three institutions share epistemological links dating from the “Museum” of Alexandria and continuing through the cabinets of curiosities gathered in early modern Europe. But over time, as these collections expanded, they became more specialized and their storage separated according to the form of information that emerged in around the nineteenth century, and as a result, these institutions professionalized and intellectual societies and educational programs materialized that further crystallized the formal separation.  We have come full circle.  For us to focus on only one but not the other would be to give an incomplete picture as to the continued merger of LAMs. Our book is thus based on a series of direct interviews with different practicing librarians, archivists, and museum curators across the world who specialize in East Asian collections.

In trying to examine the dynamically shifting role of the cultural institution in the context of managing information, cultural and knowledge exchanges, and collaboration on a global scale, we want this book to serve as a reference guide for students, scholars, researchers, and professionals who manage East Asian collections, and enable them to gain a glimpse of the vast amount of treasures available for their research and other scholarly activities. As LAMs began their histories mainly as collecting institutions with mandates to preserve and make accessible primary sources valuable for researchers, we want to show in this book how we are coming full circle again with the merger of practices and techniques of managing collections across cultural institutions.

When we sought a title for this book, we were careful to live up to the promise of “World’s Leading Librarians, Archivists and Curators.” Of course, it can be a subjective process in labeling who exactly are “leading,” but we strove to select those who are considered experts in their field, those who have published extensively in there area of literature, who have amassed many years of experience in management of their collections, and also those who have won awards or acclamation from their peers. We did not make our selections in haste; we also carefully selected interviewees based on a geographical spread that best represented various countries across the world to justify the global focus of our book. So that is why we went on a journey to interview experts from Berlin State Library, Bavarian State Library, the British Library, the British Museum, the National Library of France, the Vatican Library, the National Library of Denmark, the National Archives of Japan, the National Taiwan Library – just to name a few.

In the context of this book, East Asian collections not only refers to those housed and managed by library, archive, and museum (LAM) professionals who are ethnically of East Asian descent, but also their American as well as European colleagues, who have devoted their careers to safeguarding cultural heritage collections of immeasurable values. We conducted our research using a mixed-methods approach using semi-structure surveys through face-to-face meetings, Skype, and also by email depending on preferred mode of access by our interviewees. Upon completion of transcribing our interviews, we followed up with our interviewees for clarification and approval for publication of the text.  We're looking forward to finally having this monograph out and available.  Expect a June launch to come.  

Saturday, January 28, 2017

The Screwmaneutical Approach to Digital Humanities and Digital Scholarship

Image courtesy Duke University
I've attended many Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI)'s over the years, and have come to realize that digital humanities is neither a field, a discipline, nor a methodology.  Humanities cannot be done with computers, nor is it computer science performed on topics of interest to the humanities.  There's much debate within academia about the merit of digital scholarship.  While some have called digital humanities as a "misappropriation," others have even referred to its as "Twitter as scholarship."

 DH is currently caught in an existentialist dilemma despite the resulting dynamic dialogue between emerging technology and humanistic inquiry.   Although DH comprises a scholarly humanities community of practice that is engaged in a wide variety of projects but that collectively values experimentation, collaboration, and making, it is a contentious label that signifies elitism and is characterized by a fetishization of technology and a lack of critical reflection. However it is defined, DH has had a significant impact on the academic landscape for more than a decade. Micah Vandegrift takes a page from Stephen Ramsay and calls for a "screwmaneutical approach," one which of re-imagines the place and role of the library is not simply as a place to get the right answers, or be directed to the correct resource, and that means browsability and playfulness.  As Vandegrift put its,
"the“serve ‘em and send ‘em along” model is no longer serving a patronage whose information needs include planning, building and executing projects that utilize the strengths of librarianship."
He recommends some excellent steps to take for those interested in diving into this area of DH.   I've added some of my own an in a more holistic approach.  I hope as a community of practice that this is useful:

1. Attend academic department events - scholars present their work at colloquia

2. Sign up to the department listservs and keep up with its social media

3. Connect with councils and committees - campus-wide initiatives

4. Get involved in online DH social networks - how about #digitalhumanities?

5.  Follow Digital Humanities Now

6. THATCamp - a Humanities and Technology Camp that is an open and relatively inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot.  There are camps across North America
7.  Blogs - Lisa Spiro's blog is just one of many who delve into this topic

8.  Join ACRL's Digital Humanities Humanities Discussion Group - Perhaps the most involved academic library group.

9.  Digital Research Tools (DIRT) wiki 

10.  Follow the scholars - Is there a better way than using the web and keeping up with the latest researchers in the field of Digital Humanities by following some of the most involved scholars?