A few months ago I made a similar request in the Google discussion group. The response was encouraging enough to convince me that the discussion group continued to fulfill a useful function for the local DH community. I had intended to follow up quickly to see if this website was fulfilling a similarly useful function, but am only now getting to it.
If you both read this blog and follow the Google discussion group, you have probably noticed that this blog consists mostly, but not entirely, of repostings of notices from the discussion group (with occasional gaps when I don’t have the time to make a post in a timely fashion). The site just passed its fifth birthday a few days ago and has been showing its digital age for a while now. A recent attempt to update the site with a calendar of events was thwarted by backend problems. If you are interested in helping to make this site more useful for the community, or indeed in reviving any of the currently dormant aspects of PhillyDH, please let me know at the same email address. Perhaps we can use the “Help Organize” tab at the top to start working on strategies.
]]>About the Library
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an internationally recognized center for research in the history of science, early America, Native American linguistics, and anthropology. The Library houses over 13 million manuscripts, 350,000 volumes and bound periodicals, 250,000 images, and thousands of hours of audio material. The Society’s Digital Library holds thousands of images, video files, and audio recordings representing the depth and breadth of the APS collections. We are located in historic Old City Philadelphia, near Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
About the Center for Digital Scholarship
The APS Center for Digital Scholarship serves the mission of the APS Library by advancing three fundamental areas: (1) building digital projects that promote and share the library’s holdings; (2) developing new tools to meet contemporary challenges in Library Science; and (3) strategically digitizing Library material. The Center has a growing portfolio of successful projects in each area. Recent additions to this portfolio include a set of visualization apps analyzing a suite of historic prison data, a data-driven recommendation tool for manuscript collections, and a robust digital library presence.
The APS Center for Digital Scholarship is collaborative in nature, and is the home to a vibrant and growing intellectual community that includes library and curatorial staff and fellows, short-term Digital Humanities Fellows, Digital Library Interns, and volunteers. Staff at the Center also maintain the Society’s technology infrastructure and plan for growth.
About the Position
The APS Library seeks a leader in the field of digital scholarship and library technology to continue the success and growth of the Center for Digital Scholarship. The Head of Digital Scholarship and Technology will work with the Director of the Library to establish strategic directions for the future, execute new projects, and forge partnerships with other institutions.On a day-to-day basis, this position will oversee all digitization efforts, work on specialized digital projects, and assist staff, Digital Humanities Fellows, and other researchers with digital initiatives. Additional tasks include managing various IT contractors.
As a leader of a small team, the Head of Digital Scholarship and Technology will take a hands-on approach to all initiatives and have the experience to successfully execute them.
Experience in digital humanities and library technology is expected. A demonstrated interest in a core collection area of the Library is highly preferred.
Required Qualifications
Minimum three years of experience working in digital humanities and/or library technology, preferably more and with management experience
MLS from an ALA-accredited institution, MA with ACA certification, or Ph.D. in a field related to APS holdings and with relevant experience
Demonstrated experience building digital exhibitions, websites, or other online tools
Knowledge of cataloging and descriptive standards, especially EAD-XML, Dublin Core, MODS, and/or RDF
Demonstrated experience with digital repositories, digital object cataloging, and/or working in an academic library with a strong digital program
Excellent written and oral communication skills
Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work successfully in a collaborative team environment
Strong analytical and problem solving skills and the ability to formulate options and recommend solutions
Preferred Qualifications
Staff management and experience with working with contractors and consultants
Experience with digital library software, especially Islandora, Drupal, and/or Fedora
Experience with data manipulation tools, especially OpenRefine
Experience with GIS software and tools
Experience with library reference and/or public service
Experience with manuscript processing
Pay and Benefits
The Society offers a competitive benefits package, including:
Employer paid health insuranc
TIAA-CREF retirement matching funds
Dental insurance
Life and Disability insurance
Paid Days Off
Compensation will be commensurate with experience and reflect the management responsibilities of the position.For further inquiries, please email [email protected].
To Apply
Submit a resume or CV, cover letter, and contact information for three references to: http://apply.interfolio.com/47662.
The American Philosophical Society is an EOE, and strongly encourages applications from women and minorities.
Deadline to apply: January 15. Interviews will take place via Skype and final round interviews may involve a campus visit. Ideal start date is sometime in the spring of 2018 with some flexibility.
]]>The Community and Public Data Curation Fellow will help the library develop new capacities for supporting community and public data. As a complement to the Data Curation Librarian, whose work focuses on helping Penn faculty and students manage data produced within the University Community, the Community and Public Data Curation Fellow will work on a Penn project that focuses on stewarding data that is produced and published beyond the University walls. Specifically, we have identified two projects that will expand our capacity to care for and curate valuable and vulnerable data that may be beyond the scope of the library’s collections. One project will focus on supporting government publishers, and the other project will focus on supporting community publishers and collectors in Philly neighborhoods. Each project is tied to an ongoing library collaboration with Penn faculty members. In the first project, the fellow will join in and expand on Data Refuge, an effort to support the long-term safety of environmental and climate data published by local, state, and federal governments. In the second project, the fellow will partner with faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Education who are building an archive of Black Philly by helping to care for vulnerable data published by members of the Black community in Philadelphia, especially in neighborhoods that are rapidly changing due to gentrification and other forces.
As Community and Public Data Curation fellow, the incumbent will help the library responsibly and creatively build and expand sustainable models for the care of vulnerable collections of data, even in cases where Penn Libraries may not take these collections in for the long term. As partners to the owners and publishers of this data, applicants should have experience working in open public partnerships in a social science, government or scientific context, and facility working within and across institutional boundaries. They should also have a demonstrated commitment to ethical methods in the stewardship of community materials. An understanding of the standards of data curation and management, and of the varieties of digital scientific and open data standards will also be important.
Responsibilities:
Help the Penn Libraries establish the boundaries and understand the level of effort and partnerships necessary for the curation of public open data, and some forms of community data
Collaborate with faculty and collaborators in the Graduate School of Education and Africana Studies Department working on the Black Philly project to identify and support the curation of data related to changing neighborhoods in Philadelphia
Participate in the continuation of the Data Refuge project through connections with state and local government open data publishers and collaborators
Participate in Data Refuge storytelling efforts in collaboration with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities
Provide support for the digitization and description of community records that may or may not enter institutional collections
Collaborate with community members, bibliographers, and curators at Penn Libraries and other local institutions to identify potential partnerships in the long term stewardship of some materials
Collaborate with colleagues in Data Curation Librarian, Library Technology Services, and Preservation to establish appropriate workflows for ingestion of materials into institutional systems where appropriate
Support development efforts for new and improved repository and publishing platforms within the Penn Libraries to support community and government created data
Qualifications:
PhD in relevant field and demonstrated interest in public and community scholarship
Understanding of data curation and management basics
Demonstrated commitment to ethical methods in the stewardship of community materials
Salary and Benefits
Annual salary of $70,000 using 12 month-appointment calendar
Competitive benefits package
Computational Textual Analysis:
This workshop series will model a mini-collaborative research project, involving experimentation with computational textual analysis tools using the Digital Scholarship Center’s recently digitized corpus of twentieth-century literature. We will begin by discussing various methods and tools for cleaning and preparing a corpus, before deploying a variety of ready-made tools, including the Google Ngram viewer and Voyant, to quantify grammatical, lexical, and organizational structures in dozens of novels. This workshop will also establish a working knowledge of how to deploy and adapt simple programming scripts to run more complex and pointed analyses on multiple texts at once. No prior knowledge of computational textual analysis is necessary.
Wednesday, 11am-12pm; Jan. 17, 24, 31; Feb. 21, 28
Data Cleaning with OpenRefine:
The workshop covers basics and examples of data cleaning with OpenRefine. Feel free to bring your own computer to practice with hands-on examples. Topics will include: data transformation, the General Refine Expression Language, and data reshaping.
Every other Thursday, 12:30-1:30pm; Jan. 25; Feb. 8, 22
Using Unity 3D:
This ongoing hands-on workshop will introduce you to using Unity and show you how to apply it to your re-creation, simulation, virtual reality, or game related projects. Topics include Unity interface and general usage, importing and using Unity Standard Assets and Asset Store, importing and using custom models, scene composition, object interaction, using virtual reality, and more. While programming knowledge is not required, is is suggested for some lessons. You will need a laptop (Mac or PC) and an installation of Unity 3D (free and covered the first lesson) in order to participate.
Every Monday in February 12-1pm; Feb. 5, 12, 19, 26
Mapping Datasets in the Humanities:
This series provides both methodological and technical support for mapping datasets. We will discuss how different fields within the humanities interpret and utilize data as well as the application of tools, such as ArcGIS, Carto, Neatline, NodeGoat, and QGIS.
Tuesdays, 11am-12pm; Jan. 30; Feb. 13, 27; Mar. 13
Intro to Electronics & Arduinos:
The Arduino is a small open source micro controller that allows you to sense and control objects in the physical world. Join us for to learn more about and try building projects with the Arduino as an entry into the realm of physical computing.
Every other Thursday, 11am-12pm; Feb. 1, 15; Mar. 1, 15, 29; Apr. 12, 26
Investigating Twitter:
This workshop will introduce several tools for using Twitter for social science research. Geared towards political science, media studies, and journalism, it will show ways of searching and analyzing Twitter hashtags and other indications of political trends. It will include at least one session on how to identify automated tweets, commonly known as bots. It will draw upon examples from my own research on state propaganda in the Persian Gulf, but asks others to bring in their own ideas for researching how authoritarian governments and social activists alike are using Twitter to promote agendas and ideologies.
Every other Wednesday, 12-1pm
Mar. 14, 28; Apr. 11
Links to sign up for any of these workshops can be found at the Temple DSC Workshops page: https://sites.temple.edu/tudsc/events/workshops/
]]>HILT is a 5-day training institute that includes keynotes, ignite talks, and local cultural heritage excursions for researchers, students, early career scholars and cultural heritage professionals who seek to learn more about Digital Humanities theory, practice, and culture. In addition to the conference’s day-time sessions, participants can enjoy opportunities to explore the city through local dining and special events
Courses being offered at HILT include:
Advocacy by Design
Collections as Data
Connecting Digital Humanities to Public Audiences
Developing Black Digital Humanities Initiatives
Digital Methods for Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies
Digital Surrogates: Representation, Engagement, and Meaning
Humanities Programming with Python
Spaces and Stories in the Black Digital Humanities
Text Analysis
Register for HILT Here
]]>Our definition of blended learning is quite broad, encompassing any combination of online and face-to-face instruction that supports close faculty-student interactions and high-impact, student-centered pedagogies, promotes life-long learning, or otherwise contributes to the goals and mission of a liberal arts education.
We are open to all topics related to blended learning in the liberal arts. Past participants have indicated particular interest in presentations that focus on process as well as product, give hands-on practical advice and implementation tips, and/or show methods and techniques over time.
Possible themes include:
Experiential learning with digital technology: making, gamification, simulations, media
Blending to reduce costs and increase access, including OER
Development of new approaches for assessment, on the course or program level
Institution-level strategies, initiatives, and programming
Please submit a 100-word abstract and a 250-400-word proposal describing your project and its connections to blended learning. You will be asked to select the preferred format of your presentation from the following: 20-minute presentation, 75-minute panel (including presenters from at least two institutions), 75-minute hands-on interactive workshop, and NEW this year, 5-minute pitch for the plenary Lightning Round.
Submit here!
(You will need to sign up for a free account in order to submit)
The deadline for proposals is February 15, 2018. Conference registration will open on March 15, 2018.
More information may be found at http://blendedlearning.blogs.brynmawr.edu/blended-learning-conference/. Contact Jennifer Spohrer at [email protected] with questions. This conference is supported by Bryn Mawr College, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Teagle Foundation.
]]>The Chemical Heritage Foundation is seeking a full-time Library Applications Developer. The Library Applications Developer will work with CHF’s digital collections team to develop software that manages, preserves and provides access to CHF’s diverse digital assets drawn from its Library, Museum, and Center for Oral History. The Library Applications Developer will also be involved in all technical aspects related to the customization, maintenance, and deployment of the open source digital repository system Samvera (formerly Hydra, a technology stack comprising Fedora Commons, Solr, Blacklight, and Ruby on Rails). The Library Applications Developer may also write, maintain, document and troubleshoot code for customizing other open source software and applications, such as ArchivesSpace. This is an exciting opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects with a collaborative team and to contribute back to open source communities by pushing code upstream whenever possible. This position is based at our Philadelphia HQ office, but the option of working remotely is available if the ideal candidate lives outside of the geographical area.
The ideal candidate will possess the following qualifications:
To be considered for this position, please send cover letter with salary expectations, resume/CV and contact information for 3 professional references to LibAppDev…@chemheritage.org.
]]>Mapping Paintings, Or How to Breathe Life into Provenance
Lecture by Professor Jodi Cranston, Boston University, History of Art & Architecture
Tuesday 28 November 20107
5:00-6:00 PM Temple Contemporary at Tyler
Open to the public, with reception to follow (sponsored by the Art History Graduate Organization)
Lecture sponsored by Department of Art History, General Activities Fund, Temple Contemporary, Temple Libraries Digital Scholarship Center, Faculty Senate Lectures & Forums Committee
Workshop
mappingpaintings.org, A Workshop with Platform Developer
Professor Jodi Cranston, Boston University, History of Art & Architecture
Wednesday 29 November 2017
1:30-3:00 PM Digital Scholarship Center, Paley Library Rom 009
Please register to ensure a place in the workshop!
Applicants with training and research interests in the digital humanities, American history, the history of science, or intellectual history are especially encouraged to apply. The ideal candidate will have experience with the development of digital resources and a demonstrated interest in working in a library environment.
Applications will be accepted through August 27, 2017. The start date is early fall, ideally before October. Applicants must have defended their dissertation before beginning employment.
Salary: $45,000 per year + benefits.
For more information and link to application go to: https://www.amphilsoc.org/vacancies/timelinepostdoc
]]>To see the holdings of 19th century playbills in the Free Library of Philadelphia’s collections in the PACSCL catalogue go to http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/detail.html?id=PACSCL_FLP_FLPTHCPLAYBILLS
]]>