We at UCLDH are very proud to announce that three of our projects have been nominated in the Digital Humanities Awards 2012!

Best Digital Humanities Project for public audiences category: Transcribe Bentham

Best DH visualization or infographic category: Quantifying Digital Humanities, an infographic

Best Use of DH for Fun category: Textal

Voting in the DH Awards is open to all, you can see all the nominees and vote here: http://dhawards.org/dhawards2012/voting/

One of our DH team members—Frauke Zeller—is involved in a new project that brings together art, critics, and robots in a joint international project with Canadian artist David Harris Smith: http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/article/watch-your-step-campus-toughest-art-critic-could-be-under-your-feet/

Kim Martin, a member of the Digging DH team (University of Western Ontario), will be visiting UCLDH 11-20 February and would like to interview both staff and students on their thoughts about DH, the tools used for their research, the social network of DH and more.  If you would like to take part, please contact Kim at diggingdh@gmail.com.  Further details can be found on the Digging DH blog.

‘Sustaining our Digital Future’, a new report from JISC and Ithaka S+R aimed at helping digital projects to thrive was published yesterday, in which UCLDH is proud to feature highly.  You can read the report here: http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2013/01/Sustaining-our-digital-future-FINAL-31.pdf

UCLDH co-director Melissa Terras is quoted in an article on the effect big data is having on academic disciplines.

Read the whole article here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-01/25/big-data-end-of-theory

UCLDH is pleased to announce that Ryan Baumann will be visiting to give an informal talk.  Ryan is currently based at the Harvard Centre for Hellenic Studies, working on tools for digital commentary, and has previously worked with EDUCE at the University of Kentucky Centre for Visualization and Virtual Environments http://vis.uky.edu/.

His talk at UCLDH will detail various imaging techniques and their applications to ancient text-bearing artifacts, including 3D laser, micro-CT, and multispectral imaging. Using examples from real-world problems and data, the appropriateness of applying different techniques to different artifacts will be discussed.

All welcome.

Time: 17:30

Date: Wednesday 16th January

Location: G31 Foster Court

UCLDH Co-director Melissa Terras is on the Advisory Group for the Imperial War Museum’s First World War Centenary digital project, assisting the museum with their online plans for marking this centenary.

Further details about the project can be found on their website  http://www.1914.org/ and on Twitter @iwm_centenary.

The Bentham Project is currently advertising for a Research Associate (60% FTE) to work on a newly funded initiative called tranScriptorium.

The following text is taken from the advertisement:

The Bentham Project, in collaboration with partners from across Europe, has recently received a grant for a project entitled tranScriptorium, which aims to develop innovative, efficient, and cost-effective solutions for the indexing, search and full transcription of digital images of manuscripts, using modern, holistic Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology.

The role holder will work with tranScriptorium partners (especially the University of London Computer Centre), to design and develop an HTR crowdsourcing platform, analyse the user needs and requirements of transcript correctors and visitors, carry out beta testing of the platform to ensure full functionality, and be responsible for the running of the crowdsourcing platform on a day-to-day basis.

The post is funded for 21 months in the first instance.

The deadline for applications is 12 noon on Friday 4 January 2013. To apply, or for further information, please see the full job advert.

We are pleased to announce that UCLDH will be working with the Slade School of Fine Art on a pilot project to see what is held in the Slade Archive and to look at ways in which the information can be made available to a wider audience.  The project is funded by a UCL Arts & Humanities Small Research Grant.

For further information please see the project blog.

I’m very pleased to have been invited to open the 2012 Leipzig e-Humanities Seminar series. Their new e-Humanities Centre is a collaborative venture between the computer scientists and humanities scholars there. My title for the talk is The Digital Classicist: building a Digital Humanities Community. I’ve been asked to analyze and present my experiences with helping to build this cross-disciplinary community and particularly as the organizers tell me that they have modeled their series on the long-running and successful Digital Classicist one. I’m very much looking forward to visiting Leipzig and regret that I will not be able to stay for longer.