Participants listening intently at the introductory session of THATCamp #OzHA2013.

Everyone pitched in and helped us have a great day at THATCamp #OzHA2013.  At our introductory session we decided to start with a session on mapping stories and for our second session discuss our projects and digitisation.  We finished the day by discussing collaboration.

Penny Hyde and Stephani Riccardi recorded the discussion in the two main sessions:

• Mapping Stories
• Projects

We also shared what we learned on Twitter.  Check out our back channel on Storify.  There are some great digital humanities links to explore in both the Google docs and Storify records of the proceedings.

By the end of the day we ran out of steam to record our short ‘collaboration’ session, so I will share some links in this post.  We shared some of these links during the session and some I have added afterwards because I think they are useful.

We started with discussing what is the ‘digital humanities’.  The following articles on this question are useful:

• Kirschenbaum, Matthew G., ‘What is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?‘, ADE Bulletin, 150, 2010, pp. 55-61.
• Svensson, Patrik, ‘The Landscape of Digital Humanities‘, Digital Humanities Quarterly, 4(1), 2010.

You can also flick through short definitions contributed by participants in the Day of DH between 2009 and 2012.  Just keep refreshing the page to see the various comments.

Pondering in session.

As this THATCamp was affiliated to the annual conference of the Australian Historical Association it was appropriate to share an initiative that arose from a recent THATCamp in North America: Digital Historians: for people who do more than use The Google.

Despite extensive searching of the internet sometimes it is hard to find the answer to a particular digital humanities question.  It is at times like these we can turn to Digital Humanities Questions & Answers.

Want to catch up on digital humanities news from around the world?  The place to go is Digital Humanities Now.

During the collaboration session we wanted to know more about the digital humanities community in our part of the world so of course we mentioned the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities.  Next year’s digital humanities conference is in Perth.  In the mean time it is a good idea to join the aaDH: Digital Humanities Google Group.  This group is great for keeping in touch with digital humanities events in Australian and New Zealand, as well as other items of interest from around the world.  From this list I’ve found out that  THATCamp Wellington is scheduled for 28th November.

We had a fruitful day of discussion and sharing.  The conversation then turned to how to keep the exchange going once the day was over.  As most of those present were from Sydney we decided to organise regular Sydney meetups.  A couple of participants offered to find a venue at their organisations.  We want to make this meetup open to anyone interested in digital humanities in Sydney, not just the participants at this THATCamp.  We’ll share news of this soon.

The venue for THATCamp #OzHA2013: The Smart Building, University of Wollongong.

THATCamp #OzHA2013 is the result of an idea and the work of a few people behind the scenes.  Thanks go to Tim Sherratt for proposing that a THATCamp be attached to the Australian Historical Association conference, finding other volunteers for the organising committee and donating the registration fees from his workshop at the conference to help us with the catering and other expenses.  Tim Wray was the only member of the organising committee who was based at University of Wollongong so he did a lot of the logistical work to help make this THATCamp happen.  Dave Earl (organiser of the t-shirts), Ben Mercer and I were also on the organising committee.

A big thank you to University of Wollongong for giving us free use of their new ‘Smart Building‘ and free WiFi access for all participants during the day.

And finally thank you to a bunch of great participants who came to THATCamp with ideas and an eagerness to contribute. You made our day!

Please share your thoughts on THATCamp #OzHA2013 in the comments below.  If you have written a blog post about the day  we would love to read about it – add a link in your comment.

Tim Wray (@timwray87) has started us a spreadsheet on Google docs which will be used during the planning session tomorrow. We can all edit it in real time.

Tim has also thoughtfully drawn up some campus map images showing how to get from to the SMART building from the free shuttle bus stop.

#THATCamp #OzHA2013 is all set to go at 9:30am Saturday morning.

We’re meeting in the foyer of the SMART building, University of Wollongong at 9:30am (Campus map, building 6).

We have t-shirts for those who registered early enough, free food, free wifi, and a great venue. Thanks to Tim Sherrat (@wragge) for making a very generous cash donation, and the University of Wollongong, for providing us with internetz and the venue free of charge.

It’s not too late to propose a session.

The venue for THATCamp #OzHA2013: Building 6, on the main University of Wollongong campus.

The wonderful IT support at University of Wollongong have organised free wifi connections for all participants at THATCamp #OzHA2013!  We had a walk-through of the venue this morning and it looks good – connectivity, comfort and a generally conducive environment for sharing.

If you haven’t yet registered, go to the Register page and fill it in right now.  We have still have some spaces left.

We look forward to seeing you at 9:30am Saturday morning!

One thing to consider might be how we can use (and manage) “the crowd” in digital humanities. I’m thinking of this broadly, from collaborations such as “Transcribe Bentham” and text corrections and comments on Trove (for example the anachronism issue), to the management of comments on blogs and collaboration on wikis.

Food for thought before the day might be:

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past.” Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (2006): 117 – 46. www.csupomona.edu/~zywang/Rosenzweig.pdf

Causer, Tim, Justin Tonra, and Valerie Wallace. “Transcription Maximised; Expense Minimised? Crowdsourcing and Editing the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 27, no. 2 (2012): 119-37. bit.ly/1a9v04F

Waters, Neil L. “Why You Can’t Cite Wikipedia in My Class.” Communications of the ACM 50, no. 9 (September 2007): 15-17. www2.hawaii.edu/~nreed/ics313/lectures/Waters07wikipedia.pdf

Macnamara, Jim. 2013. Google’s Map of North Korea Stirs Social Media Passion and Tensions. < theconversation.edu.au/googles-map-of-north-korea-stirs-social-media-passion-and-tensions-11858 >, 30th January 2013.

Madsen-Brooks, Leslie. “‘I Nevertheless Am a Historian’: Digital Historical Practice and Malpractice around Black Confederate Soldiers.” In Writing History in the Digital Age: A Born-Digital, Open-Review Volume, edited by Kristen Nawrotzki and Jack Dougherty. < writinghistory.trincoll.edu/ >, 2012.

Despite ongoing negotiations with the University’s IT Department, it looks as if Wollongong University will be pressing ahead with major work on their network on the 13th of July.

This seems to mean that there will be no free wifi available on campus, and also that the PCs linked to the projectors won’t have internet access, and might possibly work at all.

So we need to bring our own internet.

Who is able and willing to provide wifi access either through wireless phone tethering or through a portable wireless hotspot.

Please use the comments section below to report on what you can bring. The target is 30.

Tally so far: 13.

Ok, so the t-shirt order will be happening this afternoon! Thoughts on the design: comments will be open in 4pm AEST.

If you register before 4pm on Wednesday the 3rd of July, you can have a free THATCamp #OzHA2013 t-shirt*!!

Pictures coming soon.

* You must actually come and pick it up on the day.

Anyone else interested in digital mapping? I would like to propose a session on mapping historical data. What tools could be used to map stories and narratives, to represent visually the movement of people and things, or to show geographical clusters of particular archives or stories? I can share my limited knowledge of Simile Exhibit and Google Maps, and would be keen to hear from others about the tools they have used in their research (successfully or unsuccessfully!).

As many campers will be busy in the week leading up to THATCamp #OzHA2013, we’re suggesting that you start posting your session proposals now.

Once you’ve registered for THATCamp #OzHA2013, you can propose a session by posting on this blog.

Take a look at the Propose Page for more information about how to propose a session, and the types of sessions usually proposed.