interview answers

1. Since I’ve worked with graduate students for the past four (actually six) years with two online projects (Women Writing and Reading and Canadian Women Writing and Reading from 1950) both originating in the Digital Humanities Research Studio (DHRS) at U of A, I am keenly interested in the sustainability and wide dissemination of these open-source products.

The first project, co-directed, was a series of digital and social experiments, involving different audiences and formats: interviews, video recorded panels and performances, sponsoring a hip-hop concert of poetry readings by street kids (ihuman), organizing an international conference on women’s writing, past and present, local and global, preparing different “skins” for the site to indicate different holdings–early modern, Victorian, contemporary. I wouldn’t want this site and all the work that went into it to simply evaporate and disappear from public view.

The second and current project consists of a massive database of Cdn women writers, mainly from 1950 to the present. The database considers women’s writing broadly; it includes the conventional genres of prose (short and long, fiction and non-fiction), drama, and poetry, as well as writing for children, journalism, letters, diaries, screen-writing, comics and graphic novels, popular romances, song-writing, musical composition), along with critical studies, time-lines, a catalogue of awards and prizes, selected interviews (with local and/or visiting writers). Such a resource needs to be maintained and updated. The current html format needs to be transferred to xml. And for inclusion in ORCA, bio-critical entries in Oxygen using an Orlando schema need to be completed. The continuation (maintenance, expansion, updating) of this project, which is one understanding of sustainability, is crucial.

2. Sustainability involves durability, relevance (yes, dreaded, contentious, and for some, archaic term!) and partnerships. I’ll start with the last one. I think it’s vital for Humanities and Computing Science people to communicate in mutually understood language, to collaborate in project design and implementation. What I’m talking about is much more than the meeting of “opposable minds” in an exercise of “integrative thinking,” as Roger Martin’s latest book (The Opposable Mind, 2009) is merchandising these concepts. I’m imagining a consortium or partnership or active collaboration possibly along the lines of Berkeley’s CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society). True, the Berkeley model is heavy on science, medicine, and engineering and light on the Arts, and their recent Sustainability Award was given to a Prof of Computational Linguistics. I notice that copyright reform and social media are topics in their Fall lecture series. Clearly there’s the value of networked projects and presentations. CITRIS also offers seed funding to colleagues at Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz. The funding page is worthwhile

Another feature of partnerships involves a range of funding opportunities. The Artmob project at York is partnered with Coach House Books, the Scream Literary Festival and the Cdn Writers in Person Lecture series; its funders include the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council, Canadian Heritage, and the Archival Community Digitization Program. They also issue quarterly email updates.

Durability and relevance are arguably interconnected notions. The announcement of an institutional repository ERA at the U of A is very welcome news. Like Cambridge’s DSpace it should provide maximum visibility and longevity. Relevance is, in a sense, distinct from safe storage. The topic of Canadian Writing embedded in CWRC should already argue for relevance as well as durability. It seems important to be able to update material or overlay with newer versions. The fact that the AHRC-funded Methods Network website will not be updated is a bit of a disappointment. However, the appearance of Hugh Brody, CRC in Aboriginal Studies, University of the Fraser Valley, as a researcher on their World Oral Lit project is intriguing.

3. It would be good if we could get a circulated transcript of Johann Drucker’s address in Edmonton in April, “Designing Humanities Tools in a Digital Context.”

The recommendations (pp. 29-40) of Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Report of the ACLS Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences are valuable benchmarks.

Canadian Journal of Higher Education 39, no. 3 (2009) Special Issue devoted to open access. Recommend Preface by Jean-Claude Guédon (i-v) and “Librarians and Libraries Supporting Open Access Publishing” (33-48) by Jennifer Richard, Denise Koufogiannakis, and Pam Ryan.