office of digital humanities perry collins senior program officer [email protected] @perrycollins
TRANSCRIPT
Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities
PRESENTATION – PERRY COLLINS, NED ODH
Emerging priorities and strategies for digital humanities funding
SPONSORED BY ASIS&T SIG-AH & SIG-VIS
HOSTED BY SJSU ASIS&T
In 1949, Roberto Busa convinced IBM founder Thomas Watson to assist him in creating a compute-generated concordance of the complete works of Thomas Aquinas. It was completed in 1967.
• 1963: IBM Chairman Thomas Watson Jr. joins the National Commission on the Humanities. One year later they issue a report recommending the nation create a federal agency to fund humanities research.
• 1964 – 1965: IBM funds a series of seven major conferences to explore the humanities and computing. They take place at Rutgers, Yale, UCLA, the Consortium of Universities in Washington, DC, Purdue, Boston University, and IBM’s Yorktown Heights research center.
• 1966: IBM and the US Steel Foundation support the creation of a new scholarly journal, Computers and the Humanities.
• 1966: In cooperation with the ACLS, IBM offers ACLS-IBM Post-Doctoral Research Awards to scholars doing digital humanities.
• 1967: IBM’s Edward Bowles edits Computers in Humanistic Research (Prentice-Hall), a collection of essays and likely the first book dedicated to digital humanities.
(And the digital humanities)
1965: President Johnson signs legislation creating the NEH
1966: NEH’s First Call for Grants
When NEH announced its first call for grants, listed among the types of projects it wanted to support were “grants for development of humanistically oriented computer research.”
Source: “Rise of the Machines”, NEH’s Humanities, July/August 2013
1967: NEH grant to support a “conference to explore potential application of computer science to the advancement of research in the humanities.”
Skipping ahead 30 years…
1996: NEH’s Division of Research & Education launches the 3-year Teaching with Technology initiative.
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
NEH's Support forHumanities, Science, and Technology:
Accomplishments and Future Prospects
A Report of theNEH Working Group on
Humanities, Science, and Technology
2000: NEH Issues Report Calling for More Humanities Work Intersecting with Science & Technology
2006: ACLS releases “Our Cultural Commonwealth,” a report of the ACLS Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities.
The commission was led by John Unsworth.
Recommendations from ACLS Report:
• Federal funding agencies and private foundations should establish programs that develop and support expertise in digital humanities… (Our Cultural Commonwealth, p. 6.)
• Universities and university consortia should develop new and support existing humanities and social sciences computing centers. (p. 6)
• NSF, NEH, IMLS, the Mellon Foundation, and other funding agencies should support the development of tools for the analysis of digital content. (p. 7)
• The NEA, NEH, and IMLS should work together to promote collaboration…. (p. 7)
• 2006: NEH invites scholars to Washington for the DHI Mini-Conference. This brainstorming event is designed to help the NEH launch a new Digital Humanities Initiative.
• 2006: NEH announces first grants under the DHI.
• 2008: NEH announces the establishment of the Office of Digital Humanities.
Establishment of the Office of Digital Humanities
Funding Across NEH Divisions
Federal/State (for State Humanities Councils)
$42.4M
Division of Preservation & Access $15.4M
Division of Research $14.8M
Division of Public Programs $13.7M
Division of Education $13.2M
Office of Challenge Grants $8.4M
Office of Digital Humanities $4.4M
Core ODH Programs
• Research (broadly considered)– Start-Up Grants
• Developing innovative practices (analysis, communication, education)
– Implementation Grants• Moving innovative projects past start-up phase for wide impact
• Expertise– Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities
• Developing human infrastructure
• International Collaboration– DFG/NEH Bilateral Digital Humanities Grants– Digging Into Data
• What do you do with a million….?
Collaborating on a new scale
Building our human infrastructure
Studying technology &
digital culture
• Can I break up my project into multiple proposals?
• How can I frame my proposal for different funders?
• Is the project worthwhile for everyone on the team?
• What else is going on in the field?
• How can I get the word out?
• Who can I ask for help?
Getting Started
Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities
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