adapted to the Blackwell DTD by Jonathan Gorman
Cite as: A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John
Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/
Presented with the permission of
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8. Literary Studies
9. Music
10. Multimedia
11. Performing Arts
12. "Revolution? What Revolution?" Successes and Limits of Computing Technologies in Philosophy and Religion
Part II: Principles
13. How the Computer Works
14. Classification and its Structures
15. Databases
16. Marking Texts of Many Dimensions
17. Text Encoding
18. Electronic Texts: Audiences and Purposes
19. Modeling: A Study in Words and Meanings
Part III: Applications
20. Stylistic Analysis and Authorship Studies
21. Preparation and Analysis of Linguistic Corpora
22. Electronic Scholarly Editing
23. Textual Analysis
24. Thematic Research Collections
25. Print Scholarship and Digital Resources
26. Digital Media and the Analysis of Film
27. Cognitive Stylistics and the Literary Imagination
28. Multivariant Narratives
29. Speculative Computing: Aesthetic Provocations in Humanities Computing
30. Robotic Poetics
Part IV: Production, Dissemination, Archiving
31. Designing Sustainable Projects and Publications
32. Conversion of Primary Sources
33. Text Tools
34. So the Colors Cover the Wires : Interface, Aesthetics, and Usability
35. Intermediation and its Malcontents: Validating Professionalism in the Age of Raw Dissemination
36. The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Libraries
37. Preservation
Palmer
Thematic Research Collections
24.
Thematic Research Collections
Carole L. Palmer
Introduction
The analogy of the library as the laboratory of the humanities has always been an exaggeration. For
most humanities scholars, it has been rare to find the necessary materials for a research project
amassed in one place, as they are in a laboratory setting. Thematic research collections are digital
resources that come closer to this ideal. Where in the past scholars produced documents from source
material held in the collections of libraries, archives, and museums, they are now producing
specialized scholarly resources that constitute research collections. Scholars have recognized that
information technologies open up new possibilities for re-creating the basic resources of research
and that computing tools can advance and transform work with those resources (Unsworth 1996
Thematic research collections are evolving as a new genre of scholarly production in response to
these opportunities. They are digital aggregations of primary sources and related materials that
support research on a theme.
Thematic research collections are being developed in tandem with the continuing collection
development efforts of libraries, archives, and museums. These institutions have long served as
storehouses and workrooms for research and study in the humanities by collecting and making
accessible large bodies of diverse material in many subject areas. Thousands of extensive,
specialized research collections have been established, but they are often far removed from the
scholars and students who wish to work with them. In recent years, many institutions have begun to
digitally reformat selected collections and make them more widely available on the Web for use by
researchers, students, and the general public.
Humanities scholars are participating in this movement, bringing their subject expertise and acumen
to the collection development process. In taking a thematic approach to aggregating digital research
materials, they are producing circumscribed collections, customized for intensive study and analysis
8. Literary Studies
9. Music
10. Multimedia
11. Performing Arts
12. "Revolution? What Revolution?" Successes and Limits of Computing Technologies in Philosophy and Religion
Part II: Principles
13. How the Computer Works
14. Classification and its Structures
15. Databases
16. Marking Texts of Many Dimensions
17. Text Encoding
18. Electronic Texts: Audiences and Purposes
19. Modeling: A Study in Words and Meanings
Part III: Applications
20. Stylistic Analysis and Authorship Studies
21. Preparation and Analysis of Linguistic Corpora
22. Electronic Scholarly Editing
23. Textual Analysis
24. Thematic Research Collections
25. Print Scholarship and Digital Resources
26. Digital Media and the Analysis of Film
27. Cognitive Stylistics and the Literary Imagination
28. Multivariant Narratives
29. Speculative Computing: Aesthetic Provocations in Humanities Computing
30. Robotic Poetics
Part IV: Production, Dissemination, Archiving
31. Designing Sustainable Projects and Publications
32. Conversion of Primary Sources
33. Text Tools
34. So the Colors Cover the Wires : Interface, Aesthetics, and Usability
35. Intermediation and its Malcontents: Validating Professionalism in the Age of Raw Dissemination
36. The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Libraries
37. Preservation
Palmer
Thematic Research Collections
24.
Thematic Research Collections
Carole L. Palmer
Introduction
The analogy of the library as the laboratory of the humanities has always been an exaggeration. For
most humanities scholars, it has been rare to find the necessary materials for a research project
amassed in one place, as they are in a laboratory setting. Thematic research collections are digital
resources that come closer to this ideal. Where in the past scholars produced documents from source
material held in the collections of libraries, archives, and museums, they are now producing
specialized scholarly resources that constitute research collections. Scholars have recognized that
information technologies open up new possibilities for re-creating the basic resources of research
and that computing tools can advance and transform work with those resources (Unsworth 1996
Thematic research collections are evolving as a new genre of scholarly production in response to
these opportunities. They are digital aggregations of primary sources and related materials that
support research on a theme.
Thematic research collections are being developed in tandem with the continuing collection
development efforts of libraries, archives, and museums. These institutions have long served as
storehouses and workrooms for research and study in the humanities by collecting and making
accessible large bodies of diverse material in many subject areas. Thousands of extensive,
specialized research collections have been established, but they are often far removed from the
scholars and students who wish to work with them. In recent years, many institutions have begun to
digitally reformat selected collections and make them more widely available on the Web for use by
researchers, students, and the general public.
Humanities scholars are participating in this movement, bringing their subject expertise and acumen
to the collection development process. In taking a thematic approach to aggregating digital research
materials, they are producing circumscribed collections, customized for intensive study and analysis
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