Ready to "level up" your digital humanities (DH) game? DH offers theological librarians new opportunities to collaborate with their communities. Drawing on our experience with a graduate seminar in DH at Vanderbilt Divinity School, we discuss how to equip librarians to foster digital scholarship in areas such as digital textual editions, geospatial apps, open access publishing, and network analyses. Discover how DH transforms faculty and librarian relations from a service model to a partnership model.

1. Doing Digital Humanities
in Theological Libraries
Clifford B. Anderson
Chris Benda
Eileen Crawford
@andersoncliffb@vandylibraries or #VandyDH

2. Who We Are

3. DEFINING DIGITAL
HUMANITIES
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

4. What is Digital Humanities?

5. How We Define DH

6. Kinds of Digital Humanities

7. Text Encoding Initiative

8. Network Analysis

9. Data Analysis and Visualization

10. Distant Reading

11. Natural Language Processing

12. Educational Gaming

13. Geographic Information
Systems

14. Family Resemblances

15. Collaborative

16. Open Source

17. Generative

18. Research-Driven

19. LEARN SOME TOOLS
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

20. TEI and XQuery
• TEI: Text Encoding Initiative
– Guidelines for encoding (marking up) texts
– Application of XML
• XQuery
– A query language for XML
– Enables you to do something with what
you’ve marked up using TEI

21. An Example:
Fleurs du mal project
• Bandy Center at Vanderbilt
• TEI version(s) of the several editions of
Fleurs du mal
• Using XQuery to create a Web version of
the work

22. A (relatively easily readable) version of
“À Théodore de Banville”
from Fleurs du mal

23. (FleursDuMal.org, http://fleursdumal.org/poem/300 )

24. A TEI version of “À Théodore de Banville”

26. That was the poem.
This is header metadata:

28. Using XQuery on Fleurs du mal

29. XQuery Working Group

36. DO A COLLABORATIVE
PROJECT
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

38. The Web site

39. The Syriac Gazetteer

40. An entry in the Gazetteer

41. Dave Michelson on library collaboration

43. DO A LIBRARY PROJECT
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

44. Revised Common Lectionary
and Responsive Web Design
“Anything is Possible with
Technology”

45. Online Revised Common
Lectionary
• Vision of Anne Womack Richardson
(1995)
• Purpose
– To provide internet reference and resource
access
– To provide opportunity for spiritual reflection
• Technology – UNIX based server – FTP
connection to upload files – HTML coded
by hand

47. Revised Common Lectionary
Timeline Highlights
• Nov. 1995 announced on ATLANTIS
• 1999 moved to NT server
– Unix based server, FTP connection, HTML coding
• 2001-05 complete redesign of web pages
– CSS, templates to regularize code, images added
• 2008-09 migration to database delivery
mechanism and web 2.0
– built using PHP with a MySQL database backend
- also Javascript and jQuery plugins

48. Revised Common Lectionary Today
• Most heavily used online resource in VU
library system
• 100,000 unique visits from 180 countries
each month
• Mobile use has grown to 1/3 of the total
• Daily comments from users
– expressing gratitude, suggesting
enhancements and submitting corrections

49. User Driven Enhancements
• RCL biblical texts formatted as PDF’s
• Lectionary calendar–can import readings
into desktop calendars, IOS and android
phones
• Significant increase in art offerings
• Daily lectionary readings
• Mobile-friendly apps for mobile devices?

51. Dean’s Fellows
• Designed to create in depth learning
experience for students
– Enrico Caruso Postcard Project
– Letters of Flannery O’Connor: a social
network analysis
– Map Digitization Project (Tenn. Maps since
1790)
– Minecraft Project (geological world of
Vanderbilt Univ.)

52. Responsive Web Design for
RCL
• Selected as one of five Dean’s Fellow
projects approved for Summer 2015
• Building a model
– Examining RCL analytics
– Researching best practices
– Proposing an implementation plan
– Create mockups of site on variety of display
sizes (small mobile phone to large desktop)

53. Lian Liu
• RCL Dean’s Fellow
• Guangzhou,
Guangdong Province,
China
• Computer Science,
M.S. student

54. RCL Project Team
• Lian Liu-Deans
Fellow
• Anne Womack
Richardson-Digital
Projects Librarian
• Jodie Gambill-
Systems Librarian

55. Responsive Design as a
Mobile Friendly Approach
Tablet View iPhone 3.5 View

56. Lian’s assignments
• Google analytics rankings for RCL pages
• Photoshop – 4 courses (25 hours)
• Create mock-ups using Photoshop – failed
• Instead – website wireframes of RCL
pages
• Present biweekly to Dean’s Fellows and
their mentors

57. Lian’s Concerns
• Inadequacies of RWD
– Left navigation column (the Years), according
to Google Analytics, is frequently used
– If Years is put in a Bootstrap container, then
site becomes longer and more crowded on
phone
• Although Lian is not expected to fully code
a new site, he has discovered that design
and coding are less separate than in past

58. 6/8 Meeting Decisions
• Lian will provide a viable Responsive web
design using Photoshop’s PSD file for
mock-ups
• “Don’t Make Me Think” (web designers
guidance on intuitive navigation and
information design)

59. Some References
• Dean’s Fellow
program:http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/a
bout/deansfellows.php
• Bill Hook’s presentation on the Lectionary
Evolution of an Online Publication

60. DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP
WORKSHOPS
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

61. Workshop Series

62. Topics

63. Get Started With Us…

64. Broadcasting Workshops

65. DIGITAL HUMANITIES
COURSES
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

66. Spring 2014

67. Technologies

68. Student Projects
• "Indivisible Content and Form: A Prototype of Image Citation in the
Syriaca.org Projects," Tucker Hannah
• "Finding Colophons in Syriaca.org: Exploring the TEI Encoding
Model," Justin Arnwine and Anthony Davis
• "Using DIMLI to Create a Digital Catalog of Early Christian
Sarcophagi," Julia Nations-Quiroz and Mark Ellison
• "Encoding U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation Files
on Conscientious Objectors from World War I," Joshua Jeffery
• "Scriptural Focal Points in Hymns that Reference the Book of Job,"
Aaron Doenges

69. XQUERY SUMMER INSTITUTE
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

70. NEH Advanced Institutes

71. XQuery Summer Institute

72. XQuery

73. Sharing Experiences

74. On Teaching XQuery
• Anderson, Clifford B. “On Teaching
XQuery to Digital Humanists.” Presented
at Balisage: The Markup Conference
2014, Washington, DC, August 5 - 8, 2014.
In Proceedings of Balisage: The Markup
Conference 2014. Balisage Series on
Markup Technologies, vol. 13 (2014).
doi:10.4242/BalisageVol13.Anderson01.

75. GETTING STARTED WITH DH
AT YOUR INSTITUTION
Doing Digital Humanities…in Theological Libraries

76. Some Ideas
• Identify Your Ambitions and Skills
• Start Releasing Your Work as Open
Source
• Hold A Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon
• Organize Campus DH Working Groups
• Speak with Faculty about Adding DH
Projects to their Courses
• Collaborate Cross-Institutionally on DH