“The surprise was this: going through this thing was not only not-scary, it was incredibly fun.” – Ethan Reed, “Getting Under the Hood With Arduino” Scholars’ Lab

Work together to learn about Arduino microcontrollers and make a LED blink. As a group, we will work through the Adafruit Getting Started Lessons to learn the basic components, download the necessary software, download or write a sketch, and run our first programs. We will also discuss and explore potential applications for libraries and the digital humanities.

Participants will need a laptop and be able to install the Arduino IDE. 10 kits will be available to session attendees.

Working Document – Arduino & the Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities -or any new form of digital scholarship- can also bring new technical challenges.  In a 2015 EDUCAUSE article The Digital Humanities Are Alive and Well and Blooming: Now What?, the author raised the question “what about those innovative digital resources that are not quite large enough to be self-sustaining?”  Examples of such (DHs) projects might include: digital archives, online exhibits, digital storytelling sites, wiki or blog sites for presenting research results, companion sites for print publications, etc.  In this session, let’s talk about the infrastructure and sustainability aspects of DHs projects.  Potential leading/discussion points can include: best practices for running popular and stable software tools for DHs, hosting options (local vs cloud) for DHs, funding options for DHs after they “end”, DHs ownership and responsibilities for “finished” projects, etc.

What are the digital repository and longer term preservation use cases for the Digital Humanities?  Are these use cases different or parallel to use cases from other fields?  Are there best practices to be incorporated into Digital Humanities projects – when longer term preservation is desired?

Scholar@UC is in production as the institutional repository for the University of Cincinnati.  Partnered by the University of Cincinnati Libraries and IT@UC, it is sustained by a commitment to digital preservation.  It is based on open source software furthered by Project Hydra.   Let’s collaboratively explore how a digital repository such as Scholar@UC can actively support the Digital Humanities.

submitted by Linda Newman, Head of Digital Collections and Repositories, University of Cincinnati Libraries.

“If you build it, they will come”- ?

Libraries have ever more sophisticated user interfaces for discovering collections and services. But are we really meeting users where they live?

Would users find more value in library services and collections if they were available where they already are?  Mobile, Blackboard (Or other Learning sytems), Portals?

What about customization? Should users be able to save (my journals, my articles) resources?

What about other tools (Browzine).

Let’s Brainstorm!