May 20, 2014, by Matt Davies

Welcome to the DHC blog

The Digital Humanities Centre (DHC) opened –along with the rest of the Humanities Building – back in September of 2011, the two and a half years since have been incredibly busy and have seen the DHC go from strength to strength. We have been involved in a steadily growing number of events, projects, initiatives and partnerships many of which have been announced on Facebook, tweeted about on Twitter, photographed and shared on Flickr or filmed and uploaded to You Tube and I would, of course, advise you to ‘like’, ‘follow’, …erm peruse, and monitor all of these social media offerings. However, it has recently occurred to me that a blog would provide a useful complementary platform upon which we can expand, discuss, debate and have a good old muse on all that goes on here in the DHC and in the broader world of the Digital Humanities, Higher Education, the Arts, and other related industries which have been  affected by the so-called ‘digital revolution’ of the last ten years.

There will be blogs on the evolution of the DHC and how we hope to see it developing, on the many projects, activities and events which go on in here and indeed those in which DHC personnel get involved beyond the space. We’ll have blogs from our resident artist, Leonardo Fellow James Smith and the ground breaking 3D project that he has been working on here in the DHC which will be exhibited in May at The Collection in Lincolnshire. I’ll keep you up to date on some of things that I get involved with as chair of the Arts Libraries Society (ARLIS) UK and Ireland’s Visual Resource Committee –we’re just putting the final touches to what looks to be a promising event; ‘The Art of Seeing: teaching visual literacy in the library and classroom‘ which takes place in June. We’ll also discuss the ‘Digital Humanities’ as a discipline; is it something which Arts students and researchers need to embrace? or indeed has the digital humanities’ ‘bubble of expectation’ already ‘popped’ as an ‘Inside Higher Ed’ blog recently asserted?

There will also be blogs from members of the DHC Volunteer Scheme which, I believe, has been our biggest success so far. Each September new volunteers arrive in DHC bringing with them a variety of skills and ideas. When they leave they take away new, or advanced digital skills, valuable work and project experience (some of which is used to gain credits on the Nottingham Advantage Award) and a new social and professional network. They assist users during weekly two hour ‘shifts’ in the DHC- where they are easily identifiable in their multi-coloured DHC shirts- and work on a number of  projects, PR exercises, events and visits- all of which they will be blogging about here. It is hugely gratifying for us to learn that former volunteers have already been able to use the skills and experience gained here in DHC to help them in the job market and we’re hoping to get some of our DHC alumni to blog on what they are up to and how some of the skills that they picked up here in DHC have helped them out in the big wide world!

In the meantime I guess I ought to explain just exactly what the DHC is!

 

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