Just on a whim: Is anyone coming through (or departing) the New Haven area in the wee hours of Wednesday morning who could give me a ride? I’m trying to make my transit more sensible, but have to work it out so I’m up to Boston and back on Wednesday.

Central IT often plays a minor role in supporting innovative digital humanities work, which is frequently concentrated in (digital) humanities centers and libraries. One of the factors contributing to this is the central IT tendency to pursue one-size-fits-all/none systems that target extremely generic needs (e.g. hosting for static web page, file storage space, etc.) If you could choose what the fundamental systems, platforms, and staff expertise central IT would have to provide a reasonable level of support for digital humanities (and free up resources elsewhere for projects with needs beyond the core supported tools), what would they be?

There’s no shortage of portals of information about digital humanities, from DH Answers for Q&A, NINES/ARC for temporally-oriented resources, DHCommons for projects, Bamboo DiRT for tools, TAPoR for text analysis, THATCamp, Day of DH, MLA Commons, and many others. Are we missing something? Are there ways that these resources could work better together? (Better data exchange or cross-site workflows? Not having to remember a different set of credentials for each site?) I’m interested in hearing people’s wish lists for how to improve the information ecosystem around technology and the humanities.

If there is interest (and space), I’m interested in setting up what has variously been called the “Craft Cabin” or the “Analog Remix Lab,” but what I think I’m going to call “Analog Hackerspace.”

Past incarnation: THATCampSoCal2011, and here is my write up of it. With all the discussion of making, and building, and designing, I have found the most analog of activities to be incredibly inspirational for digital projects. We could all have a chance to hack our #MLA13 badges (Though probably not in quite as many ways as the DefCon 17 badges, or maybe!)

There are two inspirations: First, I had amazing conversations at the craft table at THATCampSoCal2011, and those conversations directly informed my thinking on all things humanities and technology. Second, THATCamp can be overwhelming! Especially the big ones! And a space to chill out and absorb can be great.

This second insight is brought at least in part by the overwhelming answer “YES!” I had in response to @digiwonk’s post Social Work: Emotional Labour and the Core Mission. One of the criticisms we hear (and I know we hear it because I have occasionally been the one to voice it!) about technology oriented gatherings is that we are not welcoming enough to people for whom “all of this” is new. We use too many acronyms, to many shortcuts; we hack ourselves out of comprehensibility. At #THATCamp Prime this year, participants were encouraged to tweet and hashtag #jargon when they needed help with new words, and I think that was a great service, proposed by Patrick Murray-John.

If we find the space, I will encourage everyone to contribute! Bring your string, your rubber stamps, your stickers, and your glitter! We’ll have great conversations and perhaps make this the most glam THATCamp ever!