Found History

It’s hiring time again at CHNM. This time we’re looking for people with Drupal and multimedia experience. As reported earlier, we’re also hiring a tenure-track digital historian. We’ll be announcing additional openings in the next several weeks, so stay tuned.

Drupal/PHP Programmer

The Center for History and New Media is seeking an entry-level Drupal/PHP Programmer to work on digital humanities projects such as the National History Education Clearinghouse. This is a contract-funded, two-year position that is particularly appropriate for someone with a combined interest in technology, and the humanities and social sciences. Knowledge of Drupal and some combination of the following would be particularly helpful: JavaScript, CSS, XML, PHP, MySQL and object-oriented programming. Ability to work in a team is very important.

Apply online for position 10411z at http://jobs.gmu.edu/; then e-mail a resume, salary requirements, and a cover letter describing relevant programming projects and experience to chnm@gmu.edu with subject line “Drupal Programmer.” We will begin considering applications on September 2, 2008, and continue until the position is filled. Applications without a cover letter will not be considered.

Multimedia Developer

The Center for History and New Media is hiring a Multimedia Developer to work on a variety of innovative, Web-based history projects. This grant-funded position is particularly appropriate for someone with a combined interest in technology and history. The successful candidate will be an energetic, well-organized person who takes initiative; works well in a team; and learns new skills quickly. Experience with audio editing, video editing, Final Cut Pro and/or Flash preferred.

Please apply online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 10412z, then e-mail a cover letter, resume and links to any prior Web-based multimedia work to chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line “Multimedia Developer.” We will begin considering applications on September 2, 2008, and continue until the position is filled.

About CHNM and GMU

The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, which is known for innovative work in digital history, is located in Fairfax, Virginia, 15 miles from Washington, D.C., and is accessible by public transportation. George Mason University is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with national distinction in a range of academic fields. Enrollment is 30,000, with students studying in over 150 degree programs at campuses in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and the United Arab Emirates. GMU was recently named the #1 “Up-and-Coming” university by U.S. News & World Report.

Our friends at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) continue to do great things. This fall’s series of lunch-time “digital dialogues” with leaders in the field looks like a winner … and not simply because I’m on the program

Here’s the schedule:

• 9/9 Doug Reside (MITH and Theatre), “The MITHological AXE: Multimedia Metadata Encoding with the Ajax XML
  Encoder”
• 9/16 Stanley N. Katz (Princeton University), “Digital Humanities 3.0: Where We Have Come From and Where We Are
  Now?”
• 9/23 Joyce Ray (Institute of Museum and Library Services), “Digital Humanities and the Future of Libraries”
• 9/30 Tom Scheinfeldt and Dave Lester (George Mason University), “Omeka: Easy Web Publishing for Scholarship and
  Cultural Heritage”
• 10/7 Brent Seales (University of Kentucky), “EDUCE: Enhanced Digital Unwrapping for Conservation and Exploration”
• 10/14 Zachary Whalen (University of Mary Washington), “The Videogame Text”
• 10/21 Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Pomona College), “Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the
  Academy”
• 10/28 “War (and) Games” (a discussion in conjunction with the ARHU semester on War and Representations of War,
  facilitated by Matthew Kirschenbaum [English and MITH])
• 11/4 Bethany Nowviskie (University of Virginia), “New World Ordering: Shaping Geospatial Information for Scholarly
  Use”
• 11/11 Merle Collins (English), Saraka and Nation (film screening and discussion)
• 11/18 Ann Weeks (iSchool and HCIL), “The International Children’s Digital Library: An Introduction for Scholars”
• 11/25 Clifford Lynch (Coalition for Networked Information), title TBA
• 12/2 Elizabeth Bearden (English), “Renaissance Moving Pictures: From Sidney’s Funeral materials to Collaborative,
  Multimedia Nachleben”
• 12/9 Katie King (Women’s Studies), “Flexible Knowledges, Reenactments, New Media”

Dialogues are held Tuesdays at 12:30-1:45 in MITH’s conference room (B0135 McKeldin Library) on the main University of Maryland campus in College Park. All talks are free and open to the public.

New York University’s archives and public history program has posted an exciting opportunity for a qualified digital humanist. In the past few years the NYU program and its students have delved increasingly into the digital side of historical and archival work, and now they are looking for a digital curriculum specialist to help them solidify and formalize that new interest. Here’s the description:

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES/PUBLIC HISTORY PROGRAM
DIGITAL CURRICULUM SPECIALIST

New York University’s Archives and Public History Program (History Department) is now considering applications for a one-year grant-funded Digital Curriculum Specialist. The Program seeks a scholar experienced with the technical and intellectual issues in digital humanities to help the Program incorporate digital technologies throughout its curriculum and internship programs. The successful candidate will work with existing faculty to reconfigure existing courses, develop a digital history track within the program, provide technical services and conduct workshops for student and staff, create a platform for mounting student digital projects, and partner with archival and public history institutions in order to establish digital humanities internships for students. He or she will work closely with NYU’s Information Technology Services and Digital Library staff.

Qualifications: The successful candidate will have an advanced degree in either humanities or computer or information science, with a solid grounding in the issues and technologies relevant for humanities scholarship. Knowledge and experience with XML, XSLT, TEI, PHP programming, and Web 2.0 social networking technologies. Familiarity with archival metadata and digitization standards.

For three decades, NYU has prepared students for successful careers as archivists, manuscript curators, documentary editors, oral historians, cultural resource managers, historical interpreters and new media specialists. The program emphasizes a solid grounding in historical scholarship, intense engagement with new media technologies, and close involvement with New York’s extraordinary archival and public history institutions. For more information on the program, see http://history.fas.nyu.edu/object/history.gradprog.archivespublichistory.html

Salary and Benefits: Competitive depending on qualifications. Review of applications will begin on July 31, 2008 and will continue until the position is filled.

Please submit cover letter, curriculum vitae, and names of three references to:

Dr. Peter J. Wosh
Director, Archives/Public History Program
Department of History, New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
(212) 998-8666
(212) 995-4017 (fax)
pw1[at]nyu[dot]edu

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM, http://chnm.gmu.edu) at George Mason University invites expressions of interest to join the Center in applying to the National Endowment for the Humanities for one of NEH’s Fellowships at Digital Humanities Centers.

NEH Fellowships at Digital Humanities Centers (FDHC) support collaboration between digital centers and individual scholars. An award provides funding for both a stipend for the fellow while in residence at the center and a portion of the center’s costs for hosting a fellow. Awards are for periods of six to twelve months. The intellectual cooperation between the visiting scholar and the center may take many different forms and may involve humanities scholars of any level of digital expertise. Fellows may work exclusively on their own projects in consultation with center staff, collaborate on projects with other scholars affiliated with the center, function as “apprentices” on existing digital center projects, or any combination of these. The results of the collaboration may range from “proof of concept” to finished product.

The aims of the program are to 1) support innovative collaboration on outstanding digital research projects; 2) expand digital literacy and expertise; 3) promote the work of digital humanities centers; and 4) encourage broad and open access to the humanities. (For the full guidelines, see http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/fdhc.html)

CHNM plans to select a scholar for its application by July 31, 2008. Interested scholars should send a CV and a 2-3 pp. description of 1) their general interest in the fellowship and the Center; 2) what specifically they would like to work on during the term of the fellowship; 3) any experience they might have that is applicable to this work; and 4) how this work dovetails with any current Center projects (e.g. the National History Education Clearinghouse, Zotero, Omeka, the Bracero History Archive, etc.) Send these two documents to chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line “NEH Fellowship” as soon as possible. Applications will be reviewed as they come in, through July 31. The selected scholar will be notified soon thereafter, and CHNM will work with that scholar to submit a grant application to NEH by September 15, 2008.

Just before the launch of the Omeka public beta in late February, my colleagues and I had a brief conversation about metrics for the project and what would constitute success. The number we settled on for the three year lifespan of our IMLS grant was 1000 downloads. A little modest maybe—10,000 was our pie-in-the-sky figure—but considering Omeka’s primary audience consists of cultural heritage institutions (as opposed to individual end users) we thought 1000 institutions in three years would constitute a fairly big splash.

Little did we know that we would reach our goal in matter of 10 weeks. By May we had passed our target of 1000 downloads, and our current count stands at more than 1300.

At the same time, we know that number of downloads isn’t a perfect measure of success. When it comes to assessing use of the software, just as important as how many is how well. We know we have to make sure that test installations don’t sit unused. In this regard, we are encouraged by the increasingly heavy traffic in our user forums, our Google Groups developers’ list, and our “sandbox” public test installation. People are really banging on the software, pushing it to its limits, finding and fixing lots of bugs. That means they are really using it, which is exactly what we want. Yet we also have to make sure that people are using those installations to full effect. Here we are working hard to improve our documentation, to provide a comprehensive set of screencast video tutorials, and to build and release a host of new, freely downloadable design themes and plugins. Finally, we are taking the tremendous amount of feedback we have received, both through these channels and through the many presentations and workshops we have given, and incorporating it into a major rewrite of the software itself—Omeka 0.10.0 is scheduled for release in late summer or early fall 2008.

In February I said that Omeka is intended for all. Some have said this is wishful thinking, that Omeka is still too complicated to be used by the smallest of institutions or individual enthusiasts, students, or scholars. Obviously I disagree, and I would make two arguments in response.

First, a big part of our plan is a hosted version of the software. Our model is WordPress. On the one hand, people with access to a server (or an account of one of dozens of shared hosting services) and some relatively modest technical skills can set up their own Omeka installation, just as they can download and install the WordPress server application. On the other hand, beginning in 2009, people without a server or the necessary skills will be able to sign up for an account at theirname.omeka.net and we will host the software for them, just as they can sign up for a hosted blog at theirname.wordpress.com.

Second, we’re going to try. We’re not willing to write small institutions off. To this end we are working one-on-one with small institutions such as the Laurel Grove School, which with our help will publish a document-based curriculum and virtual tour using Omeka. We are also reaching out more broadly through state humanities councils. Last month, for instance, I spent a day with Margie McLellan and Mark Tebeau at the Ohio Humanities Council presenting Omeka to a group of about 50 representatives from small and medium sized cultural heritage institutions from across the state. We are now engaged in further talks with the Council about ways to connect small institutions across Ohio with experienced Omeka users and developers in the state to form partnerships that will extend their capabilities. Our hope is that we develop a model that can be reproduced in states across the country, fostering not only wider use of Omeka and more professional online exhibitions, but also new partnerships between small cultural heritage institutions, humanities councils, local web designers, state colleges and universities, and others.

We don’t expect everyone to be able to use Omeka on his or her own. But collaboration has always been key to all digital humanities and cultural heritage work. Thus we’re working directly and indirectly to facilitate new models of collaboration around Omeka, and we hope these models will let let any institution or individual, in partnership with us or a third party and using the technologies and resources we make available, build standards-based, professional-looking, rich-content online collections and exhibitions.

That’s our goal and we’re sticking to it.