I am the Director of Information Technology for Weinberg College, having joined Northwestern in 2010. The past two years have allowed me to meet a number of people engaged in various uses of technology as part of academic pursuits, which only emphasized the need for me to learn more about many areas outside “traditional IT”.
Digital humanities has been one of those areas, and the ambiguity of its definition has been a challenge for someone who has not been a humanist (or academic of any sort). So far, I am inclined toward a “bigger tent” definition that includes both builders/makers and users/practitioners. I can envision people who use technology for humanities work today be looking to build new tools and platforms tomorrow and inspire succeeding generations of DHers. Interestingly, a career in IT can follow a similar progression: a desktop/laptop support person who uses specific tools and technologies becomes a systems architect or application developer who creates new tools and technologies.
More than anything, I am eager to participate as someone who comes from a non-academic background to learn not only about DH but also about the academic roots that fuel its growth.
Chris — Thanks for coming to the first NUDHL meeting. I think it is so important to have IT, scholars, librarians, staff joining into this strange, hybrid space of exploring the digital humanities. Your perspective is invaluable, and just as scholarly as any of the scholars to my mind. As Claire wrote so eloquently in her post about the Vesalius project (and as I have found in my own research and teaching) something really intellectually exciting can happen in the interactions between scholars and IT folks. It reminds me that I need to read that Ed Ayers essay, “Academic Culture and IT Culture” again: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0462.pdf. My sense is that it points to some of the disconnects between IT and scholars, but also perhaps points of intersection. I also was thinking about your comments on the internal debates within IT. Sometimes, to me, the internal debates within disciplines and institutional divides can be really productive to bring into interdisciplinary spaces to clarify and sharpen them. In any event, thanks again for your participation in the group. It’s important to have you, Adam, and others from the technology side of things involved as much as possible. You all have a lot to offer intellectually to this endeavor. Best, Michael