On Wednesday the point that I was trying, largely unsuccessfully I think, to bring across in our final discussion stems from a realization that I have made over the past year or so, namely that, to put it rather glibly, the humanities are long and life is short.  Yes, I know that there are big issues at stake for those who are struggling to forge an academic career in a time of shrinking budgets and large-scale adjunctification of the professorate, but I just don’t have the patience for, or see the value in, squabbling over territory.  I think there are really exciting things happening right now in the humanities around open, accessible, and processable information structures, things largely made possible by a growing spirit of collaboration among cultural heritage institutions, government agencies, universities, and even commercial (gasp!) technology companies — and to spend time carding people at the entrance seems like a colossal waste of time.  As someone who at one point poured a fair amount of himself into seeking a tenure-track academic job, I have come around to this viewpoint less easily and willingly than did Andrew Prescott (see: http://digitalriffs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/small-worlds-and-big-tents.html), but I think I largely share his view that the current debate seems rather parochial, and once you no longer have a dog in that fight, the fight starts to seem pretty boring.  It’s a bit like reading the comments section attached to articles on the Chronicle website — a little goes a very long way.

That having been said, reading comment flame-wars is often entertaining, and once in a while the products can even be useful. I actually liked Steven Ramsay’s type1/type2 piece (http://stephenramsay.us/2013/05/03/dh-one-and-two/) — which I think goes a long way toward explaining the current shape (and frequent disconnects) of the DH field.  I am myself rather partial to building things too, and I like code, but that doesn’t mean that I would dismiss TransformDH or the Dark Side conference as mere “silliness” (as one commentator — not Ramsay — has done), though I think no one can deny that they are, in part at least, ‘silly’.  Does anyone think TransformDH is meant purely in earnest?  And powerful ideas are, by virtue of their potency, also easy to parody.  To say that Gravity’s Rainbow is often silly — indeed, it is one of the most hilarious books I’ve ever read — does nothing to detract from its greatness as a work of literature, nor from the power of its ideas.  It is also, just like Joyce or Hemingway, easy to make fun of.  Of course critical theory should be applied to DH — of course it should.  But it doesn’t follow from that that building something or winning and directing a grant cannot be equally valid scholarly achievements or that they are merely “managerial” (cf. http://www.danielallington.net/2013/03/the-managerial-humanities-or-why-the-digital-humanities-dont-exist/).  Anyone who thinks you can effectively manage a team of software developers without yourself knowing at least something about programming is kidding themselves, and anyway would we criticize the biochemist who wrote a grant to undertake groundbreaking medical research as a mere ‘manager’ who just got the funding to hire postdocs to do the real work?  Sure, there have been some poorly conceived and poorly executed DH grants.  No doubt there have been DH grants that got funds that could have been better spent elsewhere. There have also been more than a few bad pomo/poco monographs over the years. With any research project, funded or not, the proof is in the outcomes, not the method, the theory, the label, or in whose tent it was carried out.  Enough with the sour grapes!

PS: Having gotten that out of my system, I’m adding this postscript, mainly because the preceding phrase would be a very unfitting way to end this course, the spirit of which has been precisely the opposite!  Thanks to you all for a fabulous semester, and hope to see you on the Dark Side!

In case anyone wants to try it out.

http://www.raspberrypi.org

PS: The Pi was created as an inexpensive computer for schools in the UK, so there’s a “digital equity” angle to the project.  There’s a “what girls dig” (to paraphrase B. Nowviskie) angle too; see: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3594

I also added a few additional links to some of the resources I found most illuminating on the topic of Linked Open Data, since we didn’t have much time to talk about that.

The pumping stations are still standing, but most of the reservoir has been demolished, and today the site serves primarily as a parking area at the head of the Rachel Carson and Northwest Branch hiking trails. For those hiking along the trail toward the site, the sight of the concrete dam that remains marks the beginning of the transition from the tranquil nature trail to the hustle and bustle of the busy four-lane highway that separates the trail head from Starbuck’s and Trader Joe’s across the way.

According to a description of the site in the Historic American Buildings Survey, online at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/md1796/ — the plant featured an innovative filtration system that combined the four major parts of the process (sedimentation, flocculation, filtration, and storage) in a single structure.  Though I had known of the site’s former use, I won’t claim to have had any inkling of its engineering significance before looking into it for this post. For me it was simply an interesting meeting point between between the city and the natural world, where hikers must navigate the heavy traffic of a major commuter artery, and where those seeking a temporary refuge from the modern world cross paths with those seeking a latte or a cake-pop.

See also:

• http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/md1796/
• http://goo.gl/maps/RR2Cg

1. Normally Omeka runs on a web server, but for testing it is possible to set up a local sandbox installation.  In order to do so, you first need to have working web server software and an SQL database on your computer.  These can be obtained by installing an *AMP (Apache/mysql/php) stack, such as LAMP, MAMP, or XAMPP. For running Omeka on the Mac, XAMPP is recommended and can be downloaded from here: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
2. Once you have XAMPP installed, download Omeka (the latest version is 2, but use 1.5 if you want to also test the Neatline plugin): http://omeka.org/codex/Version_History
3. Extract the downloaded Omeka folder and move it to /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/ (this is the root folder of your local web server).
   [N.B. You will probably be prompted to authenticate as an admin user in order to move these files into the Applications folder.]
4. Install ImageMagick by downloading the installer from http://cactuslab.com/imagemagick/. ImageMagick is used by Omeka for processing images and creating thumbnails.
5. Launch XAMPP, and using the “controls” window that will open, start the web server and mySQL.
6. Open a web browser and go to the location ‘localhost’, where you’ll see the contents of your htdocs folder, which should be the XAMPP splash page.  Choose “english” and you’ll be taken to the main XAMPP control page.
7. On the left, choose phpMyadmin. phpMyAdmin is software for managing mySQL databases on a web server (or in this case, on server software running locally).
8. Within phpMyAdmin, click on the privileges tab –> Add new user with the following settings:
   • user name: omeka
   • host: Local
   • password: [choose a password]
9. Under “Database for User,” make sure to check “create database with same name and grant all privileges.”
10. Now, you will need to edit the following file: /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/omeka-1.5.3/db.ini. This can be most easily accomplished through the command line (for example using an editor like vi), but it can also be done with a regular GUI text editor.  Change it so the file has the following settings:
    • host = “localhost”
    • username = “omeka”
    • password = [password you chose above]
    • dbname = “omeka”
    • prefix = “omeka_”
    • charset = “utf8″
    • ;port = “”
11. In the browser, go to localhost/omeka-1.5.3/ and follow the prompts to configure and begin using your local Omeka site.