Scheduled for 2:30-3:20pm in Theresa Lang Auditorium (202) 55 W 13th Street

With the massive digitization of primary sources that has taken place over the past decade or so there are far more resources available online for research and teaching than was even imaginable a short time ago. This work by libraries, archives, commercial entities and even researchers themselves has led to availability of materials that were once only obtainable in a few research libraries or a single archive somewhere in the world. This abundance provides scholars who might otherwise not be able to obtain research materials with access that’s vital to their research. But with this abundance has come a proliferation of platforms and a loss of coherence in the means for discovery of primary sources. This dispersal means that today’s scholar has a much more difficult time knowing where to look for sources.

What I’d like to talk about in this session is what kinds of tools and mechanisms historians will need to discover primary sources as ever larger parts of the historical record are available and dispersed on many platforms across the web. What is the future of discovery of archival materials and other kinds of sources? How is scholarship based on primary sources changing and what implications will these changes have for the tools that researchers use to find these sources?

Registration is now open. See you in New York!

Kazakh yurt

If you are coming to the AHA annual meeting in New York and planning to stay for THATCamp on January 6th you should register for the meeting and make your hotel reservations as soon as possible. The hotel rates at each of the three conference hotels are excellent and available for three days before and after the annual meeting itself. But there are a limited number of rooms available at this rate, and the allocation for the days following the meeting are selling out quickly. So if you’re coming to THATCamp and want to stay on either the 5th or the 6th I recommend registering as soon as possible.

We are very excited to announce that the AHA Annual Meeting will yet again have an associated THATCamp, and even more excited that it will be hosted by the Humanities Action Lab at The New School for Public Engagement. It will take place on Tuesday, January 6th from 10:00AM to 4:00PM. Information about registration and the event itself will be available soon, so watch this space for more news and details. You can also read more about the THATCamp movement and browse other THATCamps at thatcamp.org.

We look forward to seeing you in New York in January.