Nuts and Bolts of DH Project Development (DHSI 2026)

Description

Are you interested in learning how to support digital humanities research and teaching as a librarian or consultant? Do you want to do a digital humanities project, but aren’t sure what to do or where to start? In this course, participants will be introduced to key areas of DH work, including gathering data and sources, building and sharing projects, preservation and sustainability, and project and resource management.

Through hands-on exercises, participants will learn the fundamentals of common DH methods and the development cycle: from ideation to curation and analysis to publication. This course will equip participants with skills for project planning and development. Our focus will be on aspiring DH librarians, consultants, and early DH or humanities scholars who want an understanding of the landscape. By covering the basics of common methods like text mining, data visualization, digital exhibit building, and project management, participants will walk away with the tools necessary to begin a DH project or support others working on DH.

Instructor(s)

When teaching students and researchers about data, Kayla Abner prioritizes an ethical lens by inviting them to consider who created the data, why, and how the visualization might affect their interpretation. Her interests and skills include data privacy, data and AI ethics, collections as data, and digital humanities. Kayla holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and currently works as the Data Visualization and Analysis Librarian at the University of Delaware.

Lauren Cooper (she/her) is the digital scholarship librarian and managing director for the Center for Digital Research/#DigBlk at Penn State University. #DigBlk is home to the Colored Conventions Project, Douglass Day, and the Liberatory Tech. Lauren works with students, colleagues, and partners to implement, develop, and manage digital scholarship and publishing projects with an attention to centering the humanity in digital humanities. She has been the project manager of several major website development projects, migrations, and updates. Lauren has a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland, College Park with a concentration in Archives and Digital Curation and has previously co-taught “Nuts & Bolts of DH Project Development” at Dream Lab (2021-2024).