“It Takes an E-Village”: Doing Digital Exhibits in the Classroom

Please join us for a lively discussion of a library and history course digital humanities (DH) partnership. Panelists include the professor of the course, a student from the course, two librarians, an IT specialist, and a DH partner in the English department. As part of the class, upper-division and graduate students conducted primary and secondary research on Minnesotans in the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. Instead of writing a research paper, students worked collaboratively to create a digital exhibit using the Omeka content management software. Beyond learning the history of the period, students learned the craft of the historian, developed a more sophisticated thinking about available digital resources, created a structure for the exhibit that can accommodate the work of future classes, applied metadata to their artifacts, began understanding the importance of narrative in exhibits, and other skills that will help with their future job prospects. In addition to learning about this project, we invite you to consider the role libraries have in anticipating and supporting digital humanities projects and to think about ways to collaborate effectively across disparate academic units