Cultural Heritage Informatics
How do museums and other organizations in the ‘GLAM’ sector (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) keep track of their collections? To what purpose? What might happen if we release these collections into the wild (via the internet)? If we mash these collections together what might we see, and why might it matter? Where are the dangers - and to whom could it be dangerous?
In this class:
- you will work with materials from museums in Ottawa, Toronto, and abroad
- you will do a deep dive on an object biography
- as a group, you’ll devise a way of accessing all of this data
- you will use computational creativity to mash things up
- you will help organize a two-day international HeritageJam at the end of March 2020 around these materials
- you will curate the results
- You do not need to be ‘techy’, whatever that means
As a result of this class, you may find that you have wider opportunities for practicum or co-op placements in subsequent years at Carleton. (Note that if you decide on co-op, you must register in your first year! Talk to me for more information). You might also find a path towards a career in Public History, which is one of the History Department’s internationally acknowledged strengths. I make no promises: you will get out of this class what you put in.
What is Cultural Heritage Informatics?
Cultural heritage materials require careful description and organization to permit effective curation, preservation, management, and research. You may have heard the term ‘bioinformatics’ before; that field defines itself as
‘the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human health.’1
…in which case, we could define CHI similarly as an interdisciplinary field studying and pursuing the effective use of cultural heritage data, information, and knowledge for humanistic or scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human welfare. I added the emphasis there to make an important point. The decisions we make about information are necessarily ethical decisions. Computers operate by replicating the decisions we make, at enormous speed and scale. The consequences can be unintended and unforeseen, and so we have to begin from an ethical perspective that considers from the outset: who will this harm?
Meeting Time & Your Professor
To be determined. 3 hrs per week in a single block of time. This enables us to do site visits or other creative work.
My name is Shawn Graham. I’m Associate Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of History. My current major research project studies the online trade in human remains. I trained as a Roman archaeologist, but these days I consider myself to be a digital archaeologist.
Weekly Structure, or, How to Come to Class
Each meeting will be a combination of discussion of readings, podcasts, or videos, and exercises designed to promote facility with digital research methods and sources. We will work collaboratively to improve our reading (for academic reading is a skill) and our writing (but note that there is more to academic writing than mere essays).
Required Technology
You do not need a computer; you may use the machines in the History department or other public computers on campus.
- You will need an account on Github.com. We will set this up in the first meeting. Please know that you do not have to use your real name in any username or profile data.
Other accounts with other services may become necessary; again, you do not need to use your real name in any username or otherwise identifying profile information. You will not need to purchase any access or software (although you may decide that this is something you wish to do).
I do suggest that you set up a ‘burner’ email account for this course, to use with any sign-ups or services that you do not wish to have tracking you.
Grading
TBD.
Late Policy
TBD.
Online work policy
For anything that requires online work or presence (eg, usernames, accounts), you are under no obligation to use your real name.
Course Sharing Websites and Copyright
In contrast to the official Carleton language to be used, I instead release this work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Statement on Class Conduct
The Carleton University Human Rights Policies and Procedures affirm that all members of the University community share a responsibility to:
- promote equity and fairness,
- respect and value diversity,
- prevent discrimination and harassment, and
- preserve the freedom of its members to carry out responsibly their scholarly work without threat of interference.
Carleton University Equity Services states that “every member of the University community has a right to study, work and live in a safe environment free of discrimination or harassment”.
Standing in a course is determined by the course instructor subject to the approval of the Faculty Dean. This means that grades submitted by the instructor may be subject to revision. No grades are final until they have been approved by the Dean.
1: Casimir A Kulikowski, Edward H Shortliffe, Leanne M Currie, Peter L Elkin, Lawrence E Hunter, Todd R Johnson, Ira J Kalet, Leslie A Lenert, Mark A Musen, Judy G Ozbolt, Jack W Smith, Peter Z Tarczy-Hornoch, Jeffrey J Williamson; AMIA Board white paper: definition of biomedical informatics and specification of core competencies for graduate education in the discipline, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Volume 19, Issue 6, 1 November 2012, Pages 931–938, https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001053