Around DH in 80 Days
Reviewed by: María F. Buitrago and Kristy Leonardatos
Review started: February 13, 2023
Review last updated: May 4, 2023
Site link
Data and Sources
- Project Overview including: Contact, Team, Reviewer
- Links to DH projects from around the globe
- Location, which can correspond to either where the project was established or the subject of the project
Processes
- Excel Spreadsheet with basic information
- Curation of the websites based on region
- GitHub files repositories
- Map with SVG
- Creation of Static Site
Presentation
The original version of Around DH in 80 Days is presented on a Jekyll website which allows for centering the project around minimal computing and accessibility. The landing page opens to a map and a choice to select ‘Day 80: You, wherever you may be’ or ‘The Full Journey’. The Full Journey transforms the map with red markers representing the digital projects reviewed by geographic location and a list numbered 1–79, which includes a brief summary and links to each work. Day 80, on the other hand, is an invitation to the user to also adventure themselves on a journey of discovering many more DH projects from around the world or, to take the reviews as a source of inspiration to nourish their own ideas. As the author puts it: “take this project as a further reminder that the value is in the work. You too can harness these tools, band together, wherever you may be”. The title of the project comes from Jules Vernes famous novel, from which the authors emphasize the human desire to predict systems and work against or, despite of, time. Likewise, they embarked on the journey of reviewing in 80 days projects from around the world that shine hope amidst very turbulent times and news. Around DH in 80 Days speaks to the diversity of views intrinsic to the field but also highlights the cooperative and collaborative ethos of the discipline.
Digital Tools Used
- Jekyll: Static Site Generator
- Map built with SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics in XML format
- SCSS
- HTML
- Ruby
Languages
- The platform is in English, although some of the linked sites are in other languages.
Review
Around DH in 80 Days is an interdisciplinary and experimental collaboration conceived by Alex Gil in 2012, which assembled and reviewed DH scholarly projects from around the world to bring attention to the global field of DH. Professor Gil, currently an Associate Research Faculty of Digital Humanities in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, formed a group on Global Outlook::Digital Humanities for colleagues and experts to propose DH projects from different regions and diverse world perspectives. These suggestions were organized in an excel Around DH Global List Spreadsheet along with further reviews done later by students and volunteers. During 2013, a group of graduate students at Northeastern University initiated the research and design of what would become DH in 80 days. They selected some preliminary projects and started the review process working with the Scalar platform. Three of these projects made it to the final Jekyll website while the other 79 were selected by another team of editors gathered by Gil in 2014.
The final website presents a classic global map created using SVG, Scalable Vector Graphics, and plots the location of each project. The geographical markers correspond to both “production site and subject whenever appropriate”. The user can access the projects either by browsing the full list from “Day 0: Welcome” to “Day-80: You, wherever you might be”. Although there are projects from each continent there’s certainly a production concentration in Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, one can find many interesting transnational projects that further speak to DH’s diversity and how the nature of the discipline, both in its content and production medium, crosses many borders and academic subjects. On the other hand, given that many DH projects tend to transform over time, it seems hard to fix scholarly work that continues to grow or ceases to exist as the years go by. Thus, some of the links to the projects either changed and migrated to other sites, evolved into something else or simply are not supported anymore.
We applaud the vision of Around DH in 80 Days and find many of the projects interesting and the focus on minimal computing is admirable. Although some projects reviewed use very sophisticated platforms that may not, in fact, be accessible to all viewers in all countries. Regardless, one can appreciate a very clear effort to align with the principles of minimal computing.
Additional information on how each project was chosen and perhaps a section on what constitutes a digital humanities project could offer further insight into the methodology driving the platform. Some of the featured projects are situated on websites run by government institutions or study centers housed at universities, and we feel this may cause some confusion about what is ultimately considered a “project”. In other words, we believe it is important to make a distinction between official archives, digital exhibitions, digital libraries, and other digital works not associated and/or supported by an institution or agency.
The Around DH/Global List includes a total of 296 submissions, made by different people at different times, such as scholars, students, authors and the general public. This chart can be found on the “Total” tab of the global list:
The Global List includes columns to capture the Project; Team; Link; Locations/Production; Location/Theme; Suggested By; Notes; and Contact Info and the tabs at the bottom represent regions around the globe. The list can be edited by anyone with the link which is wonderful to gather the details, but raises a concern that the contributions could be altered in error. Adding a column for the digital project origin—is it a tool, a university, an organization, governmental agency etc.—could assist in qualifying the submissions and help clarify what makes a digital humanities project.
We found Around DH in 80 Days to be a commendable resource and we would love to see its mission developed. We were excited to discover Around DH 2020 which aims to grow the vision of the original project by further engaging DH projects from around the world and providing deeper reviews of them. As the authors explain, “Through Around DH we hope to take the next step: surfacing the networks of people and sources behind these projects, the tools used, and what these projects mean. What does the project team hope to accomplish with this work? What have they learned in the process?”
We recommend Around DH in 80 Days, and hope that as new DH projects are created, more will be added. Here are two of the many projects we enjoyed and found very interesting: http://digitalharlem.org/ and http://iloveepoetry.org/.