To make the day as useful as possible, I propose that we start off with a brief overview session, based largely on the materials collected by Lisa Spiro at journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/getting-started-in-digital-humanities-by-lisa-spiro/ (Lisa, if you’re planning to attend, you can lead!). At the same time, we can define library-centric terms like metadata, curation, and interoperability, so that folks from the humanities community can follow what we’re saying.

Like Melinda, I’m a bit of a newbie to DH&Lib, but from the opposite direction.  Having done software development within and around DH for a couple of years, I’d like to work with library collections, but am finding it hard to wrap my head around the different systems libraries use to house digitized material.

For example, the DPLA provides API access to discover library collections, but once you navigate to interesting materials, you find yourself at an institution’s web presence — a DAMS or CMS.  If you’re trying to use the material you find there in a software package–say, in order to load metadata and facsimiles into a crowdsourced transcription tool–you may be able to guess what kind of system you’re dealing with based on the URL, but then what?

I’d like to propose a session showing off different library CMS and DAM systems and how they can be used as the kinds of platforms Tim Sherratt discusses.  I’m no expert–I can show off Omeka’s API, but that’s it–but I’d be happy to lead the discussion if we have enough interest from other participants.