Mobile Digital History and Tool Building

Howdy campers, my name’s Dave and I work at George Mason University‘s Center for History & New Media as the Omeka Developer Community Coordinator. I also help organize our annual THATCamp at GMU with other talented folks at CHNM.

Here are two topics that I’m itching to discuss with others:

Mobile Digital History
There have been several blog posts recently about mobile digital history, including Larry Cebula’s post “The Promise of Mobile History” and Cameron Blevins’ “The Mobile Historian.” I’ve been working on a research project of my own called HistoryPlot [slideshare presentation online] that aims to connect digital artifacts geospatially, and deliver them via both a mobile and web interface.

I’d like to address larger ideas and projects about how we could use mobile devices to connect archives, libraries, scholars, and the public. Augmented Reality? Social applications? What do you think the future looks like?

Digital Humanities Tool Building
I know a few coder/hacker-types will be at THATCamp PNW, and I’d love to chat about anything relating to digital humanities software development and tool building. What are people working on, how are they organizing their code, sharing it with others? What kind of unit test coverage do you have? Do you know what unit tests are? Do you keep your code under version control?  What’s your favorite text editor?  You use vim, really?  I think this type of knowledge sharing is critical, and what better place than a THATCamp to discuss!

Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to scoot out immediately after the sessions end on Saturday and can’t make dinner with the group, however I hope to have the chance to meet you all in person. I’m also staying in Seattle from Thursday through Monday if anyone is interested in a pre/post-thatcamp meetup there.

Categories: thatcamppnw09 |

1 Response to Mobile Digital History and Tool Building

  1. Hannah says:

    excited to hear more about HistoryPlot. I’m having dinner tonight with a friend who created this place-based mobile storytelling project called Echo Atlanta, which is kind of like Toronto’s Murmur Project. I’d love to see an Augmented Reality that includes personal histories…”Washington Monument” across the street from “Corner Where I Had My First Kiss.”

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