In the session “Digital Skills for Art History Students,” learning computer coding was compared to learning a foreign language. One participant went so far as to suggest that perhaps traditional art history graduate program language requirements could perhaps grow to include coding as a substitute for a language that might not be useful for specific students. As the importance of digital tools and digital humanities projects expands in academic settings could it become more useful for art historians to know how to code than to read German?

Depending on one’s area of interest this idea is definitely thought provoking, but is it valid? On the one hand, one can argue that the knowledge of coding can lead to digital projects which have potential for groundbreaking research and scholarship, not to mention the ability for an art historian to work sans collaborators, a costly and often time consuming consideration, for more basic projects. Possessing certain computer skills could be similar to having knowledge of multiple foreign languages in one’s tool kit.

However, for most art historians, we only learn how to read  languages. The ability to write, and often speak, in any language requires additional years of study which most of us do not have the opportunity to undertake. While it seems implausible that coding language could come to replace our need for knowledge of foreign languages or that we will require art historians to learn how to code as an additional stop on the road to a graduate degree, we do need to start thinking about incorporating digital tools into methods classes as they become a ever-more essential piece of our field. For now, at least, familiarity should probably remain more important than fluency with the tools.

Sara Ickow, Graduate student, Institute of Fine Arts

Two types of digital humanities projects seem to have been identified during discussion sessions at today’s THATCamp CAA 2013. In the session “The Digital Art History Portal” there was a call for a way to standardize, catalog and create a sustainable environment for digital art history projects to be peer reviewed and publicized. However, in an earlier session focused more on how students can make use of digital tools, the discussion focused on the flexibility and experimental nature of these types of projects.

Therefore, is there a need for support for these two types of uses simultaneously? Projects which are more collaborative and provide opportunities for testing and experimentation – providing alternatives to how we currently think of lectures and papers presented at conferences, and those which allow students and more established scholars to create “publishable” products. Both need a place to “live” and a community to ensure their future.

Nevertheless, projects which are considered more final, in line with how we now think of dissertations and books, do require more work in order to create a standard procedure for peer review that could give additional weight to students, recent Ph.D.s, or established scholars’ credentials.

Should we be thinking about distinct forums for these two modes of digital projects or do we need to find a way to put them both under the same umbrella?

Sara Ickow, Graduate student, Institute of Fine Arts

During the first day of THATCamp CAA 2013 several resources for Digital Humanities and Art History information and projects were mentioned in Lightening Talks and discussion sessions. Some represent potential models from other humanities fields while others represent a broad spectrum of DH resources. A few are listed below.

Bamboo DiRT

TAPOR: Text Analysis Portal for Research

Digital Humanities Now

DH Commons

Getty Research Portal 

Press Forward

Spatial History Project at Stanford

Nines.org

Sara Ickow, Graduate student, Institute of Fine Arts