The DH Stack(s)

Lots of interesting posts in the last couple of days about Digital Humanities skills, software and cyberinfrastructure initiatives:

• Sean issues some service-oriented caveats for Project Bamboo and thinks about skillsets for DH-ready graduates
• Lisa surveys recent DH job postings, muses on DH 'fieldness' and visits the aspiring digital humanist's skillset too
• Bill T.'s whole blog remains essential reading in this meme-space (e.g., see his recent "Navigating Digital History")
  
• Liza provides an example of TEI+Python+lxml in publishing primary sources online (the same general stack the Duke/Heidelberg/King's/Columbia/UNC/NYU team has been using in the rework of the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri and Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichniss -- coming soon)
  

Database Normalization and the Historian

Over at the UVA Library's Scholar's Lab Blog, Jean Bauer has a useful post ("Normality: For or Against") in which she considers the process of database normalization, its value in the context of particular historical research tasks, and the interesting problems that arise when you consider publishing such a database -- designed originally to support a particular line of inquiry -- for the use of other scholars.

Bamboo Rising: Are Databases the "New Ground" of Humanities Research?

For those who didn't have a chance to participate in one of initial Project Bamboo workshops, or who haven't had an opportunity to catch up with what's going on now in that context, I thought I might provide a pointer to the Project Bamboo Planning Wiki.

One current activity there is an attempt to Identify Themes of Arts and Humanities Scholarly Practice. My feed reader tells me that there's only one actual theme defined in this new section (just a bit ago), but I bet there will be more soon. The sole present one was offered by F. Allan Hanson (U. of Kansas, Anthropology):

• Ground of Research: "Humanities research is changing (or will change, or should change) from being grounded in texts (bibliographies) to relational databases."

I bet my legions of gentle readers have some opinions about this assertion. Feel free to comment in the comments, or on your blog, or on a public list ... or in the Bamboo Planning Wiki itself.