A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, February 9th, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, McKeldin Library B0135

“Collaborative Approaches to Digital Humanities: Unconferences and Crowdsourcing”
by DAVE LESTER

As MITH’s newly-minted Assistant Director and a serial collaborator, Dave Lester will discuss the unconference (barcamp) model and his experience helping organize The Humanities and Technology Camp (THATCamp) while previously employed at George Mason University’s Center for History & New Media. THATCamp has become an annual unconference hosted by GMU, and inspired regional digital humanities unconferences in France, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and California. Lester will also draw from his experience engaging existing communities of interest through social networking sites to discuss the changing landscape of crowdsourcing and suggest ways that digital humanists can engage the public to answer research questions.

DAVE LESTER, Assistant Director of MITH, has previously been employed by George Mason University’s Center for History & New Media where he coordinated software development outreach for the Omeka Web publishing system used by libraries, museums, and archives. He was responsible for prototyping mobile applications for museums, fostering a collaborative open source community, and co-organizing THATCamp, an annual Digital Humanities “unconference” bringing together practitioners to collaborate and share their work. Prior to Mason, Dave was a Crossroads Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship, and helped redevelop the American Studies Crossroads Project Web site. He is also a HASTAC scholar, and his ongoing research focuses on place-based computing and the engagement of the public in crowdsourcing local history.

Coming up @MITH: There are no further talks scheduled until after Spring Break as we anticipate presentations from candidates visiting campus for the College of Arts and Humanities cluster search in Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture.

View MITH’s complete Fall Speakers Schedule here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100608231200/http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_spring_2010.pdf

All talks free and open to the public!

Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-8927).