Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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Borgman def<strong>in</strong>ed the digital humanities as “a new set of practices, us<strong>in</strong>g new sets of technologies, to
address research problems of the discipl<strong>in</strong>e.” The digital humanities as a new set of practices and
technologies also requires a particular type of <strong>in</strong>frastructure, the requirements of which were first laid
out concretely <strong>in</strong> 2006 by a report commissioned by the American <strong>Council</strong> of Learned Societies
(ACLS):
Cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure is more than the tangible network and the means of storage <strong>in</strong> digitized
form. It is not only the discipl<strong>in</strong>e-specific software application and the project-specific data
collections: it is also the more <strong>in</strong>tangible layer of expertise and best practices, standards and
tools, collections and collaborative environments that can be broadly shared across
communities of <strong>in</strong>quiry (ACLS 2006).
The ACLS report also offered a list of characteristics that would be required of a humanities
<strong>in</strong>frastructure: it will operate as a public good; be both susta<strong>in</strong>able and <strong>in</strong>teroperable; encourage
collaborative work; and support experimentation. The def<strong>in</strong>ition and characteristics outl<strong>in</strong>ed above
offer a number of major po<strong>in</strong>ts that this report considers <strong>in</strong> greater detail, particularly that
<strong>in</strong>frastructure <strong>in</strong>cludes not only data collections and software for <strong>in</strong>dividual discipl<strong>in</strong>es but also best
practices, standards, collections, and collaborations that can be shared across discipl<strong>in</strong>es. The
importance of shar<strong>in</strong>g as key to the def<strong>in</strong>ition of <strong>in</strong>frastructure has also been expressed by Geoffrey
Rockwell, who posited, “Anyth<strong>in</strong>g that is needed to connect more than one person, project, or entity is
<strong>in</strong>frastructure. Anyth<strong>in</strong>g used exclusively by a project is not” (Rockwell 2010). In his own discussion
of cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, Rockwell seconded the po<strong>in</strong>t of the ACLS report that it should be broadly
useful to the public, but also concluded that cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure needs to be “well understood enough”
so that it can be broadly useful, be able to foster economic or research activity, be “funded by the
public for the public,” be <strong>in</strong>visible so that its use becomes reliable and expected, and be ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed by
a long-term organization. At the same time, Rockwell made a dist<strong>in</strong>ction between humanities research
and research <strong>in</strong>frastructure or cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, and emphasized the importance of support<strong>in</strong>g both.
“Research, by contrast is not expected to be useful, necessarily, and certa<strong>in</strong>ly isn’t expected to be
useful to a public,” Rockwell concluded, stat<strong>in</strong>g that “research is about that which we don’t
understand, while <strong>in</strong>frastructure really shouldn’t be experimental” (Rockwell 2010). Rockwell’s larger
po<strong>in</strong>t was that <strong>in</strong> def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g their cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, humanists should remember that a “turn to
<strong>in</strong>frastructure” <strong>in</strong>volves political and sociological decisions and a possible redef<strong>in</strong>ition of what is
considered as “legitimate” research.
Other major po<strong>in</strong>ts made by the ACLS report were that “extensive and reusable digital collections”
were at the core of any cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure and that scholars should be engaged <strong>in</strong> the development of
these collections, for, as the commission noted, almost all successful tool build<strong>in</strong>g is dependent on the
existence of and access to digital collections. The concept of services, content, and tools as
<strong>in</strong>frastructure was seen repeatedly not only throughout not just this report but also <strong>in</strong> the discussions
by TextGrid and other humanities cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure research projects, and is explored further <strong>in</strong> the
next section.
Open Content, Services, and Tools as Infrastructure
In 2007, a jo<strong>in</strong>t JISC-NSF report emphasized that content and the tools necessary to exploit it are two
essential components of <strong>in</strong>frastructure. “In the cyber age, collections of digital content and the software
to <strong>in</strong>terpret them have become the foundation for discovery,” Arms and Larsen (2007) <strong>in</strong>sisted, not<strong>in</strong>g
that “they have entered the realm of <strong>in</strong>frastructure.” In their overview of the role of virtual research