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

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methods,” Cohen et al. expla<strong>in</strong>ed, “more has to be done on the other side of the equation: the demand
for these digital methods and tools. User bases must be cultivated and are unlikely to appear naturally,
and few projects do the necessary brand<strong>in</strong>g, market<strong>in</strong>g, and dissem<strong>in</strong>ation of their tool <strong>in</strong> the way that
commercial software efforts do” (Cohen et al. 2009).
A variety of solutions were proposed to address these and other problems, but the discussion of most
attendees, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Cohen et al. (2009), centered around cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, albeit with various
labels, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g repository, registry, consortium, and “<strong>in</strong>visible college.” The major theme that
emerged from these discussions was the need for an “economy of scale and the focus<strong>in</strong>g of attention.”
A list of useful features for any <strong>in</strong>frastructure to be developed was also presented, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g a code
depository, development-management tools (team management, wikis, bug track<strong>in</strong>g), an outreach
function to expla<strong>in</strong> tools and methods, a discovery function, documentation support (<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g
encourag<strong>in</strong>g standardization), the runn<strong>in</strong>g of contests or exchanges, discipl<strong>in</strong>e-specific code
“cookbooks” and reviews, support to develop and conduct tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g sem<strong>in</strong>ars, and resources to lobby
for tool development and open access to content. Discussion of these features and a “draft strawman”
request for proposals for a tool <strong>in</strong>frastructure that were circulated at this meet<strong>in</strong>g raised a number of
important issues, Cohen et al. stated, the most important of which was audience, or who exactly would
use this cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure—end users, developers, or both After consider<strong>in</strong>g the various models, the
idea of the “<strong>in</strong>visible college” that focused on communities rather than “static resources” was agreed
upon as a more viable solution than a repository. It was suggested that an <strong>in</strong>visible college approach
might foster symposia, expert sem<strong>in</strong>ars, and peer review of digital tools, as well as a system of
<strong>in</strong>centives and rewards for “membership” <strong>in</strong> the college.
Beh<strong>in</strong>d all of these discussions, Cohen et al. po<strong>in</strong>ted out, was the recognition that all tool build<strong>in</strong>g and
tool use must be deeply embedded with<strong>in</strong> “scholarly communities of practice,” and that such
communities need to be promoted and be <strong>in</strong>ternational <strong>in</strong> scope. The group envisioned a dynamic site
similar to SourceForge that would provide (1) a “tool development environment”; (2) a “curated tools
repository” that would provide peer- review mechanisms as well as support discovery of tools; and (3)
functionality that supported both community build<strong>in</strong>g and market<strong>in</strong>g. Such a site, they concluded,
might be l<strong>in</strong>ked to the Bamboo Project, but they also acknowledged that their vision was a complex
undertak<strong>in</strong>g and thus proposed several themes for which to seek fund<strong>in</strong>g: the promotion of susta<strong>in</strong>able
and <strong>in</strong>teroperable tools, the creation of and support for <strong>in</strong>frastructure, and <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g rewards for the
development of digital tools.
To promote susta<strong>in</strong>able and <strong>in</strong>teroperable tools, they proposed fund<strong>in</strong>g programs to tra<strong>in</strong> digital
humanities tra<strong>in</strong>ers, to provide a grant opportunity for collaborative work that embedded already
successful digital tools with<strong>in</strong> a significant digital humanities collection, and to fund grant
opportunities that would make two or more significant already-exist<strong>in</strong>g tools <strong>in</strong>teroperable. To
promote the creation of <strong>in</strong>frastructure, they proposed secur<strong>in</strong>g grant fund<strong>in</strong>g to create a “shared tools
development <strong>in</strong>frastructure” that should <strong>in</strong>clude developer tools, programm<strong>in</strong>g “cookbooks,” and other
relevant resources. Such an <strong>in</strong>frastructure, they concluded, should not be “owned” by any <strong>in</strong>dividual or
small group of universities but might <strong>in</strong>stead be hosted by centerNET or the Alliance of Digital
Humanities Organizations (ADHO). Fund<strong>in</strong>g for such an <strong>in</strong>frastructure should also <strong>in</strong>clude a salary for
an experienced “project management evangelist.” In addition, they advocated fund<strong>in</strong>g a “curated tools
repository” or a form of digital tools review site or journal, as a means both of stor<strong>in</strong>g at least one copy
of all tools submitted for publication and provid<strong>in</strong>g peer-review mechanisms for evaluat<strong>in</strong>g those tools.
Such a repository could provide discovery and recommender services, but would also require a general