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

233
sophisticated text encod<strong>in</strong>g with markup such as that of the TEI to support text exchange between
<strong>in</strong>dividual scholars or projects, but he also cautioned that it rema<strong>in</strong>ed to be seen whether TEI could be
similarly useful for text exchange between computational agents. Blanke uses this example to illustrate
how the ways <strong>in</strong> which technologies that have been used <strong>in</strong> the digital humanities will not always work
for e-Science processes. One of the greatest challenges, Blanke asserted, will be to “use the experience
ga<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> Digital Humanities to build <strong>in</strong>tegrated research <strong>in</strong>frastructures for humanities” (Blanke
2010). Build<strong>in</strong>g this <strong>in</strong>tegrated research <strong>in</strong>frastructure starts with exam<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> detail the research
workflows of <strong>in</strong>dividual humanities discipl<strong>in</strong>es and their specific needs, he suggests.
The challenge of mov<strong>in</strong>g beyond the small, ad hoc projects commonly found <strong>in</strong> the digital humanities
to more systematic research that can deliver specific pieces of a larger arts and humanities
<strong>in</strong>frastructure is a frequently cited problem. A related issue is how to develop a digital <strong>in</strong>frastructure
that respects the <strong>in</strong>dividual questions and research needs of specific discipl<strong>in</strong>es while also work<strong>in</strong>g
toward more general-purpose solutions. These questions were addressed by Blanke et al. (2008), who
reported on a number of grass-roots <strong>in</strong>itiatives with<strong>in</strong> the U.K. and Germany that allowed them to form
successful partnerships with science to address common problems and to adopt new viewpo<strong>in</strong>ts on old
questions <strong>in</strong> humanities research. While the authors argued that large-scale <strong>in</strong>frastructure <strong>in</strong> e-
Humanities would be useful “ma<strong>in</strong>ly <strong>in</strong> the provision of data and computational resources,” they also
<strong>in</strong>sisted that research should neither avoid creat<strong>in</strong>g local solutions if necessary nor try mak<strong>in</strong>g
universal claims. They ultimately put forward the idea of “lean grids” and claimed that “a generic
solution cover<strong>in</strong>g all research doma<strong>in</strong>s is likely to fail.” The authors def<strong>in</strong>e lean grids as “approaches
which <strong>in</strong>corporate the idea beh<strong>in</strong>d grids to share resources while at the same time not rely<strong>in</strong>g on
build<strong>in</strong>g heavy <strong>in</strong>frastructures” (Blanke et al. 2008).
While Blanke et al. (2008) did see some utility <strong>in</strong> projects such as DARIAH, they also countered that
the actual number of humanities and arts researchers who need grid comput<strong>in</strong>g is fairly small and
stated furthermore that much of this research is conducted at smaller <strong>in</strong>stitutions that would lack the
technical support necessary to use the grid even if it were available. The strongest reason they give
aga<strong>in</strong>st solely develop<strong>in</strong>g computational solutions for humanities comput<strong>in</strong>g that rely on grid
technology, however, is that:
… most of digital research <strong>in</strong> the arts and humanities is done <strong>in</strong> an <strong>in</strong>teractive manner as a way
of humans request<strong>in</strong>g resources, annotat<strong>in</strong>g data or runn<strong>in</strong>g small support<strong>in</strong>g tools. The model
of ‘runn<strong>in</strong>g jobs’ on the grid is alien to such research practices. At the moment at least, large
and <strong>in</strong> particular grid-based <strong>in</strong>frastructures do not support <strong>in</strong>teractive behaviour well (Blanke et
al. 2008).
The <strong>in</strong>sight that too exclusive a focus on grid comput<strong>in</strong>g might be counterproductive to most
“conventional” types of digital humanities research is important to consider when design<strong>in</strong>g a potential
<strong>in</strong>frastructure for humanists.
Understand<strong>in</strong>g the actual research methods and processes of humanists is thus both an important and a
necessary step <strong>in</strong> build<strong>in</strong>g any k<strong>in</strong>d of resources, tools, or <strong>in</strong>frastructure that will meet their needs. Any
<strong>in</strong>frastructure that is developed without an understand<strong>in</strong>g of the specific research questions and types
of tools used by humanists <strong>in</strong> their daily research is unlikely to be successful. Indeed, the LaQuAT
project emphasized this po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>in</strong> terms of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g up humanities databases: