AHA, MLA, and 2018

2018 is already off to a busy start for supDigital. We covered a couple different conferences last week and are managing the typical catch-up as we return to the office. The American Historical Association held its conference in Washington, D.C. this year, and I attended a pre-conference THATCamp where I engaged with digital historians working with various technologies in both their research and their teaching. I attended a tool-share session and also learned over lunch the latest on Omeka S, a new enterprise version of the platform which offers some potential for, among other things, multi-site management.

The first day of the conference proper also vibrated with all things digital. A three-hour workshop on advanced spatial history technologies was followed by a face-to-face meeting with and panel presentation by one of our own authors working in digital history. The day ended with an hour-and-a-half-long lightning round of digital projects ranging from tools to archives to public humanities projects.

I left AHA early to hop up to the Modern Language Association’s annual conference held this year in midtown New York. The great bomb cyclone of 2018 couldn’t freeze out the energy of that conference, and I had the chance to meet with several colleagues, including our friends at King’s Digital Lab, doing incredibly important work in digital publishing, stewardship, and preservation. It was an exceptionally productive MLA in terms of collaborating with existing and potential partners, and we’re eager to keep the ideas going as we dive into the new year. As always, we hope you’ll follow along with what promises to be a very eventful and productive 2018!