U of G makes way for digital humanities
Putting emphasis on digital humanities and communal research, The Humanities Interdisciplinary Collaboration (THINC) Lab opened on the second floor of McLaughlin Library last week.
THINC Lab came as a result of conversations between the College of Arts and the library going back as far as 10 years, according to Prof. Susan Brown, a professor with the School of English and Theatre Studies who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Collaborative Digital Scholarship.
“It’s a space for people to come together and collaborate,” said Brown in an interview with The Ontarion. “It’s really a space to try to bridge the gaps in disciplines, whether disciplines in the humanities or disciplines in different colleges in the University.”
“…a space to try to bridge the gaps in disciplines, whether disciplines in the humanities or disciplines in different colleges…”
Other partners in the project include the College of Physical and Engineering Science, U of G’s Office of Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Province of Ontario’s Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Science.
THINC Lab will soon be outfitted with desktop computers, laptops, and a flat screen touch table, but the focus of the lab does not rely on its technical elements.
“We’re really about trying to make a space for things to happen in, rather than focusing on the digital to the exclusion of the critical or the creative,” explained Brown, who hopes to open the lab up for communal research sessions, outreach training programs, and various workshops.
“It’s meant to be a very configurable space so that different things can happen here at the same time, or that as the needs of a particular group shift, the activities can change,” said Brown, referencing her own work in digital humanities. “You’ve got designers, you’ve got programmers, and you’ve got the literary scholars. You need times where you’re all facing each other and really talking as a big group, and you need times where you go off and do your thing and then come back to the big group. That doesn’t happen easily down a standard row of offices.”
“THINC Lab will soon be outfitted with desktop computers, laptops, and a flat screen touch table…”
The lab will also be available for researchers and graduate students to use for collaborative projects across different disciplines.
Dr. Kim Martin, the University’s Michael Ridley Postdoctoral Fellow, hopes to see grad students utilize the lab for its multipurpose functions: “It’s nice to have a space on campus where you can invite [a group] to come and work together—especially grad students—bringing them together from different departments and having them sit down and think on problems.”
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Martin, along with research assistants and library co-op students, will be regularly working in the lab to offer drop-in help on related questions and projects.
THINC Lab will also host regular events such as DigiCafé lectures, DigiDo hands-on workshops, DigiReads reading groups, as well as a weeklong workshop series in the spring called DH@Guelph.
Photo by Dana Bellamy/The Ontarion.