Dear GO::DH,

(Just joined this list. Hello!)

In the last year, a few digital humanists (including Kevin Kee, Willard McCarty, Julianne Nyhan, Geoffrey Rockwell, Edward Vanhoutte, and myself) have been ramping up a conversation about digitizing and/or archiving historical DH artifacts. Last week we emailed to ADHO a draft of a SIG proposal. We received prompt and useful feedback (huge thanks!), and are looking forward to fleshing out the proposal and re-submitting it by the end of the summer.

The initial proposal talked about disciplinary self-reflection, historicizing DH artifacts, pursuing multiple digitization projects, and finding a permanent digital archive solution (an intermediary one is available). The feedback we've gotten encourages us to expand our thinking beyond specific projects, attract more people interested in signing on, and pay particular attention to truly global representation. We would very much like to move in these directions.

To this end, we would like to use next week's DH 2014 conference in Lausanne to meet with some others who may be interested in participating in a History of DH ADHO SIG, should it be approved to go forward. We will meet informally on THURSDAY EVENING JULY 10TH, 7:30-9PM, overlapping with that evening's reception and moving on from there. All interested are warmly invited. If you have concerns about finding us, please email me privately beforehand and we'll make sure to connect.

If you would like to participate in the SIG-to-hopefully-be but will not be attending the conference or otherwise cannot make it, please email me. Please include any thoughts you may have about what the group should pursue, and we will bring them to the meeting. Following the Lausanne meeting, we will likely set up an email- or web-based discussion list, and expand from there.

We've made a few first steps, but there's a lot more to talk about, and we hope you will join the conversation. Please bring this to the attention of anyone you think may be interested. The more engaged participants, the better off we are.

Sincerely, -Vika