Digital Humanities Services

University Libraries partners with faculty, students and others to explore digital humanities through research, teaching, learning and publishing.

About digital humanities

Digital humanities (DH) is where technology and traditional humanities disciplines intersect to create dynamic, interactive scholarship. By thoughtfully adopting DH tools into your work and classroom, you can use technology to share your unique ideas, interpretations and writing in a new way.

Are you interested in exploring new tools for your teaching or scholarship? Do you want to build familiarity with digital humanities technology for your classwork or career aspirations once you leave WMU? DH tools are always secondary to your unique ideas and scholarship, and we’re here to help you.

Projects

  • Faculty project

    Explore one family’s journey fleeing Nazi Germany and their circuitous route to America through archival photographs and video interviews about their time in 1930s Ecuador.

    A Girl's Journey to Ecuador

  • Student project

    Learn about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the live theater community as told through interviews conducted by student scholar Jesús de José Barajas, ‘21.

    Intermission: COVID-19's effect on theatre

  • Class project

    Discover a component of Cuban history and culture through dynamic narratives created by students in WMU's SPAN 4100 class during the second summer session of 2021.

    Cuba, resistencia y revolucion

Our services

Our services

We help the Western Michigan University community explore digital humanities in a variety of ways:

  • Collaborate with WMU scholars to incorporate digital humanities into their scholarship and research projects.
  • Assist faculty and instructors with incorporating digital humanities tools into their courses.
  • Consult with and train students to create digital humanities projects.
  • Offer classroom instruction and one-on-one training in digital humanities tools and concepts.
  • Provide on-boarding and training in Scalar, WMU Libraries newest open-source digital storytelling and digital humanities platform.

Spotlight on Scalar

Scalar is the most recent tool in our DH technology toolkit. Scalar describes itself as “a free, open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required.”

Scalar resources

Scalar is just one of the tools we have for creating and developing DH projects. We will work with you to find a solution tailored specifically to your project or idea.

Need help?

Have ideas or projects that would benefit from DH technology?

Reach out to our digital projects librarian Amy Bocko.