ENGL 481: Digital Humanities

This program is used by the HathiTrust Digital Library to seek out "orphan works" that have no apparent benefactors, and make them available to the general public. This project's noble purposes have been called into question by organizations like the Authors Guild, who argue that it often fails to find those who are due compensation.

This editorial takes a more personal view of the HathiTrust verdict, and its application to the blind and print-disabled. The author gives personal accounts of genius he has witnessed in this community, explaining his excitement that they will now have access to millions of works rather than small collections.

This article reports on the ruling by Harold Baer, Jr. which held that the HathiTrust's mass digitization is fair use. The judge explained in his opinion that the HDL's project is not only fair use in and of itself, but that its potential for text mining and the facilitation of access for print-disabled persons are transformative in nature, and can serve an entirely different purpose than the original works.

This article helps to give a general overview of the current state of fair use, specifically with regards to the HathiTrust project. The author is hopeful, giving the project's Orphan Works undertaking more credit than the Authors Guild. He argues that the meticulous nature of the work being done is promising, and may lead to solutions to the many and various problems raised by the public domain.

The author explores a potential new solution to peer review in the the work of scientific journal publisher Elsevier. The director of this project argues that it encourages quality reviews while acknowledging the reviewer's contribution by allowing them to choose whether or not to remain anonymous.

This article is an early announcement of the Authors Guild's lawsuit against the HathiTrust Digital Library. It explains the accusations of copyright infringement from the Authors Guild, who seek the complete halt of the HathiTrust's reproduction and distribution of digitized works, not limited to the Orphan Works project.

This statement from the Authors Guild explains their disagreement with the ruling in favor of the HathiTrust Digital Library. Accusing the project of carelessness in searching for the copyright-holders of "orphan works," the article expresses disappointment in the lack of action taken by the courts.

Another early announcement of the HathiTrust's Orphan Works initiative, this article discusses the pros and cons of the project, and the potential changes that it may bring. The author speculates on possible benefits while pointing to the important decisions that will have to be made regarding copyrights.

The ARL is a nonprofit organization of 125 research entities in the US and Canada. The Association promotes the advancement of its members in various ways, but focuses on ideals often associated with the digital humanities, such as intellectual freedom, scholarly communication, and collaboration.

This extensive resource packet provides detailed information regarding the HathiTrust lawsuit. The writer is in favor of the defendants, arguing in various ways the lawfulness and usefuleness of the project.

This article presents the Orphan Works project near its inception. It identifies the nature of the problem to be the sheer size of the project's scope, which claims about 73% of the HathiTrust's collection to be eligible for fair use as soon as they are proven to be orphan works.

A doctoral student in English whose focus is modernist studies, textual studies, and projects in the digital humanities shows how teaching can be used with technology to make the students question their influences with their writing. His project is to track and evaluate modernists texts that reveal the influence of its history. In finishing his project he hopes to show that electronic editions of books reveal more information that show how books can be unstable and uncomplete.

This article is about a movie showing that will pioneer a discussion concerning roboticists and exploring the future of computerized companions and caretakers. The program supports Alfred B. Sloan Foundation in asisting understanding of science and technology.

Eitan Grinspun walks us through the wonderful world of computers and physics and how they contribute, no how they make or break, a movie. This topic is so interesting because I feel like it embodies the term digital humanities. It is actually intertwined to make an inhuman thing human with the characteristics of movement, communication, etc.

How intricately is physics intertwined with nature: flight patterns or birds, photosynthesis, etc? How is the subatomic realm affecting the real world that we see taking place all around us each day, or is it? This posting talks about the correlations between the two and if there really is a correlation at all?

In a 21st Century Media class an instructor conducted an experiment that allowed the students and professor to live tweet their class session, which she deemed a success. The students had an assigned reading that they were to find a method and be able to prepare it to the class. She informed them what a meaningful tweet would be that would be able to add to the online discussion. The purpose of this assignment was to show how twitter can be used academically. Students in the class were able to multitask by discussing online with each other and also in the classroom setting.

This article shows how creating an archive is kind of like baking a cake. First she says to identify your craving of what you want and why. The next step is finding a recipe that you have carefully researched that shows step-by-step how to build an archive and acquire the ingredients. This can include government documents, treaties, historical and medical records, letters written by historical and literary figures, ect. After getting these ingredients you must translate, transcribe, and digitize them into the archive. She also requires you to establish an order of organization to allow teachers and researchers to use and search the archive. The final step is to share the archive with others.

Digital physicists try to explain that computation is not just for approximating reality but might actually be reality itself. The use examples such as bits instead of elementary particles or computer algorithims instead of physics. An interesting view on the computer world.

The Creator is a film that personifies computers in the future to ask where it is they came from and trace their lineage back to a man named Alan Turing, who first asked the question, "Can Machines Think?" After the viewing of the film top computers scientist will have open discussions concerning the questions and concerns this film brings up.

This article attempts to survey the history and turn up the evidence of who actually invented the internet. Who were its' pioneers? And what was the driving force behing it all, what is the history here?