Modification, Reuse and Subversion: Digital Object Collections and the Humanities Dr. Robin Boast MAA: Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology

eHumanities Colaboratories Focus on data collection and analysis Data sharing as opposed to tool sharing Shared data is only useful if sufficient context is provided It is therefore imperative to know and understand how data sets relate to aspects of overall data space, applications, experiments, projects, and the scientific community, identifying the critical features or properties. Chin and Lansing (2004)

General data set properties (owner, creation data, size, format); Experimental properties (conditions of the scientific experiment that generated that data); Data provenance (relationship with previous versions); Integration (relationship of data subsets within the full data set); Analysis and interpretation (notes, experiences, interpretations, and knowledge produced) Scientific organization (scientific classification or hierarchy); Task (research task that generated or applies the data set); Experimental process (relationship of data and tasks to the overall process); User community (application of data set to different users). Chin and Lansing (2004) eHumanities Colaboratories

Stable Objects, Diverse Performances The object of investigation is stable Reality requires a stable object Concepts vary That interpretation is multiple and partial Some interpretations come closer to the real Assumptions:

Diverse Objects, Stable Performances The object of investigation is stable Reality requires a stable object Concepts vary That interpretation is multiple and partial Some interpretations come closer to the real The object of investigation is unstable and multiple Belief in reality does not require a stable object Conceptualization is a process of stabilization Multiple interpretations create multiple objects Coming closer to the ‘real’ is a process of construction. Assumptions:Different Assumptions:

eHumanities Colaboratories? Should we abandon eHumanities Colaboratories? Are shared eHumanities spaces a nonsense? Can we make sense of large, diverse humanities content?

Solutions That the object is not stable, but is made stable in Method Assemblages (Law). Context is everything. Context cannot be captured in Metadata, but exists in practice. Local performance must remain local. Skills to perform are also skills to understand.

Solutions - Assemblies Not a museum of research, but fragments, pointers, performances of work. Means of re-casting, re-assembling, re-using existing bits. Means and spaces for joining up different expertise, and creating new expert assemblages. No monolithic methods nor universal rich metadata. Not a criticism of what we do, but of what we are claiming to be doing, and where we are claiming to be going.