THATCamp Melbourne 2011 -- wrapup

The first THATCamp Melbourne was a success! I think it was the first digital humanities gathering of this kind in Melbourne, and the second THATCamp in Australia (there was one in Canberra last year, which I did not attend; another Canberra camp is currently being planned). This event was sponsored by by VeRSI and held at the University of Melbourne, and many of the campers were from Melbourne. Here are lists of campers and sessions. A wide range of projects and interests was covered, including history, film, literature, art, geography; and methodological issues to do with archives, social media, and crowdsourced research.

THATCamp was a strong antidote to my sense of professional isolation. I met other practitioners of Digital Humanities around Australia and a few people praised the Founders and Survivors project. Somehow, this appreciation feels more valuable to me when it comes from other technical people. While our volunteers and other non-technical users also (sometimes) show their appreciation, they often do not understand the technical challenges of the project and either take things for granted or regard our website as almost magical.

I didn’t do a headcount at any point, but I think this event had the best gender ratio of any technical event I have attended. This doesn’t surprise me; most of the campers came from the humanities or the GLAM (Galleries/Libraries/Archives/Museums) sectors, which don’t suffer the same kinds of gender inequality that one finds in strictly technical fields.

I did not end up proposing a session on AwesomeChix because there were already too many good sessions I wanted to attend. Besides, AwesomeChix doesn’t pose much of a technical challenge; I just need to pull my finger out and make it happen, or persuade someone else to make it happen. (Watch this space.)