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The Effects of Digital Libraries on the Humanities:  An Assessment of the Pragmatics and the Rhetoric of Digital Humanities Scholarship

Marija Dalbello, SCILS, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Abstract:
Digital library technology and digital systems supporting archives of structured text had a major impact on the humanities scholarship of the past decade yet this effect is not fully understood. The main objective of this study is to understand the practices of scholarship and the rhetoric of disciplinary identity connected to digital systems as new mode of communication. To understand the effects (and identify the perceived
effects) of the digital libraries on the humanities scholarship, this paper will analyze data from an informal web survey, personal communication with developers of key projects, published documentation of exemplary projects, and literature on digital humanities and information science field. Crucial concerns related to the digital systems and digital archives will be identified and discussed. Moreover, the paper will present a brief survey of relevant literature – from work on electronic text in the humanities from the late 1980s to media ecology field – as a context in which the disciplinary rhetoric of digital humanities is evolving today.