I’m attending THATCamp with my colleagues from the University of Virginia Library’s Scholars’ Lab (please see their posts in this space for more about what we’re doing). I’ll be interested in discussing challenges in geospatial scholarship (particularly the encoding and processing of ambiguity and imprecision) and how open platforms for supporting it can help, as well as digital repository technology and how it can make our work better. In particular, I’m always ready to talk about Neatline, our NEH-funded project to create open, lightweight, and flexible tools for the creation of interlinked timelines and maps as interpretive expressions of the literary or historical content of archival collections. We’re using Omeka as a platform, creating plugins that provide rich capabilities to manipulate and exhibit geospatial information as part of a unified scholarly field.

On a related note, a continuing concern of mine has been the nature of citation and evidence in scholarly argument in non-text media. As we create and use new and very sophisticated forms of narrative and argument, how will our technologies of citation grow? Are we ready to ensure that the scholarly record as extended through hypermedia maintains its rigor? What role will metadata technologies play in this effort and how can those of us who work in libraries and archives help?

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A. Soroka
Digital Research and Scholarship R & D
the University of Virginia Library