• #THATCamp tweetage in Wakelet

Blog posts

• THATCamp Canberra by Conal Tuohy
• Canberra Research Week by Yvonne Perkins
• Bulk harvesting of newspaper articles from Trove on MacOS 10.9 or 10.10 using Retailer – Instructions by Steve Leahy

Check out the program here: http://bit.ly/thatcamp-canberra-2014-schedule

In recent months @TroveNewsBot has been joined by a number of other collection bots, most tweeting random items. Steve Lubar has argued that these random selections help expose the constructed nature of collections:

The museumbot calls attention to the necessity of making choices. The vast difference between its random choice and what I see in the museum points out that the choices have been made. 

But can bots do more? Mark Sample, digital humanist and bot maker extraordinaire, recently wrote an essay that explored the possibilities of protest bots or ‘bots of conviction’:

protest bots take a stand. Society being what it is, this stance will likely be unpopular, perhaps even unnerving. Just as the most affecting protest songs made their audiences feel uncomfortable, bots of conviction challenge us to consider our own complicity in the wrongs of the world

My one venture in the to realm of protest bots is the rather tame @OperationBot (and its companion webapp). But I’d like to do more.

At THATCamp I’d like to discuss the possibilities of bots, and to think about ways we might respond to Mark Sample’s call for bots of conviction.

Remember, you don’t have to be an expert in the topic you propose. Some of the best discussions start with a problem or a question.

And if you’ve got something you’d like to share but don’t think it’s enough for a whole session — remember we’ll also have a series of lightning talks or Speedos after lunch. Show off your latest projects or a favourite website — it’s up to you (as long as it only takes 3 minutes)!

By 10.30 am tomorrow this blank schedule should be all filled in! Bring your ideas! #THATCamp Canberra. pic.twitter.com/wsHVH4mgVU

— Tim Sherratt (@wragge) October 31, 2014

• Sign up for Friday’s workshops.
• Propose a session.
• Check the schedule for the latest details.
• Learn about your travel and eating options.
• Meet your fellow campers.

The schedule for the workshops is now online and you’ll see it’s an exciting and varied mix – everything from a crash course in regular expressions to a discussion of the poetics of online collections:

The morning sessions are shorter and will provide an overview of particular technologies, concepts or issues. In the afternoon we’ll get our hands dirty, trying out some tools and examples.

During the lunch break there’ll also be a collection visualisation showcase from the Digital Treasures Program at the University of Canberra.

Bring a laptop if you can, particularly for the afternoon sessions – although the ‘Wikipedia and Trove’ workshop will be held in a computer lab. Wifi will be available.

Places are limited and we’ll need to juggle the available rooms based on interest, so please sign up now! At the bottom of each session description you’ll see a ‘Sign up’ link – just click on this and submit your details to register your interest in that session. No need to sign up for the lunchtime showcase.

We’ll be providing more information soon about the Friday workshops.

THATCamps (The Humanities And Technology) explore the possibilities and problems raised by the application of technology to the humanities. They’re unconferences, which means no prepared talks or Powerpoint — the program is developed on the spot based on the interests of participants. Do you want to know more about new tools or methods for digital research? Visualisation? Big data? APIs? Digitisation? THATCamps are a great place to start.

The Trove team is always on the lookout for innovative research using our data. We know there are some exciting projects out there, but we want more! We also want to help people make use of our API to build tools and interfaces, or simply streamline their research. Trove and THATCamp seem like a perfect match.

Don’t be intimidated — everyone from complete newbies to hardened coders will be welcome at THATCamp Canberra. And to help you find your feet we’ll be starting off with a series of workshops to introduce some of the tools, methods, technologies and standards used in the digital humanities.

It’s our birthday, let’s make stuff.

In 2011 the legend continued. But with more workshops.

And then silence…

Until now.

This Trovember, THATCamp Canberra returns to your screens in

THATCamp Canberra 2014: The rise of the bots.

or…

THATCamp Canberra 2014

31 October — 2 November Trovember

National Library of Australia

We’ll be kicking off Trovember by taking over the 4th floor of the National Library of Australia and turning it into a Digital Humanities discovery space.

There’ll be public workshops on 31 October, offering everyone an opportunity to pick up some new skills.

Then across the weekend 1–2 November we’ll be unscheduling, unpowerpointing, and unconferencing our way through all those questions about Digital Humanities that you always wanted to ask.

It’ll be fun, it’ll be exhausting, it’ll be THATCamp Canberra 2014.

Registration will open soon.