This week I’m at DHBenelux 2016, right here at the University of Luxembourg. I am part of the local organisation of the conference, and will give a tour of the DH Lab which launched its website www.dhlab.lu this week. Moreover, I will present my PhD research in a short paper, see below the abstract for my presentation. To learn more about DHBenelux, see my previous posts on DHBenelux 2016 submissions and DHBenelux submissions 2014-2016.
conferences
DHBenelux submissions 2014-2016
A while back I looked at the submissions for DHBenelux 2016 in a blogpost, and I promised to compare to the two earlier conferences. Today is finally the day I publish these comparisons, looking at DHBenelux from 2014 to 2016.
DHBenelux 2016 submissions
This year marks the third annual DHBenelux conference, which cycles through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The third instalment will be held in Luxembourg, and as part of the local organisation and programme committee I get the chance this year to look at all the submissions. Inspired by Scott Weingart’s series on submissions to the annual ADHO DH conference (see his 2016 post on submissions here), I present you a first analysis of the submissions to DHBenelux 2016. Later posts will bring comparisons with the 2014 and 2015 editions, as well as a description of the steps taken to get to the figures below.

No tool can do all
DHBenelux 2015 (8-9 June 2015, Antwerp, Belgium), the second edition after 2014, demonstrated a nice growth from last year with 150 attendees, 62 presentations, plus seven more demos-only and three posters-only (some presentations were also presented as demo or poster): an acceptance rate of 90%.
This blogpost is not intended to provide a complete overview of the conference, but rather to show the discussion from my perspective. The main theme I will follow is that no tool can do all research for you.

Presentation on user requirements in DH at CLARIN Annual Conference 2014
This week from Thursday to Saturday, the CLARIN Annual Conference will be held in Soesterberg, the Netherlands. This conference is by invitation, and has the goal to discuss how CLARIN (Common LAnguage Resources and technology INfrastructure) can further progress an infrastructure for Digital Humanities. Martijn Kleppe and I have written an extended abstract about the difficulties of user-centred development in Digital Humanities projects, with as a research question: do humanities scholars know what they want from computational tools?
Continue reading “Presentation on user requirements in DH at CLARIN Annual Conference 2014”

Grasping Technology
With all kinds of digital technologies becoming available, the uptake of digital research methods by the humanities might have been inevitable. How the humanities can incorporate digital tools, and contribute to the development of technology aimed at the humanities were questions central at the DHBenelux conference (12&13 June 2014, The Hague, the Netherlands). Around 180 attendees met to discuss research projects presented in 50 presentations, 16 posters and 10 demo’s.
This blogpost is not intended to provide a complete overview of the conference, but rather to show the discussion from my perspective. The main theme I will follow is that of the humanities grasping technology; referring to 1) taking technology, 2) embracing technology and 3) coming to an understanding of technology.
Abstracts for DHBenelux 2014
This year the first edition of DHBenelux will be held 12 & 13 June in the Hague, the Netherlands; a conference for Digital Humanities in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. I’m glad a local conference is being organized to promote DH (easy travel!). Obviously I didn’t want to miss out this conference, so we’ve submitted two abstracts that were both accepted. Below are the abstracts for presentations on Talk of Europe and Oral History Today that I’ll be presenting.

Abstract for Digital Humanities 2014
Today we received the final notification that our poster proposal is accepted for Digital Humanities 2014, to be held 8-12 July in Lausanne, Switzerland. See below the full abstract that Martijn Kleppe and I submitted.
The Future of Libraries Is In Linking
With all digitization efforts of the last decade, researchers are no longer only concerned with libraries, but with digital libraries. How does this transform the distribution of information? At the conference Theory and Practice in Digital Libraries (22-26 September 2013, Valetta, Malta) researchers and librarians discussed the current state-of-the-art as well as the future directions for digital libraries.
Oral History Today demo at SUEDL 2013
As I will be attending Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (September 22-26, Valetta, Malta) to present two posters, I was keen to attend the workshop on Supporting Users Exploration of Digital Libraries (short, SUEDL2013) as well. We (i.e. yours truly, Franciska de Jong, Stef Scagliola and Roeland Ordelman) submitted a demo paper titled Research Environment for Exploring Oral History Collections. In this paper we describe the fundamental principles underlying the Oral History Today interface, which we are developing to improve exploration in oral history collections.