Scholars' Lab
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| Scholars' Lab | |
|---|---|
| Name | Scholars' Lab |
| Formation | 2006 |
| Location | Charlottesville, Virginia |
| Parent organization | University of Virginia |
| Type | Research Laboratory |
Scholars' Lab is an experimental research and development unit within the University of Virginia focused on digital humanities, digital scholarship, and cultural heritage technologies. It operates at the intersection of archival practice, scholarly communication, and computational methods, engaging with partners across libraries, museums, and research centers. The Lab participates in grant-funded research, software development, and pedagogical initiatives drawing on expertise from multiple academic and cultural institutions.
History
Founded in 2006, the Lab emerged amid broader investments by the University of Virginia in digital initiatives alongside contemporaneous centers such as the Stanford Humanities Center, the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton University, and the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. Early collaborations included partnerships with the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its development followed trajectories similar to the Institute for Advanced Study’s digital projects and reflected influences from pioneering efforts at the University of Maryland’s Digital Humanities Center, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, and the British Library’s digitization initiatives. The Lab’s team has worked with funders and programs like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, while engaging scholarly networks linked to the Modern Language Association, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and the American Historical Association.
Mission and Activities
The mission emphasizes advancing scholarly access to cultural heritage through partnerships with entities such as the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Library. Activities include digitization collaborations reminiscent of projects undertaken by the Digital Public Library of America, the HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, and methodological work connecting to practices at the Oxford Internet Institute, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The Lab supports research workflows similar to those used by teams at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, the Getty Research Institute, and the Royal Society, while contributing to open-source ecosystems associated with groups like the Software Heritage archive and the Mozilla Foundation.
Facilities and Technology
Facilities include compute clusters, visualization studios, and lab spaces comparable to those at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Recurse Center, and the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. The Lab’s infrastructure hosts tools and platforms in conversation with software from the Perseus Project, the Omeka platform developed at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and the T-PEN transcription environment. Hardware and visualization capabilities align with installations at the Edward L. Ryerson Hospital’s imaging suites and with geospatial resources used by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Esri community. Data management and preservation practices draw from standards advocated by the Open Archives Initiative, the Dublin Core community, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
Projects and Collaborations
The Lab has participated in projects that echo collaborations involving the Newberry Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Bodleian Libraries. It has worked on digital exhibits and scholarly editions with partners like the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Virginia Historical Society. Research projects align with thematic efforts seen at the Digital Humanities Observatory, the Europeana initiative, and the Trans-Atlantic Platform. Collaborative grants have been pursued with institutions such as the Columbia University libraries, the Yale University library system, the Princeton University library, and the Cornell University digital scholarship services. The Lab’s software and methodological outputs have interoperated with collections and standards originating from the Text Encoding Initiative, the Europeana Data Model, and the Linked Open Data initiatives championed by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Library of Congress.
Education and Outreach
Educational programming includes graduate labs, workshops, and seminars that mirror curricular innovations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology HyperStudio, the University of California, Berkeley’s D-Lab, and the University of Michigan’s Digital Scholarship Lab. Outreach engages constituencies served by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, local school districts, and public humanities venues like the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institutes and conferences such as the Digital Humanities Conference and meetings of the Association of College and Research Libraries. The Lab contributes to pedagogical partnerships with departments and centers at institutions like the Duke University Libraries, the Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.
Impact and Recognition
Work produced by the Lab has been showcased at venues including the Modern Language Association convention, the Association for Computers and the Humanities conference, and the Society of American Archivists meetings, and has informed practices at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. Funding and recognition have come via awards and support from organizations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Lab’s influence is visible in collaborative publications and tool releases cited alongside projects from the Digital Public Library of America, the HathiTrust, the Bodleian Libraries, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.