Group for Experimental Methods in Humanistic Research
at Columbia University

"Just Digitization: Opportunities for Image Processing in Digital Humanities" with Melissa Terras

TALK at 4pm on 15 Nov 2018
⌖ Butler Studio, 208b

Most Digital Humanities activity revolves around text and textual processing, although there are more and more opportunities to use 2D and 3D imaging approaches applied to primary historical sources to enable their analysis. In this talk, Terras will talk about the research relationship between the computational and engineering sciences and the cultural heritage community, and provide an overview of various projects which have seen the adoption and adaption of digitisation techniques which require data processing and analysis.

Join us at the Butler Studio on November 15, 2018 at 4PM for a talk by Melissa Terras on new work on visual culture and computational possibilities. This event is organized by Digital Scholarship at Columbia Libraries and co-sponsored by xpMethod.

Just Digitization: Opportunities for Image Processing in Digital Humanities

Most Digital Humanities activity revolves around text and textual processing, although there are more and more opportunities to use 2D and 3D imaging approaches applied to primary historical sources to enable their analysis. In this talk, Terras will talk about the research relationship between the computational and engineering sciences and the cultural heritage community, and provide an overview of various projects which have seen the adoption and adaption of digitisation techniques which require data processing and analysis. What can we borrow from the computational sciences when imaging historical materials, but what can we also contribute? From the reconstruction of individual damaged texts, to the scanning of whole museums, and the intersection of machine learning and manuscript studies, Terras will discuss what it means to operate successfully in this interdisciplinary space.

Melissa Terras

Melissa Terras is the Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh‘s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, leading digital aspects of research within CAHSS, and Director of Research in the new Edinburgh Futures Institute. Her research focuses on the use of computational techniques to enable research in the arts, humanities, and wider cultural heritage and information environment that would otherwise be impossible. She is an Honorary Professor of Digital Humanities in UCL Department of Information Studies, where she was employed from 2003-2017. Books include “Image to Interpretation: An Intelligent System to Aid Historians in Reading the Vindolanda Texts” (2006, Oxford University Press), “Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader” (Ashgate 2013) and “Picture-Book Professors: Academia and Children’s Literature” (Cambridge University Press 2018). She is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, Trustee of the National Library of Scotland, and currently serves on the Board of Curators of the University of Oxford Libraries. You can generally find her on twitter @melissaterras.