In 2006, the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences issued a report entitled Our Cultural Commonwealth (2006) that addresses issues of concern relating to cyberinfrastructure for the humanities and social sciences. As used by the Commission, the term “cyberinfrastructure” covers the aggregate social, human, technological, institutional, legal, and economic capital needed to advance the humanities and social sciences in a global digital environment (ACLS 6). The intended audience of the report includes (among others) research libraries, museums, and 
archives. Among the eight recommendations in the report, four are highly relevant to this proposal:
- cultivate leadership in support of cyberinfrastructure from within the humanities and social sciences;
- encourage digital scholarship;
- develop and maintain open standards and robust tools; and,
- create extensive and reusable digital collections.
Not a single one of the forty-two (42) unconditionally accredited graduate library schools in the United States offers internships or practicum opportunities that specifically speak to the needs outlined in the ACLS report and none of them are formally in collaboration with digital humanities centers. Many of the most innovative iSchools offer classes such as “Introduction to Information Architecture,” “Metadata,” “Introduction or Fundamentals of eXtensible Markup Language,” and “Digital Libraries.” These courses typically expose students to the work of digital humanities centers and to the content and technology issues that are central to digital libraries. Coursework provides limited practical exercises but does not afford the time or the opportunity to obtain a depth of understanding of the practical challenges that the digital humanities face in translating theory into practice. Digital humanities is a field of study at the intersection of computing and the humanities. Broadly construed, the humanities encompass disciplines such as literature, history, philosophy, religion, and language, as well as the visual and performing arts. By its very nature, then, the field is interdisciplinary, involving researchers whose collective expertise cuts across the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the computational sciences; and whose collective work contributes to areas as diverse as electronic publication, computational analysis, visualization and multimedia, image processing, metadata, search and retrieval, digital preservation, and other related aspects of computerization. Ultimately, “humanities computing”–not an oxymoron–leverages the power of digital technologies for the purposes of preserving, creating, disseminating, and interpreting the cultural record. Readers who are interested in learning more should explore A Companion to Digital Humanities (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), or, <http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion>.
A network of digital humanities centers is on the cutting edge of research in digital humanities issues and in the preparation of new forms of digital content and new tools for scholarship in the humanities. In recent years, digital humanities centers have responded to individual requests to host interns. Usually, these requests are made on behalf of a student or recent PhD who has expressed interest rather than because of a formal relationship between the graduate program and the digital humanities center. Often these requests are from advanced students, some with subject masters or PhDs, with an interest in learning more about digital libraries or digital humanities scholarship than can be gleaned through introductory courses. Students who plan some day to work in college or research libraries or in IT departments in academe see
these internships as particularly attractive. Expressions of interest from students indicating demand are included in the appendix.
Digital humanities centers, with their scholarly focus and technical expertise, offer an environment that
naturally draws students’ interest and attention. Those with the capacity to provide space, projects, training, and supervision for interns find that the students have much to offer the centers in enthusiasm, a theoretical grounding in issues, and in their abilities to contribute to research projects that further the center’s goals. Some may have significant technical expertise that will benefit the work of humanities scholars associated with a center, but will learn much about digital scholarship by working in a team environment. At this point, however, there are no programs to assist advanced either iSchool students or digital humanities centers in placing interns. This project is to fill this need by developing a robust and sustainable program for placing interns within digital humanities centers.
Three graduate iSchools, the University of Michigan School of Information, and the University of Texas Austin School of Information, have agreed to collaborate deeply with three nationally-recognized digital humanities centers (MITH, CDRH, and MATRIX) to create a model internship program for students interested in careers in digital humanities centers and digital libraries. The purposes of this program are to address some of the recommendations in the ACLS report by enhancing education and training opportunities offered by graduate programs of library and information science and iSchools with internships specifically oriented toward the work of digital humanities centers.
The project will:
- Foster in a cadre of graduate students a deeper understanding of digital libraries and digital humanities scholarship.
- Provide faculty in three iSchools opportunities and incentives to examine digital humanities and digital libraries issues intently, opening opportunities for collaborative research and scholarship.
- Generate a syllabus for a digital humanities LIS course that will be taught by one or more of theiSchool faculty participating in the grant in the third year of the program and released widely under a Creative Commons license.
- Generate a white paper describing lessons learned from the internship program— from the perspectives of faculty in iSchools or library and information science programs, the faculty in digital humanities centers, and from that of the students themselves.