Spring 2022

For Spring 2022, all presentations and workshops were held online with the exception of the symposium, which was hybrid. The in-person location for hybrid presentations were at 320 Lockwood on the North Campus. The DSSN partnered with the Digital Humanities Research Workshop to offer a number of workshops on digital scholarship tools. Those workshops are noted after the title.  All times are US Eastern time.

2/16/22, 2:00-3:00: Sarah Cogley and Marie Elia, “Research with Archival Sources” – online only
In this workshop, archivists Sarah Cogley and Marie Elia demonstrated how to conduct research using primary source material, particularly in the University Archives and Special Collections of the University at Buffalo Libraries. They explained the various search tools and documentation archivists create to facilitate research in these unique collections, including born digital archival materials. More information: Special Collections PoliciesGuide to Research Using Special CollectionsArchives Collections
Recording
Slides

2/17/22, 2:00-4:00: Clayton Hamre – “Introduction to GIS for the Humanities” – workshop, online only
In this workshop, join linguistics graduate student Clayton Hamre for an introduction to Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping. Clayton will discuss his experience with GIS mapping projects at the University at Buffalo and introduce attendees to how they might utilize it in their own work. No DH or GIS experience necessary!

This event will include a demonstration of the free GIS software QGIS. Participants are invited to follow along with the demonstration in order to create their own map of the UB campus. Here is a UB Box link to a folder with instructions to download QGIS ("download_qgis.pdf") and a compressed folder containing GIS files that will be used in the activity ("map_files.zip").
Digital Humanities Research Workshop event, co-sponsored by DSSN
Recording

3/16/22, 2:00-3:00: Sarah Cogley – “Digital Archiving” – workshop, online only
Sarah Cogley is interim co-archivist for the University at Buffalo Archives. In this workshop aimed at graduate students, Sarah will provide an introduction to archiving and discuss best practices. She will also go over tips and resources that will help students manage and preserve their research work as they think ahead to their own scholarship. 
Digital Humanities Research Workshop event, co-sponsored by DSSN
Recording

3/28/22, 2:00-3:00: David Castillo & Siwei Lyu – “Introduction to the UB Center for Information Integrity” – online only
The new UB Center for Information Integrity (CII) brings together interested faculty from STEM and non-STEM disciplines all across UB to identify, evaluate, and mitigate the impact of mis/disinformation in all areas of public life, including public health, climate change, and the integrity of democratic processes. Co-directors David Castillo and Siwei Lyu will provide an overview of the Center’s collaborative vision and goals and discuss ways in which they hope the Center will build on UB’s existing strengths by supporting multidisciplinary research initiatives and community partnerships focused on all aspects of mis/disinformation awareness and mitigation.
Recording

3/30/22, 2:00-4:00: Stacy Snyder – “Digital Exhibits” – workshop, online only
In this workshop, join Stacy Snyder, Co-Director of the DSSN and former digital collections specialist for an introduction to three applications to use for digital exhibits: Omeka, Scalar, and Collection Builder. Stacy will discuss how to access the applications, the strengths of each, and will give a demonstration of each.
Digital Humanities Research Workshop event, co-sponsored by DSSN
Recording

4/6/2022, 2:00-4:00pm: Natalia Estrada – “Throwing Books at the Computer: an intro to textual analysis” - online only
“You just did computers to the text!” says the skeptical scholar. Sure, but there’s really more to textual analysis than that. In this workshop aimed at new researchers, Digital Scholarship Librarian Natalia Estrada will give an overview of textual analysis approaches and tools. Natalia will introduce methods such as topic modeling, text encoding, and word frequencies, as well as tools such as Voyant, AntConc, and MALLET. They’ll also point you to library resources that can help you build your corpora, such as HathiTrust and Project Gutenberg. 
Recording
Slides

4/19/22, 2:00-3:00: Yingjie Hu: “Exploring Geo-Text Data with Machine Learning Models for Knowledge Discovery” – online only
Recent years have witnessed an exponential growth of data that link geographic locations and textual descriptions (geo-text data for short). Examples include geotagged tweets, news articles containing place names, online neighborhood reviews, and many others. Meanwhile, the fast advancements of machine learning provide powerful tools enabling us to effectively analyze a large amount of geo-text data for knowledge discovery. In this presentation, I will present studies that discover knowledge by analyzing three types of geo-text data using various machine learning models and geospatial analysis methods. The discovered knowledge can support disaster response, urban planning, and other applications that benefit our society.
Register here

4/22-4/23/22: “Looking Back, Moving Forward” – online only
You’re invited to join Looking Back, Moving Forward, a 2-day virtual conference critically examining the past, present, and potential future roles of the law and legal strategies to advance environmental justice policy and action.
    Why focus on the institutions of law and policy-making?  Our histories have shown us that lawsuits against polluters or grandiose policy platforms rarely, if ever, bring about environmental justice in our communities.  
    Is it possible to imagine the master’s tools dismantling the master’s house? (pace, Audre Lorde).  In what ways can law and policy become more powerful tools for social and environmental change?  
    Conference Sponsors: The Environmental Justice & Climate Resilience Program, the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, the Environmental Studies Program, the Office of Sustainability, Swarthmore College and the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy and Digital Scholarship Studio and Network, University at Buffalo. 

4/27/22, 1:00-2:00: Jonathan Grunert – “Is open licensing good for you (and your project)?” – online only
Now that you’ve put some of your work online, what can you do to allow users to engage with it in a meaningful way? Is a Creative Commons license useful for your work, or is copyright good enough? Join Scholarly Publishing Librarian Jonathan Grunert for an overview of licensing options beyond copyright for your digitally created material. We’ll explore open and closed licensing, Open Access and Open Educational Resources, copyright and Creative Commons, and the Open movement more broadly.
Recording

POSTPONED: Judith Goldman and Kathleen Naughton -- “The First Year of the HOW(ever) & How2 Digital Archive Project” - hybrid
The HOW(ever) How2 Digital Archive Project took over the digital archiving of important feminist experimentalist poetry journals HOW(ever) and How2 from a university unable to continue to maintain the project. We discussed how we navigated the first year or so of launching our project: securing permissions from the literary executors, working with UB's libraries to acquire and host electronic files on UB's servers, securing funding, working with a web developer, designing a site and imagining a scholarly apparatus, cataloging and indexing an extensive archive, documenting technical problems, and brainstorming digital restoration and learning about best practices.

5/4/22, 1:00-2:00: Claire Schen – “Learning by Doing with DH in the Classroom” – online only
Have you been thinking you’d like to incorporate more digital humanities into your teaching portfolio, but some pedagogical concerns have gotten in your way? Besides the technological steps in adopting a particular platform, you might have questions about how to manage assignments especially with group work, guide students through a new kind of project, grade equitably, and take the leap with them into a new research experience. Dr. Schen will share what she learned with a collaborative group local history project and point to recommendations and best practices from UB and an assortment of professional organizations that helped shape this collaborative undertaking.
Recording

DSSN Symposium: “Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Digital Archives”

The 2022 DSSN Symposium was held on May 10, 2022. This was a hybrid event. 

In-person location: Baldy Center, 509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Time: 1:00-4:00pm EDT
View Recording

This symposium will bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars with an interest in social and technical systems for managing access to digital materials documenting Indigenous cultural and linguistic practices. A key concern to be addressed will be how to ensure that Indigenous communities are able to maintain sovereignty over materials documenting their heritage in light of conflicts between Western notions of intellectual property and diverse Indigenous traditions.

This symposium is expected to be of interest to scholars with an interest in Indigenous Studies, Law, Information Science, Anthropology, and Linguistics, as well as others involved with exploring the long-ranging historical impacts of colonialism, as is typical of much research in the humanities. It will also be of value for people engaged in the maintenance of the intellectual traditions of Indigenous communities, including members of the university community, such as librarians and archivists, who may be called upon to develop protocols and platforms that facilitate the safekeeping of Indigenous data in ways which allow Indigenous communities to maintain sovereignty over materials documenting their cultural, intellectual, and linguistic heritage.

This event is being co-sponsored by the The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy and the Department of Indigenous Studies.”

 

Invited Speakers

Headshot of Professor Angela R.Riley.

Angela Riley, Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law and Director of the JD/MA joint degree program in Law and American Indian Studies and the Native Nations Law and Policy Center. Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) is an internationally-renowned indigenous rights scholar. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Oklahoma and her law degree from Harvard Law School. In 2003 she became the first woman Justice of the Supreme Court of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma. In 2010, she was elected as Chief Justice. She also serves as Co-Chair for the United Nations – Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership Policy Board, which is a commitment to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Angela's talk is titled "The Ascension of Indigenous Cultural Property Law".

 

Profile image of Dr. Anderson Jane with both hands on face.

Jane Anderson, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies and a Global Fellow in the Engelberg Center for Innovation Law and Policy in the Law School at New York University. Jane has a Ph.D. in Law from the Law School at University of New South Wales in Australia. Her work is focused on the philosophical and practical problems for intellectual property law and the protection of Indigenous/traditional knowledge resources and cultural heritage in support of Indigenous knowledge and data sovereignty.

Jane's talk is titled "Relations of CARE: Indigenous Data Provenance"

 

 

 

Photograph of Jorge Fabra Zamora.

Jorge Fabra Zamora, University at Buffalo School of Law

Jorge Fabra Zamora holds a law degree from the Universidad de Cartagena, Colombia, and a Master's and Ph.D. in Philosophy from McMaster University, Canada. Between 2018–19, he was the Project Officer in Water Governance and Human Rights in the Research Project "Co-Creation of Indigenous Water Quality Tools," which is part of Global Water Futures.  

Headshot of Mia McKie; the respondent for the symposium.

Mia McKie, University at Buffalo Department of Indigenous Studies, Tuscarora Nation, Turtle Clan