Here is the link to the Google Doc Trevor set up to catalog strengths and weaknesses of various software packages for digital collections.

As scholars, even digitally-minded scholars, even blogging scholars, we tend to ask ourselves how we can make our blogs more scholarly. We wonder how the blog can come to approximate the scholarly journal, or at least how it can reproduce its core values of evidence, citation, narrative argument, and peer-review. Even when acknowledging the inherent differences between blogs and journals, we still tend to argue for the former on the latter’s turf.

I’d like to take a session to step back from this discussion to look at public history blogs [full stop]. I’d like to take a step back from the prevailing discourse of “scholarly blogs” to talk about how the inherent affordances and values of blogging can benefit public historical work, absent any pressure to reproduce traditional forms and values. How can straight-up blogging–minus the baggage of “scholarly” aspirations–work for public history and its audiences? Is straight-up blogging enough? Or should we really be thinking about “scholarly blogging” after all?

It’s likely that this session will overlap with David’s session on the future of digital scholarly publishing.

Thanks for registering for THATCamp NCPH (and OAH)! We’ve got 45 registrants so far, and will be continuing to accept registrations so long as we have space. If you are registering late, be sure to go by the registration desk at the Frontier Airlines Center at 400 Wisconsin before you go to THATCamp.

Now is also the time to start thinking about what you’d like to do or discuss at THATCamp. From now till THATCamp NCPH on April 18, you can propose one or more session ideas by logging in to the site and posting your idea(s) as a blog post by clicking Posts –> Add New, writing out your idea, then clicking “Publish” on the right to publish to the site. See Proposing a Session for more information about how and what you might propose, not to mention a little bit of explanation about why things work this way at THATCamp.

The registration desk opens at the Frontier Airlines Center at 8am on Wednesday morning. All registrants should come by the registration desk on Wednesday morning and pick up their name badges and registration materials before going to THATCamp. We’ll all work together to set the day’s agenda starting at 9am.

Write info@thatcamp.org with any questions, and follow @THATCamp and the #thatcamp hashtag on Twitter to see what’s going on at other THATCamps around the world. Hope you find THATCamp fun, productive, and collegial.

9 a.m. – 5 p.m., Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Hilton Milwaukee City Center

Join us for the second THATCamp NCPH, building on the success of last year’s event at the NCPH conference in Pensacola, Florida. The camp will take place on the day before the conference officially starts, on Wednesday, April 18, at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center. Registration is an affordable $30 for the day. The event is organized and facilitated by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, with support from the NCPH Digital Media Group.

The “unconference” format dispenses with formal presentations and allows campers to design hands-on sessions on the spot around projects, issues, or technologies of particular interest to them. As at the more than 60 THATCamps that have been held since the first one in 2008, participants will help create the agenda and share knowledge and questions. Last year’s THATCamp NCPH proved that this approach makes a productive mix with the collaborative nature of public history, and we’re looking forward to another day-long meeting of the minds. One participant last year called it “a really helpful and collegial experience,” and another talked about the “great mix” of who attended—grad students, scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, and others. THATCamp NCPH is open to anyone with an interest in the digital humanities, although we expect that the disciplinary center of gravity at this camp will likely be around public history. Please forward this announcement to anyone in the humanities, technology, design, or related fields who might be interested in what promises to be a lively and inclusive event.

To apply to attend the camp, see ncph2012.thatcamp.org/register

After you register, you’ll get an account that will let you log in to the THATCamp NCPH website. On the website, you’ll be asked to write a paragraph proposing a project, topic, or skill that you’d like to explore in Milwaukee. Interested in incorporating digital history projects as a classroom activity? Want to learn more about collections management software? Curious about cell phone apps and digital walking tours? Tell us your idea and then come to the camp and help us figure out how to explore it in a way that will be most useful for you. Campers at last year’s THATCamp NCPH ranged from people just beginning to think about digital humanities to those with years of designing and programming experience—there’s room for everyone in the discussions.

Attendance is capped at 75 people and registration closes on April 1. Successful applicants for the camp will be notified shortly after April 1.

Campers will need to purchase lunch on April 18, but menus from a selection of nearby quick eateries will be available at the start of the day to streamline the process.

More details will be available here as the event approaches.