Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 335.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Melissa Terras <M.Terras@ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Call for Book Chapter Submissions: Critical Approaches to Automated Text Recognition (112)
[2] From: Federico Pianzola <f.pianzola@gmail.com>
Subject: Digital Social Reading (Open Access book, MIT Press) (46)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2025-01-22 17:26:56+00:00
From: Melissa Terras <M.Terras@ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Call for Book Chapter Submissions: Critical Approaches to Automated Text Recognition
Dear Colleagues,
Please find below a call for book chapters, on critical approaches to ATR. I
would appreciate if you could share with your networks, and do please ask if you
have any questions!
Thanks,
Melissa
(and Paul, Joe and Sarah).
-----
Call for Chapter Submissions: Critical Approaches to Automated Text Recognition
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit to a collection of essays
tentatively entitled Critical Approaches to Automated Text Recognition, to be
edited by Melissa Terras, Paul Gooding, Sarah Ames and Joe Nockels.
Automated Text Recognition (ATR) (a process that uses artificial intelligence
and machine learning to extract text from a scanned image or document, including
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR)), has
significantly evolved recently. ATR is impacting the accessibility of historical
texts, the institutions that steward them, and the broader field of digital
humanities. As the technology shifts from developmental stages to practical
applications, it is crucial to scrutinize its impacts, potentials, and the
ethical dimensions it intersects with. This edited collection aims to gather
diverse perspectives on the complexities of ATR, emphasizing critical analyses
to guide future developments, while urging a reflection on how this technology
is reshaping our engagement with digital and historical texts, the institutions
that host them, and the use and users of such resources.
Proposals on any critical topic relating to automated and advanced text
recognition (including OCR, HTR, etc) are welcome, but the editors are
particularly interested in essays which engage with future possibilities in this
space and consider how automated text recognition can have an impact beyond
academia.
A preliminary foray into this topic “The implications of handwritten text
recognition for accessing the past at scale”, by Nockels, J., Gooding, P. and
Terras, M. (2024), published in the Journal of Documentation
(https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2023-0183) suggested a number of relevant areas
in need of further discussion, including:
1. Access to Multiple Voices, underrepresented groups and endangered
languages – How ATR can highlight diverse perspectives and contribute to a more
inclusive historical record.
2. Integrating the Results of ATR into Collection Systems and Processes –
Examining the ramifications of integrating ATR results into digital collection
infrastructures
3. Integration with Advanced AI Processes – Potential and issues of combining
ATR with advanced AI techniques to enhance functionalities and improve analysis.
4. ATR and Legal Frameworks - Navigating legal challenges such as copyright
and data privacy in the use of ATR.
5. Data Ethics and Bias - Addressing biases and ethical considerations in ATR
processes and data to ensure responsibility and transparency
6. Environmental Costs of ATR - Considering the environmental impacts of
computationally intensive ATR models and advocating for sustainable practices.
7. Establishing Data Sharing and Data Consent Principles - Adhering to FAIR
and CARE principles for ethical data handling in ATR projects.
8. Near Future Issues for the Use of ATR with Historical Documents -
Anticipating technological and ethical challenges in using ATR for historical
documents.
9. Speculating ATR Design - Using speculative design methods to envision and
plan future impacts of ATR on historical research and public engagement.
10. ATR Limitations - Addressing the challenges and shortcomings of ATR
technology, including incomplete capture or interpretation of texts.
Proposals based on these, or any other critical topic, are welcome.
Chapter proposals of ~500 words plus brief biography will be accepted until
March 31st, 2025. Submissions will undergo a peer-review process to ensure the
relevance and quality of the contributions. Acceptances will be sent out May
2025. Feedback and revision suggestions will be provided for accepted proposals.
Final chapters, which can range from 5000-7000 words in length, will be due in
December 2025.
Please send your chapter proposal (~500 words), including chapter title, and a
brief biography (~100 words per author) by March 31st 2025 to all the editors:
* Melissa Terras: m.terras@ed.ac.uk
* Paul Gooding: Paul.Gooding@glasgow.ac.uk
* Sarah Ames: sarah.ames@nls.uk
* Joe Nockels: j.nockels@sheffield.ac.uk
If you have any questions, please contact the editors.
We are in advanced discussions with Facet Publishing
(https://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/), a leading publisher of books for library,
information and heritage professionals. We have successfully worked with them
before on various book projects. We do not have funding for open access, however
authors are allowed to publish their accepted versions of chapters on their
institutional repository, which will we draw together as we did for our previous
publication, see https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/elegaldeposit/the-book-electronic-legal-
deposit/.
————
Professor Melissa Terras MBE FREng
Design Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art
University of Edinburgh
@melissaterras
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2025-01-22 15:08:35+00:00
From: Federico Pianzola <f.pianzola@gmail.com>
Subject: Digital Social Reading (Open Access book, MIT Press)
I'm happy to announce the publication in print and Open Access of my
latest book:
Pianzola, F. Digital Social Reading. Sharing Fiction in the Twenty-First
Century. MIT Press, 2025.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262550918/digital-social-reading/
---
How digital social reading apps are powerfully changing—and nurturing—the
way we read.
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that digital technology is a
threat to reading, but in Digital Social Reading, Federico Pianzola
argues that reading socially through digital media can help people grow a
passion for reading and, in some cases, even enhance text comprehension.
Digital social reading (DSR) is a term that encompasses a wide variety of
practices related to the activity of reading and using digital technologies
and platforms (websites, social media, mobile apps) to share thoughts and
impressions about books with others. This book is the first systematization
of DSR practices, drawing on case studies from Wattpad, AO3, and Goodreads
on a worldwide scale.
---
“Digital Social Reading is a timely and important contribution to our
understanding of emerging technologies and trends in contemporary reading
cultures. Innovative in the range of methods used, and ambitious in scale,
the study offers an insightful and refreshingly optimistic take on
communities and practices all too often ignored or misunderstood.” (Bronwen
Thomas, Emeritus Professor of English and New Media, Bournemouth
University)
“Digital Social Reading is a triumph of synthesis. Ranging across
countries, languages, platforms and methodologies, Pianzola surveys the
past 15 years of fiction-reading technologies and forecasts how they will
continue to democratize readerly authority.” (Simone Murray, Associate
Professor of Literary Studies, Monash University; author of The Digital
Literary Sphere and Introduction to Contemporary Print Culture)
“Pianzola gives us a brilliant and refreshingly international overview of
the objects, institutions, and activities that constitute 'digital social
reading' and a lucid guide to the ingenious new methods that have emerged
to study it.” (James F. English, John Welsh Centennial Professor of
English and Founder of the Price Lab for Digital Humanities, University of
Pennsylvania; author of The Global Future of English Studies)
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