Digital Humanist Interview
For my digital humanist interview, I spoke with Brandi Burns. Brandi is a historian and digital humanist who currently works for the Department of Arts and History in Boise, Idaho. Brandi has a B.A. in History and a minor in creative writing from Idaho State University. She has a Masters of Applied Historical Research that she earned from Boise State University. While working for the Department of Arts and History, (A&H) Brandi has developed Boise’s first Oral History Program, part of which includes 30+ hours of interviews. Brandi also coordinates a monthly lecture series, designs exhibits, and performs research for the Mayor, City Council, city departments and the public. Brandi’s digital work includes the A&H blog and designing a digital interpretive project for the city’s 150th commemoration. As a graduate student, Brandi gained experience working at A&H as the city historian; a research assistantship awarded through the Boise State University History department. At Idaho State University Brandi worked as a lab assistant and as an intern for the historical journal Idaho Yesterdays.
When I interviewed Brandi, she expressed the importance of having a basic technological understanding; including how to add content to web sites and run a blog. Brandi, however, feels that the most important skills for a digital humanist reside in the traditional field of humanities. She told me “Remember, you are a historian and you do not need to know everything in the technology field; like how to build an app or coding a website. You just need to remember that a good digital humanist provides solid content and pays someone with the tech skills to build what you are dreaming about. They are good at tech, you are good at research, writing, interpreting, which are the skills all historians need.” Brandi’s advice reiterated many of our class readings that expressed the need, amongst so much technology, to not lose sight of what we do as humanists. The humanities are a unique field that can take advantage and utilize the numerous technological tools available to us, and by using these tools we are still able perform the type of research that sets us apart as scholars. Further, the important questions we ask can be supplemented by technology, not replaced.
Besides a basic knowledge of various technologies, Brandi felt that digital humanists should be flexible, and have a strong willingness to learn new things. She also stated that it is important to try new things, which may be out of our comfort zone. She told me a skill you need as a digital humanist is the “ability to try different things even if they make you uncomfortable.” The other skill that is paramount for a digital humanist is the ability to interpret large amounts of data for public consumption, this is especially important for historians.
Brandi recommended a few resources for aspiring digital humanists, such as the Boise City Department of Arts and History website, the Timeglider website, and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. (I noticed on our syllabus one of our assignments is to explore the Rosenzweig center) Brandi is also a fan of Northwest Digital Archives and is in the process of incorporating historical documents from Boise into this archive.
As the current city historian, I have the opportunity to learn from Brandi and to test out some of the skills and methods we are discussing in class on a daily basis. After conducting this interview, and working as the city historian, the actual day to day life of a digital humanist seems less daunting and technological frightening.