Drupal and Digital Humanities

Is Drupal for humanists? Using the case study of Bulgarian Dialectology as Living Tradition, a digital dialect atlas for the Bulgarian language developed at UC Berkeley, this session makes the case for putting Drupal in the hands of scholars with an interest in digital humanities tools and methodologies. While Drupal's reputation for having a steep learning curve has often limited its use in higher education to administrative contexts, Drupal has a great deal to offer scholars interested in working on digital humanities projects. However, most institutions lack the resources to dedicate many IT or library staff to doing Drupal site development for niche projects. The solution: teach the humanities scholars to develop their own Drupal sites. This session will cover:

• A walk-through of Bulgarian Dialectology as Living Tradition, and examples of digital humanities sites that are using Drupal
• Reasons (besides resource constraints) why digital humanities Drupal development should be driven by scholars
• Particular challenges for teaching Drupal to humanists
• What role IT and library staff can play in supporting digital humanities work in Drupal

This session is equally good for Drupal experts who are interested in helping support digital humanities projects, and scholars who are interested in digital humanities but new to Drupal.