The LAIRAH Project: Log Analysis of Digital Resources in the Arts and Humanities. Final Report to the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Abstract

Digital Humanities is a relatively young but very productive discipline. In its short history scholars have produced thousands of digital resources which have been funded by governments, philanthropic bodies and universities. In the UK alone, over 250 digital humanities projects have been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) since 1998. Yet what happens to such resources after completion is poorly understood. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some projects become well known but others have been relatively quickly forgotten. This is regrettable since the non-use of a resource represents a waste both of the considerable intellectual effort and time expended in its production, and potentially considerable amounts of funding. No systematic survey of digital resource usage in the humanities has been undertaken, and the characteristics of a project that might predispose it for sustained use have never been studied. This report presents the results the LAIRAH (Log analysis of Internet Resources in the Arts and Humanities) project (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/circah/lairah/) based at UCL’s School of Library Archive and Information Studies: a study to discover what influences the long-term sustainability and use of digital resources in the humanities.