PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (July 13, 2022) – It’s a typically busy year for Marco Robinson, associate professor of history and assistant director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice at Prairie View A&M University. The Mellon Outstanding Faculty Award winner just finished co-directing a summer institute at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, entitled “Understanding the Long View of the African Diaspora: Teaching African American Studies.” The institute, offered in partnership with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice, allowed participating K–12 educators to “better understand the approaches and the historical perspective required to create and teach African American studies.”
Amid the excitement of the institute, Robinson was also announced as one of 15 humanities scholars from across the nation to take part in “Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Roadmaps.” Brown University Library offers the three-week hybrid institute with the help of a $169,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“As the nation confronts systemic and structural inequalities, the sense of urgency to disseminate knowledge rapidly and broadly and to hear from new voices is all the more pronounced. Amidst these crises and calls for change, now is the time to extend and elevate the voices, perspectives and visions represented in the practice and production of digital humanities scholarship,” according to the library.
Stated goals in the establishment of the NEH Digital Publishing Institute aim “to facilitate precisely such work by supporting scholars who wish to pursue interpretive projects that require digital expression and digital publication but lack resources and capacity at their home institutions, bridging a digital divide that, without intervention, puts digital publishing—as a future of scholarship—at risk of becoming the preserve of elite institutions.”
The 2022 cohort counts nine scholars from the HBCU Library Alliance among its 15 members. As Robinson explained in Brown Library’s announcement of the 2022 cohort, PVAMU lacks a digital humanities center, digital humanities major or minor, or digital publishing department. “The institute’s reach and engagement with minority-serving institutions,” Robinson said, “has the potential to transform the academy and the landscape of higher education.”
Robinson’s application was accepted on the strength of his digital monograph, “‘On the Upward Trend’: The Impact of Prairie View A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Agricultural Extension Services on Communities of Color during the Jim Crow Era in Texas.” The monograph presents the history of PVAMU’s College of Agriculture and Human Sciences during the Jim Crow era, incorporating records from PVAMU’s Special Collections and Archives Department, particularly agricultural extension workers’ reports from the early to mid-1900s. Materials — memos, photos, program flyers, diagrams of farming techniques, and maps of service areas — are in the process of being digitized, thanks to a Preservation Assistance Grant from the NEH. The use of digital tools such as GIS mapping and the inclusion of interactive elements will “further enhance the reading experience,” Robinson said.
“There are several reasons why this project needs to be digitally published,” Robinson said. “A primary reason is to provide access to the data so that people can engage with the research right away. Another is the format: There are a lot of maps and visual data that I will have to use that couldn’t go into a traditional, physical book.”
Participation in the institute offers scholars “in-depth knowledge of the digital publishing process, familiarity with open-source tools and platforms, advanced project management skills,” according to Brown Library, as well as top-level publishing industry contacts. Robinson sees these basics of digital humanities scholarship being put to use in his teaching as well as his research.
“I’d say a little bit of both,” said Robinson. “I hope to gain skills using digital tools and methods that will broaden my teaching and approaches to research. My participation will expand the use of digital humanities on campus and equip our students with tools to do digital projects.”
As for the digital publication of his manuscript, it’s too early to know when it will come to fruition.
“I don’t know yet what the timeline will be, but I do know that getting your work out on a digital platform is a more streamlined process,” Robinson said. “And, when completed, it’s there on your university website, where it can have an immediate impact on your community.”
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