Consumers, Creators or Commentators? Problems of Audience and Mission in the Digital Humanities

A 2008 article by Patrick Juola describes the digital humanities community as marginal to mainstream academic discussions and suggests that its work has little scholarly impact. At the same time, mainstream humanities scholars are using digital resources more and more, but these resources are chiefly produced by libraries and commercial organizations rather than digital humanities specialists. How can the digital humanities achieve its promise and transform humanities scholarship? It is suggested that the digital humanities community is too inward-looking and needs to reach out to wider constituencies. In particular, digital humanities specialists should urgently engage with the wider theoretical concerns that characterize humanities scholarship. Projects such as the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674–1913 engage new audiences because they are grounded in a strong research vision.