"Beauty is Truth: Multi-sensory input and the challenge of designing aesthetically pleasing digital resources."

Certain problems in the design of digital systems for use in cultural heritage and the humanities have proved to be unexpectedly difficult to solve. For example, Why is it difficult to locate ourselves and understand the extent and shape of digital information resources? Why is digital serendipity still so unusual? Why do users persist in making notes on paper rather than using digital annotation systems? Why do we like to visit and work in a library, and browse open stacks, even though we could access digital information remotely? Why do we still love printed books, but feel little affection for digital e-readers? Why are vinyl records so popular? Why is the experience of visiting a museum still relatively unaffected by digital interaction? The article argues that the reasons these problems persist may be due to the very complex relationship between physical and digital information and information resources. I will discuss the importance of spatial orientation, memory, pleasure, and multi-sensory input, especially touch, in making sense of, and connections between physical and digital information. I will also argue that, in this context, we have much to learn from the designers of early printed books and libraries, such as the Priory Library and that of John Cosin, a seventeenth-century bishop of Durham, which is part of the collections of Durham University library

Interfaces, ephemera and identity: a study of the historical presentation of digital humanities resources

This article reports on a study of interfaces to long-lived digital humanities (DH) resources using an innovative combination of research methods from book history, interface design, and digital preservation and curation to investigate how interfaces to DH resources have changed over time. To do this, we used the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine to investigate the original presentation and all subsequent changes to the interfaces of a small sample of projects. The study addresses the following questions: What can we learn from a study of interfaces to DH material? How have interfaces to DH materials changed over the course of their existence? Do these changes affect the way the resource is used, and the way it conveys meaning? Should we preserve interfaces for future scholarship? We show that a valuable information may be derived from the interfaces of long-lived projects. Visual design can communicate subtle messages about the way the resource was originally conceived by its creators and subsequent changes show how knowledge of user behaviour developed in the DH community. Interfaces provide information about the intellectual context of early digital projects. They can also provide information about the changing place of DH projects in local and national infrastructures, and the way that projects have sought to survive in challenging funding environments

"Love is Eloquence": Richard Crashaw and the Development of a Discourse of Divine Love

My thesis takes as its subject the poetry of Richard Crashaw. Crashaw aims to represent a mutual relationship of love between God and humanity, which is modelled on the discourses of earthly, erotic love. However, such a relationship, and its expression is highly problematic. Love, and this kind of mutuality are best expressed through suffering. This paradox is central to my thesis. The dissertation falls into three parts which discuss the early , middle and late periods of his life and writing. Section One: Epigrammata Sacra. In these epigrams, Crashaw attempted to forge a language in which to express his love of God. He adapted the conventions of Latin erotic poetry to represent sacred love. The first two chapters discuss Ovid and Prudentius who were important influences on Crashaw since they both adapted the language of Classical Latin poetry for their own purposes. Ovid used the language of Augustan public rituals to write erotic poetry. Prudentius also strove to adapt the language of Roman poetry to the Christian purpose of celebrating the sufferings of the manyrs. Since Crashaw also explores the way in which wounding can aid communication between humanity and God, Prudentius was also an imponant model for this aspect of his poetry. Section Two: Steps to the Temple (1646). The first chapter concerns Counter Reformation meditational writers. Louis Manz contends that such writers were highly influential on English Renaissance poetry. This chapter investigates their views of divine love and how humanity may achieve it. In Steps to the Temple , Crashaw celebrates those who, like St. Teresa, have achieved communion with God, but seems himself to require an intermediate agency through which to communicate his love for the divine. The poems discussed in this section were probably written in the 1630s and 1640s, while Crashaw was resident in Cambridge. The final chapter discusses the political and religious debates of the 1640s and argues that what some critics perceive as Crashaw's 'foreign' sensibility may be a reflection of the views of the 'Beauty of Holiness' movement. Section Three: Steps to the Temple (1648) and Carmen Deo Nostro. Crashaw fled to Europe in 1643 and convened to Catholicism. The two later editions of his poetry, published after his exile from England, contain several new poems and revisions of earlier ones. Poems in hymn form , appear for the first time in the 1648 edition of Steps to the Temple. These are full of images of pain and wounding. The opening chapter compares Crashaw's discussions of religious suffering with those of contemporary poets. The work of his close friend and coUeague at Peterhouse, Joseph Beaumont, is particularly va1uable, since his language and style are very similar to Crashaw's. Beaumont's poetry also offers an insight into the life of Laudians who remained in England during the Interregnum. Hymns of the Church were associated with Catholic ritual. The second chapter considers whether there is any evidence that these poems were written after Crashaw's conversion, and whether they exhibit any change of sensibility as a result . An account of Crashaw's years of exile contends that he may have encountered Catholic thought while still in England. Critics have assumed that once he convened, and particularly once he anived in Rome, he was finally content and at peace with God. I argue, however, there is no evidence for this view, and that Crashaw remained an excluded exile whose sense of isolation found expression in his poetry

Supporting mental health and emotional well-being among younger students in further education

Over the last 25 years there has been an increase in reported behavioural and emotional problems among young people. Moreover, students in higher education (HE) are reported to have increased symptoms of mental ill health compared with age-matched controls. Some students in further education (FE) are likely to experience similar difficulties, especially as an increasing number may come from backgrounds that may make them more vulnerable to mental health problems. National policies and guidance highlight the importance of promoting the mental health of young people in general and of students in particular. This exploratory study aimed to identify whether, and in what ways, FE colleges were contributing to younger students' (aged 16-19 years) mental health. Interviews with key informants, a survey of FE colleges in England and five case studies of individual FE colleges providing specialised mental-health support services to students revealed some evidence of promising and good practice, but this did not appear to be widespread. Given the current range of college settings, no single approach to improving mental health among students is likely to be the answer. Rather, respondents highlighted a number of factors that influence the provision of support services for students: awareness among professionals of the links between students' mental health and their achievement at college; having in place national and college policies and guidance that address mental health; building an inclusive college ethos; building leadership at senior and middle manager levels; having accessible in-college and/or external support services; and the provision of professional development opportunities for staff

Framing the experience: a study of the history of interfaces to digital humanities projects

This paper discusses the need to preserve interfaces for early DH projects. It is a slightly expanded version of the abstract that will appear in the conference book of abstracts. The full version of the paper has been published by Digital Scholarship in the Humanities at https://academic.oup.com/dsh/articleabstract/ doi/10.1093/llc/fqz081/5670586. I am therefore not able to upload that paper to this repository, for copyright reasons. But please do read the full paper if you have access to it

Enhancing Museum Narratives: Tales of Things and UCL’s Grant Museum

Emergent mobile technologies offer museum professionals new ways of engaging visitors with their collections. Museums are powerful learning environments and mobile technology can enable visitors to experience the narratives in museum objects and galleries and integrate them with their own personal reflections and interpretations. UCL‟s QRator project is exploring how handheld mobile devices and interactive digital labels can create new models for public engagement, personal meaning making and the construction of narrative opportunities inside museum spaces. The use of narrative in museums has long been recognised as a powerful communication technique to engage visitors and to explore the different kinds of learning and participation that result. Many museums make extensive use of narrative, or storytelling, as a learning, interpretive, and meaning making tool. This chapter discusses the potential for mobile technologies to connect museums to audiences through co-creation of narratives, taking the QRator project as a case study. The QRator project aims to stress the necessity of engaging visitors actively in the creation of their own interpretations of museum collections through the integration of QR codes, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps into UCL‟s Grant Museum of Zoology. Although this chapter will concentrate on mobile technology created for a natural history museum, issues of meaning making and narrative creation through mobile technology are applicable to any discipline. In the first instance, the concern is with the development of mobile media in museums followed by a discussion of the QRator project which stresses the opportunities and challenges in utilizing mobile technology to enhance visitor meaning making and narrative construction. Finally, this chapter discusses the extent to which mobile technologies might be used purposefully to transform institutional cultures, practices and relationships with visitors

Implementing New Knowledge Environments: Year One Research Foundations

In this 2009 article, we present details of the first year work of the INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) research group, a large international, interdisciplinary research team studying reading and texts, both digital and printed. The INKE team is comprised of researchers and stakeholders at the forefronts of fields relating to textual studies, user experience, interface design, and information management. We aim to contribute to the development of new digital information and knowledge environments that build on past textual practices. We discuss our research questions, methods, aims and research objectives, the rationale behind our work and its expected significance—specifically as it pertains to our first year goals of laying a research foundation for this endeavour.&nbsp