Andrew Piper:

As part of its arrival — as part of the hum of digital humanities — I’d like to see some more reflection by those of us involved with digital humanities with the question of the appropriate use of resources in a world of increasingly scarce resources. Committing high levels of resources to one area means there is going to be less in another. Such investment is going to create hierarchies within institutions, very pronounced ones, far more pronounced than currently exist, say, between English and German departments, again, at a time when funding is in short supply and the cost of higher education is beginning to put some serious strain on society.

This post has its roots in a discussion at the most recent MLA conference (which I observed only from twitter). The issue of resources will be important as more scholarship becomes digital and Piper provides a thoughtful reflection. Fortunately, UNL has the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, but I do wonder about the ability of scholars that lack the same institutional support to successfully do DH.