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{{Paper
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|title=Digital Humanities in Action: the Sixth Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries conference
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3232/paper00.pdf
|volume=Vol-3232
|authors=Karl Berglund,Matti La Mela,Inge Zwart
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/dhn/X22
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==Digital Humanities in Action: the Sixth Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries conference==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3232/paper00.pdf
Digital Humanities in Action: the Sixth Digital
Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries
conference
Karl Berglund1,2 , Matti La Mela3 and Inge Zwart3
1
Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala (CDHU), Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Sweden
2
Department of Literature, Uppsala University, Sweden
3
Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Sweden
Abstract
The 6th Digital Humanities in the Baltic and Nordic Countries Conference was organised as a hybrid
conference in Uppsala on March 15-18, 2022. This introduction presents the scientific programme,
conference participation, and the experience of organising an hybrid DHNB conference. The conference
theme ”Digital humanities in action” was selected to highlight the effects of digital humanities outside the
confines of academia, and to encourage the participants to rethink how the scholarly practices in digital
humanities interact with society at large. These proceedings cover the key thematic areas discussed at
the conference, and include the paper presentations that were submitted as full versions to the conference
proceedings.
Keywords
digital humanities, DHNB, conferences
1. Introduction
Planning and arranging an international conference is a challenge. Planning and arranging
an international and cross-disciplinary conference within the notoriously hard-to-define area
of digital humanities is a bigger challenge. And doing this as a hybrid event in the midst of
an ongoing pandemic is bordering the stupid. Still, this is what The 6th Digital Humanities in
the Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference (DHNB 2022) was all about. The conference was
held at Uppsala University on 15–18 March 2022, organised jointly by the Centre for Digital
Humanities Uppsala (CDHU), the Department of ALM, Uppsala University, and the Uppsala
University Library. The conference was the sixth in the series of DHNB conferences since Oslo
2016, and the first with the B officially included in the name of the conference.
The academic program of the conference is represented in these proceedings and the pre-
viously published book of abstracts [1]. The proceedings are rich of interesting papers that
will keep the vivid field of digital humanities in the Nordic and Baltic countries going, if not
forever at least up until the next DHNB conference takes place. In this short introduction, we
The 6th Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference (DHNB 2022), Uppsala, Sweden, March 15-18,
2022.
Envelope-Open karl.berglund@abm.uu.se (K. Berglund); matti.lamela@abm.uu.se (M. La Mela); inge.zwart@abm.uu.se (I. Zwart)
Orcid 0000-0001-7280-1112 (K. Berglund); 0000-0003-0340-9269 (M. La Mela); 0000-0001-5894-853X (I. Zwart)
© 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR
Workshop
Proceedings
http://ceur-ws.org
ISSN 1613-0073
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
1
will describe the conference and its following proceedings in numbers and in words, as all
good digital humanities work. The ambition is to make an overarching account of what the
conference was about, how it relates to the previous DHNB conferences, and what this can tell
us about the development of digital humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries in a larger
perspective. Finally, we try to draw some conclusions that we send along to future conference
organisers.
All DHNB conferences focus on research, education and communication in the interdisci-
plinary field of digital humanities in the Nordic and Baltic regions and beyond. DHNB 2022
explicitly highlighted the two-way relationship between digital humanities theory and praxis
and society. Much digital humanities research brings together technical implementation with
critical discourse to correspond to broader cultural and institutional settings. In this light,
DHNB 2022 chose the conference theme ”Digital Humanities in Action”, where we specifically
welcomed presentations on how digital humanities can make a difference to society outside the
confines of academia, for example concerning stakeholders of memory and culture (e.g., media,
institutions of memory and heritage), and the societal and political spheres more generally. In
the slogan-like phrasing, the DHNB 2022 conference had the ambition to put digital humanities
in action.
Not only did the call for submissions reflect this emphasis. We invited three keynote speakers
who exemplify this border crossing in distinct ways. Koraljka Golub, Professor in Library and
Information Science at the Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, talked about
“The conjunction of knowledge organization and digital humanities”. She shed light on the
role and challenges of metadata practices and standards in a digital world, where knowledge
organisation tools need to service an ever expanding and more diverse array of end-users,
advance interoperability over larger and more numerous collections across various platforms,
and support the sustainability of a variety of resources.
In the second keynote, Wolfram Horstmann, Director of the Göttingen State and University
Library and University Librarian of Georg August Universität Göttingen, used the title ”Hu-
manities and Libraries – The Return of a Dream Team?” to discuss the simultaneous and often
parallel transformations of (digital) humanities and research libraries in the digital realm. He
somewhat provocatively questioned the future relevance of the ”digital” in the digital humani-
ties, and instead emphasised the long line of collaboration and mutual understanding between
humanities scholarship and research libraries. Roopika Risam, finally, reflected perhaps most
explicitly on the conference theme. In her keynote, labelled ”Digital Humanities as Activism”,
she discussed how digital humanities knowledge and expertise can be mobilized to respond to
the more pressing crises of our time. Drawing on her extensive experiences and collaborative
projects, such as Torn Apart/Separados and the Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium, Risam
articulated a vision for how, at small and large scales, we as digital humanities scholars can use
our powers for good.
2. The DHNB 2022 conference in numbers (and words)
The call for submissions attracted a total number of 135 paper and workshop proposals. In
contrast to some of the previous DHN conferences, the submission of papers and their review
2
was a two step process. In the main call in September 2021, the programme selection and the
peer review regarded the abstracts of the papers, which were then presented at the DHNB
2022 conference in March. Furthermore, in the second call, the accepted presenters had the
possibility to submit their full papers to the conference proceedings by February 15. These full
papers were peer reviewed and are included in these conference proceedings. The two step
process was followed to ensure that the current Nordic and Baltic digital humanities research
could be presented as widely as possible in the post-pandemic situation. Also, the solution
enabled to combine elements from the conference traditions familiar to the humanities and
computer science scholars that has been a matter to facilitate in the calls at previous DHN
conferences.1
The main call for submission2 attracted a total number of 130 paper proposals. After the
peer review round of the abstracts, 114 of these (88 %) were accepted to be presented at the
conference, divided in the following categories: 24 long papers, 69 short papers, and 21 posters.
The acceptance rate is higher than at the previous DHNB conferences3 , which differs partly
due to the two step review process in place at DHNB 2022. Moreover, 22% of the submissions
for DHNB 2022 were accepted to be presented in a shorter paper category, with which the
Programme Committee aimed at inclusiveness and broader representation at the conference.
To this list of paper proposals, 5 workshop proposals should be added, of which 4 were
finally organised on the first day of the conference, 15 March. Respectively, the workshops
covered the topics ”Digital Humanities Support Units in the Nordic and Baltic Countries”,
”Digital Parliamentary Data in Action (DiPaDA 2022)” [4], ”Higher Education Programs in
Digital Humanities and Social Sciences: Challenges and Perspectives”, and ”Introduction to
Text and Image Analysis Using Python”. Of these, the first three workshops had their own
separate call for contributions and attracted an additional group of participants interested in
the conference themes.
In total, 239 people registered for and participated in the conference, 146 attending in person
in Uppsala (61%), and 94 attending virtually (39%). The hybrid method of conferencing required
specific preparations and operation during the conference. To streamline this as best as possible
we decided to work with AppinConf and their conference platform Invajo. From our own
experience this was a successful solution which significantly supported the organisation of the
conference. The conference platform was accessible for all participants. It was the way through
which online participants could present and attend sessions, but also where the schedule,
abstracts and posters were available and participants’ networking could take place.
As with any Digital Humanities conference, the diversity of research topics, methods and
disciplines represented is both its strength and a challenge. This diversity can be seen when
considering the papers presented at the conference. All abstracts of the presented papers are
available in the conference Book of Abstracts [1], but we briefly ponder over the distribution here.
The most associated disciplines among the accepted proposals to the DHNB 2022 conference were
historical studies, linguistics, literary studies, library and information science, and computational
studies (the latter including both computational linguistics and computer science). These
1
See for example [2]
2
Besides the call for proposals in September 2021, the call included a late-call for posters in January 2022.
3
In both Helsinki in 2018 and in Copenhagen in 2019 the submissions acceptance rate was around 75 % ([3]; [2]).
3
Figure 1: Distribution of 30 most common topics associated with the accepted proposals at DHNB
2022.
disciplinary divisions can be discerned when considering the topics of each submission. All
authors tagged their submissions using a provided - relatively elaborate and overlapping - topic
list, which allowed for multiple topics to be chosen per submission.
Figure 1 presents the 30 most common topics (selected by the authors) associated with the
accepted proposals. The available topic list of the DHNB 2022 was broader than at previous
DHNB conferences, but a distribution similar to the earlier DHNB conferences emerges [5]. The
topic of ”cultural heritage collections” is the main topic (as in Copenhagen 2019), and the themes
of ”data mining / text mining”, ”natural language processing” and ”corpus linguistics” were
also leading themes at the previous conferences. The topics of ”computational text processing”,
and ”text and literary analysis” were new for the DHNB 2022. The emphasis of the topics
is on traditional areas in digital humanities with centrality on text, however, it is possible to
speculate on trends based on the topics and their distributions at previous DHNB conferences.
For example, the relevance of ”digital resources - publication and discovery” continued to
diminish since DHNB 2018, which can suggest a shift towards a more empirical focus in the
research community.
Another perspective on the topics of the proposals can be taken by looking at the actual
conference session titles which were formed by studying the paper topics and the abstracts of
the proposals. The accepted proposals were grouped into three sessions about ”Computational
literary analysis” (3) and ”Digital history” (3), and two sessions each about ”Linguistics and
corpus linguistics” (2), ”User interfaces, tools, and research process” (2), and ”Visuals, audio, and
4
Figure 2: Weighted distribution of countries (affiliation) for all authors in the proposals accepted for
DHNB 2022. Source: 2018-2020 from [5]. Note: The weight of each country is calculated similarly to [5]:
each proposal counts as 1 and is divided accordingly among the proposal authors. Country is based on
affiliation. (*) The shares provided in [5] do not sum to 100%. It is not explicit whether the rest is other
countries.
audiovisuals” (2). To these topic areas we can include also the session on ”Curating historical
data” and ”Creating corpora and digital resources”, and also ”Crowdsourcing, transcribing, and
resource building”. Besides these, there were sessions with a focus on data journalism and
media analysis, and digital ethnography.
When DHN expanded into DHNB to explicitly include also the Baltic region, the numbers of
participants from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania rose significantly – from around 5 % in Helsinki
2018 and Copenhagen 2019 to over 20 % in Riga 2020 [5]. This was partly due to the fact that
the conference took place in Riga, but also in Uppsala the number of delegates from the Baltic
region was noteworthy (10% of the authors (weighted) and 8 % of the conference participants,
see Figures 2–3). This indicates that name change has had a more long-term effect, however, we
see that the participation from Baltic countries regards mainly Latvia and to a smaller degree
Estonia.
Regarding the Nordic countries, similar tendencies as in previous conferences can be noted.
The host country (Sweden) has a high rate of authorship (weighted, 28%) and participants
(37%), but Finland especially seems to be strong within the DHNB community (29% of the paper
authors, (weighted) and 21% of the participants) (see figures 2–3). We see also from Figure 3,
that online participation was more preferred, as expected, by non-Swedish participants, with the
exception of participants from Norway who attended physically to a high extent. For countries
beyond the DHNB, the conference was attended from larger countries of the region, Germany
and Russia, but also from the US, UK, and other mainly European countries. Their total share
was 13% of the paper authors (weighted) and 15% of all participants. We are glad with these
numbers as they represent how, despite an ongoing pandemic, the international profile and the
reach of the DHNB conferences persisted in 2022.
5
Figure 3: Distribution of countries for all participants in DHNB 2022. Note: ”phys” for share of physical
participants in Uppsala.
3. Proceeding with the proceedings
The authors whose long paper, short paper or poster submission was accepted and presented
at the DHNB 2022 conference were given the opportunity to send in their paper for these
conference proceedings.4 In the proceedings, we follow the same categories as during the
conference: long papers, with 20 minutes presentations, take up 10–15 pages; short papers were
presented in 10 minutes and are published with 5–9 pages (main text); and poster papers 3–4
pages (main text). Of the 106 papers presented at the conference, 58 (55%) were also submitted
as a paper for the conference proceedings. The papers in the proceedings underwent a second
peer review process, where 45 of the papers were accepted, which means an acceptance rate of
78 %. The reviewers in both rounds of reviews included the Programme Committee, and invited
scholars who have been active in the DHNB conferences and community.
The DHNB 2022 conference proceedings thus include 45 papers in total, including 11 long
papers, 31 short papers, and 3 poster papers. Additionally, the proceedings of the ”Digital
Parliamentary Data in Action (DiPaDA 2022)” workshop, organised as a part of DHNB 2022,
published their own proceedings, comprising 10 long and 2 short papers [4].
4
One group did not receive this opportunity: those who submitted in response to the second (late) call for
posters.
6
4. Conclusion: DHNB in the future
The sixth DHNB conference in Uppsala built continuity in the meetings of the Nordic and Baltic
DH community after the pandemic, and offered valuable experiences in organising a hybrid
DHNB conference. Participation was strong in geographic terms in the whole region, but it
appears important to continue encouraging the participation from the Baltic countries. The
main topics presented at the conference followed mainly the traditional tracks of DH research,
but strong subareas were present, e.g. papers on research with and about audio-visual and
multimodal data. We also noted several more technically oriented papers, which suggests that
any borders or definitions of digital humanities are as hard to accomplish as ever before. Is there
any difference between ”digital humanities”, on the one side, and ”computer science applied
to the humanities”, on the other? We do not have the answer, but as these proceedings show
people are interpreting what DH is in a range of ways, and this is likely to be a good thing.
The conference theme of ”Digital Humanities in Action” was highlighted especially in the
keynote presentations, but also through the workshops and some sessions which examined the
effects and interaction of digital humanities research in a larger societal setting. The perspectives
regarded for example digital activism, interaction with the GLAM institutions and beyond,
citizen science and user interfaces for broader public, and data journalism or media analysis.
In order to understand the experience of the conference participants, a questionnaire was
send out to all registered participants directly after the conference.5 We were glad to hear from
participants that their experience with the conference platform was mostly positive: all but
one of the respondents expressed that their conference experience was either good or very
good. Some technical hiccups were experienced, probably more than what can be expected
from an in-person only conference. As organisers we would add that hybrid events require
significant resources both in terms of digital platform solutions and technical staff to be present
on site. Several people noted that the hybrid solution for the poster session did not meet their
expectations.6 Further critique regarded a few concerns related to the in-person facilities and
program: overlapping or missing elements in the social program or some sessions which lacked
coherence. However, we highly recommend the next organisers to double check that there is
plenty of coffee available at all times.
Overall, the responding participants appear to share our view that a hybrid conference comes
with its problems (technical, economic, social), but also with its strengths (flexibility, possible to
choose level of conference engagement). Due to the pandemic situation, hybridity was the only
option available for DHNB 2022. For future DHNB conferences, however, other solutions might
be preferred. What for sure will remain important is that the digital humanities community
in the Nordic and Baltic countries continues to meet and discuss, no matter if it is physically,
digitally, or hybrid. And we are confident in saying that the DHNB conference series plays a
key role in achieving this.
These proceedings conclude the DHNB 2022, and we are ready to pass on the DHNB triangle
5
The questionnaire included ten questions, with a particular focus on the hybrid method. In total, 40 people
responded, which comes down to a 17% response rate.
6
Attempting to create a way to engage with posters in similar ways online and in-person, we organised a
poster slam style session and used the conference platform to primarily exhibit all posters. As a result, participants
expressed they missed a poster exhibition session integrated in the program.
7
to new organisers: The next DHNB conference is scheduled to take place online in 8-10 March
2023 and will be organised by the University of Oslo Library, the University of Bergen Library,
and the University of Stavanger, The Greenhouse. The DHNB 2024 conference is planned to
take place in Reykjavik. We really look forward to these conferences and wish the organisers
all the best. Hopefully, what we have learned from organising this conference can make them
into even better conference experiences.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank everyone for their contribution to the conference, especially the Pro-
gramme Committee and its chair Isto Huvila,7 the anonymous peer-reviewers, the session
chairs, keynote speakers, and all participating authors. Also, we express our gratitude to our
fellow local organisers Per Cullhed, Boel Gustafsson, and Clelia La Monica.
References
[1] K. Berglund, M. La Mela, I. Zwart, M. La Monica, (Eds.), DHNB 2022 conference: Book of
abstracts, Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala/Department of ALM, Uppsala University,
2022, pp. 1–140. URL: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1650296/FULLTEXT01.
pdf.
[2] C. Navarretta, M. Agirrezabal, B. Maegaard, The fourth digital humanities conference,
DHN2019, in: C. Navarretta, M. Agirrezabal, B. Maegaard (Eds.), Proceedings of the Digital
Humanities in the Nordic Countries 4th Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 5-
8, 2019, volume 2364 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings, CEUR-WS.org, 2019, pp. 1–8. URL:
http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2364/0_DHN2019_preface.pdf.
[3] E. Mäkelä, M. Tolonen, DHN2018 - an analysis of a digital humanities conference, in:
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Nordic Countries 3rd Conference, DHN 2018, Helsinki, Finland, March 7-9, 2018, volume
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Vol-2084/preface.pdf.
[4] M. La Mela, F. Norén, E. Hyvönen, Introduction, in: M. La Mela, F. Norén, E. Hyvönen
(Eds.), Proceedings of the Digital Parliamentary Data in Action (DiPaDA 2022) Workshop co-
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CEUR-WS.org, 2022, pp. 1–8. URL: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3133/paper00.pdf.
[5] S. Reinsone, J. Daugavietis, A. Baklane, Digital humanities in the nordic countries - the
fifth conference, in: S. Reinsone, I. Skadina, A. Baklane, J. Daugavietis (Eds.), Proceedings
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URL: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2612/preface.pdf.
7
Apart from the chair Isto Huvila, the Programme Committe consisted of: Mikael Alm, Maria Berggren, Karl
Berglund, Jan von Bonsdorff, Anna Foka, Olga Holownia, Andres Karjus, Veronika Laippala, Matti La Mela, Daniel
Löwenborg, Costanza Navaretta, Annika Rockenberger, Olle Sköld, and Mikko Tolonen.
8