Sheesh, What’s With All the THATCamps?

THATCamps (The Humanities And Technology Camp) are a rapidly growing set of user-generated unconferences for technologists and humanities professionals. THATCamps are

• Collaborative: Everyone participates, including in the task of setting an agenda or program.
• Informal: There are no lengthy proposals, papers, presentations, or product demos. The emphasis is on productive, collegial work or free-form discussion.
• Spontaneous and timely: The agenda / schedule / program being mostly or entirely created by all the participants during the first session of the first day, rather than weeks or months beforehand by a program committee.
• Non-hierarchical: THATCamps welcome graduate students, scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, developers and programmers, K-12 teachers, administrators, managers, and funders as well as people from the non-profit sector, people from the for-profit sector, and interested amateurs. The topic “the humanities and technology” contains multitudes.
• Productive: Participants are encouraged to use session time to create, build, write, hack, and solve problems.

THATCamp Coordinator Amanda French will discuss the THATCamp phenomenon’s implications for the digital humanities as well answer practical questions about running one of your own.