THATCamp-Florida (Feb. 28, 2015) & THATCamp-Gainesville (April 23-24, 2015)

The information below is largely from Dhanashree Thorat‘s email to the UF Digital Humanities Working Group. Thanks to Dhanashree for a great message, and sharing here to help spread the news on these two great events!

For those of you who have not attended THATCamp before: THATCamp, a Digital Humanities unconference, is a great space to brainstorm your DH project and network with potential collaborators. The unconference tends to be informal, discussion oriented, and draws an interdisciplinary group (including folks who are interested in learning about DH). You can read more about THATCamps happening elsewhere here: http://thatcamp.org/
THATCamp Florida, February 28, 2015, Orlando, Florida
Registration for THATCamp Florida is now open (http://florida2015.thatcamp.org/). It will be held in Orlando on Saturday, 28th February. In the coming weeks, the website will be populated with more posts about proposed sessions. Since THATCamps are informal, presenters don’t send session proposals to the organizing committee. Instead, sessions proposals are posted on the unconference website and on the day of the event, all the participants collectively create the schedule for the day. Sessions might range from project demos to tool workshops. It may sound chaotic, but it does actually work out. Please do go to the event if you are considering attending! You should also feel free to propose a session. A number of us from UF have attended and facilitated sessions at THATCamp Florida in the past, and it was a productive event that led to cross-institutional conversations. (The Florida Digital Humanities consortium grew out of these conversations: http://fldh.org/)
If you are concerned about transportation, please contact Suzan Alteri (salteri@ufl.edu). Suzan is driving a library van to Orlando for the event, and she has space for one or two UF DH people on a first come basis.
THATCamp Gainesville, April 23-24, 2015, Gainesville, Florida
I am also happy to note that we will be holding THATCamp Gainesville at UF again this year. Last year’s event was well attended, and we got positive and constructive feedback from participants. You can browse through some of the sessions here: http://gainesville2014.thatcamp.org/  The event is held during the UF reading days (23 & 24th April this year). We will have more details about registration, and how to propose sessions in March. In the meantime, we are putting a planning committee that will handle event logistics (publicizing the event, encouraging colleagues to submit session proposals, managing the website, helping during the event, etc). The committee meets 3-4 times before the event, and members decide what kind of work and how much work they want to do. Committee members are collegial and the meetings tend to be informal like the unconference itself.  I particularly encourage students to join the committee as this is a good CV line for organizational experience. You don’t need prior experience in DH to be a part of the committee.
If you are interested in being a part of the planning committee, please email me (dthorat@ufl.edu). I am going to serve as the THATCamp Gainesville contact person till we have the official planning committee. Please email me if you have any questions about THATCamp.