But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images
And grows to something of great constancy,
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
A Midsummer’s Night Dream V:I

As scholars and students continue to experiment and engage in Digital Humanities, real value is generated as scholars create new knowledge, whether using technology to address age-old questions in a novel way, or identifying new questions to pursue. Some forays into Digital Humanities, however, produce not just knowledge, but also very discreet digital outputs: a website, digital images, software code, or other digital objects that could have value well beyond the scope of the original work. Once the DH research is done, where do these assets go?

This session will address the question of sustaining the outputs of Digital Humanities projects. Whether they involve digitized collections or original digital content, what are the issues project leaders face when undertaking this work? Are host institutions in a position to take them on? Do project leaders plan to share them with others in the community, and continue to build on them over time?

Panelist Nancy Maron, Program Director for Sustainability and Scholarly Communications at Ithaka S+R, will share findings from the report, Sustaining the Digital Humanities: Host Institution Support Beyond the Start-up Phase (2014). The report is based on interviews with dozens of digital humanities practitioners, as well as library directors, deans, and other senior administrators at campuses around the country and outlines the tactics and strategies that campuses are taking when considering ways to maximize impact of the full project as well as preserving its digital assets.

James Shulman, President of Artstor, will discuss the Shared Shelf Digital Humanities Award, launched in fall 2014 to provide practitioners five years of Shared Shelf for cataloging and preserving their digital assets. This talk will highlight three of the award winners and how the management of the media-rich digital collections created in support of the DH projects are available for re-use and to be networked with other collections.

Julie Bobay, Associate Dean for Collection Development and Scholarly Communication at University of Indiana Libraries, oversees the continual development of IU Libraries’ collections, which serve all schools, departments, centers, and institutes of Indiana University and include more than 8.5 million volumes, 800,000 e-books, 50,000 e-journals, and nearly 400,000 audio files and films. Julie is also responsible for several of the Libraries’ digital scholarship initiatives, such as IU ScholarWorks and the Open Folklore project. She will discuss Indiana's model for developing and supporting DH works through library and IT collaborations, including the recently launched Scholars' Commons, a library-based powerful academic service hub that offers researchers easy access to experts and technology for every stage of their scholarship.