The DAHD and its search functionality are powered by keyword metadata that is drawn directly from our project submissions. The list of terms you will encounter while using the faceted search feature or viewing project records will necessarily reflect gaps in the art historical canon, the variety of digital art history methodologies, and available technologies.
Because all directory submissions and suggested keywords will be reviewed prior to publication, DAHD editors will remediate small inconsistencies in spelling and keyword structure so that the search vocabulary will be controlled. However, we will continue to add new terms as the project database grows.
Why a folksonomy?
Crowdsourcing our taxonomic terms will allow us to capture the language that people are actually using to describe their activities. There is no current definitive taxonomy for Digital Art History or the Digital Humanities writ large. Thus, our methodology will allow us not only to reflect the community in the construction of our resource, it will also provide an opportunity to study and develop such an expansive and well-rounded vocabulary to describe our practice.
At the six and twelve month marks past the launch of our project in October 2021, we will examine our taxonomy and evaluate to find points of convergence and evaluate the usefulness of our system of categorization. We look forward to sharing the results of our experimentation and observations.