About Me

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I am Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Glasgow and Theme Leader Fellow for the 'Digital Transformations' strategic theme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I tweet as @ajprescott.

This blog is a riff on digital humanities. A riff is a repeated phrase in music, used by analogy to describe a improvisation or commentary. In the 16th century, the word 'riff' meant a rift; Speed describes riffs in the earth shooting out flames. The poet Jeffrey Robinson points out that riff perhaps derives from riffle, to make rough.

Maybe we need to explore these other meanings of riff in thinking about digital humanities, and seek out rough and broken ground in the digital terrain.

8 October 2011

A Sequacious Riff

The choice of name for this blog was inspired by a collection of poems called Untam'd Wing: Riffs on Romantic Poetry by my friend and former colleague at the University of Glasgow, Jeffrey C. Robinson, published by Station Hill Press. Jeffrey is a distinguished scholar of the English Romantic movement and an expert on William Wordsworth....

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Robin Alston's Library History Database

I was sad to learn in July this year of the death of my old friend and mentor from British Library days, Robin Alston. Robin's achievements as a bibliographer were innumerable and fundamental to our present digital environment. In particular, I would single out his role as a driving force behind the creation of the English Short Title Catalogue....

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