Finding support for disruption: developing a digital humanities project in Mexico

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to provide a description and reflection on some of the structural problems and challenges faced when developing a digital humanities (DH) project in a Mexican public university.Design/methodology/approach – As DH is a relatively new field and practice in Mexican academia, this article is based on a case study of developing the Biblioteca Digital de Pensamiento Novohispano (Digital Library of New Hispanic Thought). This is one of the few DH at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), the largest public university in the country.Findings – It was found that there were three central problems for developing a DH project in a Mexican public university: existing technical knowledge and abilities at the UNAM will be challenged by DH projects; projects are the place to train human resources in DH methodology; and researchers need to consider different long‐term infrastructure and hosting solutions, with or without using institutional infrastructure, at the same time researche...