The Plant Humanities Workbench:  Using Linked Open Data to Discover Early Modern Plant History

1. Abstract

In 2017 with the support of the Mellon Foundation, the experimental wing of JSTOR known as JSTOR Labs began a three year partnership with Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard-owned research library and collection in Washington DC, to create a new digital humanities tool focused on the study of plants from a humanities perspective. The Plant Humanities Workbench will enable new research by intergenerational teams of students, advanced researchers, and professionals. Drawing on the technical and design expertise of the JSTOR Labs team, the digital tool will be interactive, iterative, and scalable. This presentation will demonstrate the tool after its first year of development, summarizing key findings in the project that may be relevant to a variety of digital humanists.