Page 140 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

CAI Yingchun / Digital humanities evaluation: discipline, professionalism and technicality 139

digital humanities research at home and abroad. The research topics abroad mainly focus on the
following three aspects. The first one is digital construction and maintenance of resources, which
mainly involves the application of relevant technologies such as digital text, digital resource
preservation, and digital simulation to computer maps and virtual images to form relevant results.
The second is to participate in the exploratory research of digital humanities in the field of library,
information and archives, including information visualization, information retrieval, information
service, and so on. The third is research on digital humanities related technologies, including
digital technology, visualization technology, information technology, and so on. Domestic research
topics are also concentrated in three aspects. The first one is the exploration and research of
digital transformation based on humanities projects, such as the collation and analysis of special
collections of resources such as ancient books, documents of the period of the Republic of China,
and Huizhou documents. The second one is the definition of the concept of digital humanities,
as well as the development trend and service transformation of the field of library, information
and archives in the context of digital humanities. The last one is the research, development, and
utilization of digital humanities technologies, tools, and platforms.
From the above summary of research on digital humanities at home and abroad, it can be found
that there are similarities between foreign and domestic research on digital humanities, which is
mainly reflected in three characteristics: discipline, professionalism, and technicality.
(1) Discipline. The core of digital humanities is “humanities”, which determines the humanistic
nature of its research topic, which is also its core feature. From the perspective of Chinese and
foreign digital humanities projects, each project has relatively concentrated themes of humanities
and social sciences, such as language, literature, history, philosophy, or art, or covering some of
these themes. This is the commonality of Chinese and foreign digital humanities projects, and is
also the foothold of digital humanities. Judging from the existing digital humanities projects and
research results, although the library, information and archives field dominated the project practice
of digital humanities in the early days and published relevant research results, the core content and
theme of the project are humanities.
Interdisciplinary is the most essential attribute of digital humanities. The interdisciplinary depth
of digital humanities abroad is higher than that in China. The digital humanities research abroad
mainly brings together scholars from multiple fields such as humanities, social sciences, computer
science, and geographic information science. The interdisciplinary nature is rather obvious, the
research scope is broad, and research results merge with each other. The development of digital
humanities in China has a history of more than a decade. Early digital humanities projects were
mainly initiated and led by the field of library, information and archives, and results were also
mainly published in the journals of the field. In recent years, digital humanities has begun to
receive the attention of scholars of humanities and social science. Comprehensive and theoretical
journals and newspapers of humanities and social science such as Social Sciences in China, Theory
and Criticism of Literature and Art, Theory Monthly, and Chinese Social Sciences Today have