All of these things—collaborative encylcopedism, tool building, librarianship—fit uneasily into the standards of scholarship forged in the second half of the 20th century. Most committees for promotion and tenure, for example, must value single authorship and the big idea more highly than collaborative work and methodological or disciplinary contribution.
– Tom Scheinfeldt “Theory, Method, and Digital Humanities,” in Hacking Scholarship
This quote is one thing that I, as well as many of you, may have to consider as we move along the track of digital history or even traditional academia. Although some historians have become more accepting of collaborative endeavors, many still consider the single author- book or peer-reviewed journal article as the end all be all for moving up in the world of academia. I have been confronted with this already in my young career, including a small incident involving a research forum where the 2nd author did not receive a plaque. (Spoiler Alert!- He was quite displeased.) This will be something that we will have to tackle as well in our careers, and it has obviously been an ongoing issue in the field of digital history, as evidenced by the readings for this week.
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