SDH-SEMI
The Conference, the City and the University

About the Conference

The Digital Humanities 2008 conference will be held 25-29 June, 2008 in Oulu, Finland. It will be hosted by the University of Oulu.

This is a joint conference between:

Each year, the conference alternates between Europe and North America. In 2005, the conference was held at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada, and in 2006 it was in Paris, France. In 2007 it was held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

This is the largest conference in the field of Humanities Computing. The Faculty of Humanities and the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Oulu are proud to host the 2008 conference. We expect approximately 200 delegates, mostly from Europe and North America, though many will be attending from other parts of the world.

International Programme Committee

Espen Ore (National Library of Norway, Chair)
Jean Anderson (University of Glasgow)
John Nerbonne (University of Groningen)
Stephen Ramsay (University of Nebraska)
Thomas Rommel (International Univ. Bremen)
Susan Schreibman (University of Maryland)
Paul Spence (King's College London)
Melissa Terras (University College London)
Claire Warwick (University College London)

 

About Oulu

The city of Oulu is located in Northern Finland, by the Gulf of Bothnia, approximately 550 kilometres north of Helsinki. The city was founded in 1605 by King Carl IX of Sweden and has been a provincial capital since 1776. Oulu has a population of approximately 130,000, making it the sixth largest city in Finland.

Up to the end of the 19th century, Oulu was a significant centre of the wood tar trade. Tar was exported throughout Europe, where it was used mainly for waterproofing wooden ships. In the 1860s Oulu had the largest fleet of merchant ships of any Finnish city.

Today, Oulu is considered one of the most significant centres of competence in Northern Europe. A significant amount of high technology know-how, especially in the field of mobile communication, has concentrated in the area.

A free WLAN network, panOULU, is available in the city centre, at the university and at the airport.

 

About the University

The University of Oulu (Oulun yliopisto in Finnish) was founded in 1958. It has six faculties with a total of approximately 17,000 students and 3,000 staff, making it the second largest university in Finland.

Information technology, biotechnology, northern and environmental issues are special research focus areas at the University of Oulu, which also cooperates closely with industry and commerce and has connections with hundreds of international research and educational institutions.