Digital Humanities

“Digital Humanities “is an outcome of the merging of humanities in its classical meaning with the new research method that depends on computers and technology. We are witnessing a great transformation in the ways and means in which culture and heritage in all its forms : written, oral, visual- is being preserved. The traditional means of preservation and dissemination of the heritage included books, libraries, museums, visual and audio recordings and other such means. Now all of these have become part of the digital age and the social media and thus have come to present a big challenge to the humanities. One basic challenge is how to produce these materials. For example shifting from the printed books to the electronic carries with it the problem of the quality of the final product, its form, content, use, reliability and duration. Digital humanities offers the humanities a chance to regain their leading role in the human societies since it depends on cooperation and sharing and making information accessible in areas that have been losing  ground to the fields of science and technology specially those areas related to medical and health services.
 In light of the above, the University of Balamand has established the Digital Humanities Section which is the first in the Middle East And the Arab world. The institute works along these axes:
ArHive: Arabic Manuscripts & Old Printed Books Hive
Digital Corpora
Application of virtual reality in the areas of cultural and artistic heritage
Computational Linguistics
HeriTech: Heritage & Technology

Dr. Elie Dannaoui
Director