The ADHO Identity Project began following the July 2022 ADHO meetings. One of the major challenges ADHO faces is the lack of a clear articulation of its own identity, particularly after many years of ADHO executive effort have been directed towards addressing numerous bureaucratic, logistical, and structural challenges. With those issues largely sorted out, there is a need for the Constituent Organization Board (COB) to step back and consider big picture questions about what ADHO is, who it is for, and what its core values are. A shared understanding on these points would serve as a useful common ground for the organization to be able to make consequential decisions. The urgency of a shared understanding about ADHO’s audience, goals, and priorities increased following the publication of “The Circus We Deserve?” in DHQ, and the Identity Project was mentioned in the ADHO COB response to that article. The Identity Project complements the work of the Intersectional Identity Task Force (IITF), whose recommendations need to be evaluated and prioritized within the context of ADHO’s audience, goals, and priorities.
The first phase of the project involved soliciting input from the COB itself, in an attempt to draw out differences in process, desires, and assumptions among the COs. This survey surfaced some information about how different COs manage members, but was not successful in identifying a set of goals or priorities for ADHO, or an articulation of who ADHO serves and how.
For our second phase, we turn to the community as a whole: both those attending the DH 2023 conference, and those not attending. What is your impression of what ADHO does, or should do? What is your relationship to the DH conference? We ask you to fill out this brief survey (3-5 minutes), which will be open until August 31. Your input will shape the third phase of this project, and inform the ongoing work of the Intersectional Identity Task Force (IITF), in the upcoming year.
Interested in sharing more feedback with ADHO? We’re also looking for responses to a survey on how we might revise the conference submission evaluation form.