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The humanities, perhaps more than any other academic discipline, has its roots firmly in books.

And while there will always be a place for those print and paper treasures, the field of digital humanities is opening up possibilities for research and knowledge never before possible.

UWA is hosting an international conference, Digital Humanities Australasia 2014, and Research Professor Jenni Harrison based in iVEC@UWA, is already preparing for it.  Last month she was working with Professor Paul Arthur, Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Western Sydney, collectively to ensure UWA hosts a program to excite academics nationally and internationally.

"Digital humanities is so much more than simply ‘putting books online'," Professor Arthur said. "It is new research, at the nexus of humanities and computing."

Professor Harrison said that, while the University was heading the local organisation committee, Curtin and Edith Cowan Universities also have significant Digital Humanities research programs and all three universities are involved in the conference, with the appropriate theme, Expanding Horizons .

"The study of Indigenous languages and culture is a brilliant example of where digital humanities work well, and in fact, are a necessity," Professor Harrison said.

"With so much of the language, history, stories, music and dance being handed down through multiple generations, Indigenous culture presents a huge opportunity to capture, preserve and study for a greater understanding.  Digital technologies can save, analyse and understand this culture that is so important in this part of the world," she said.

Professor Arthur said one of the challenges with digitally preserving Indigenous culture was to protect it and ensure that it was only available to those who were allowed access to it.

"Just this one example shows clearly the field's Expanding Horizons and how much can be achieved by moving beyond traditional texts," he said.

"Digital technology can support academics to do things differently.  It provides a framework where new types of non-traditional research can be undertaken," Professor Harrison said.

"It signals a new and thriving direction in research, where academics in humanities are becoming more engaged with those in science and technology and with industry.

UWA was a pioneer of digital humanities in Australia, in particular the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions which uses historical knowledge from Europe, 1100 - 1800, to understand the long history of emotional behaviours. This is an international humanitarian effort, led by UWA to understand the intriguing topic of emotions heritage.

The Institute of Advanced Studies has also been a strong supporter of the Digital Humanities, and in 2011 created a Digital Humanities Hub to provide an opportunity for UWA scholars to strengthen digital humanities research and collaboration across a wide range of disciplines and topics ranging from e-research to digitalisation of art collections. ( https://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/conf/digital-humanitiesuwa )

In the Digital Humanities Hub, Winthrop Professor Philip Mead was a trailblazer.

"Digital technology allows us to ask different questions, questions we wouldn't have been able to answer before databases became available," he said, in UWAnews last year.

"It is changing our work fundamentally, changing the questions we ask, the patterns and links we can find and enabling us to test theories that were previously impossible to test," Professor Mead said.

But while it's a new field in itself, Professor Harrison suspects the phrase digital humanities will eventually be phased out.

"It will simply become part and parcel of the way humanities research is conducted," she said.  "In other areas, using digital technology as a research tool is now taken for granted."

The conference from 18-21 March 2014 is sponsored by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Robyn Owens.

More details about it, including the program, calls for participation, and a digital story-telling competition, are at: www.dha2014.org