This roundtable seeks to explore the creation and utilization of online databases in environmental humanities that seek to simultaneously fulfil a public education function and provide a useful tool for specialists in their research. The growth of interest in environmental issues has sensitized scholars of the humanities towards integrating and analyzing the non-human in studies of human societies. This has involved the use of new sources such as specimen cards or reading old sources such as medical manuscripts differently, leading to a drive in recent years to make these sources more accessible to public.

In this roundtable, we discuss – What do digital humanities mean besides the digitization of sources? What goes into the making of digital databases that can used for studies of environment and society? How may these tools be used by the public? How can these tools be of use to specialists? How can these tools facilitate communication about humanities scholarship and spur citizen environmental humanities research? This session is envisioned as an interactive conversation where the speakers will share about the various public-facing digital projects that they are undertaking and how it can be utilized for the environmental humanities while the audience is invited to share on how these tools may help them pursue their own interests or raise questions about how digital tools might be used to galvanize greater public engagement with environmental issues.