the Roberto Busa award

	Document Contents Introduction and purpose Terms Award procedure Timetable Roberto Busa Award 2007 Roberto Busa Award 2010 Past Awards

Introduction and purpose

The Roberto Busa award is a joint award of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) and the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH). It is given to recognise outstanding achievements in the application of information technology to humanistic research.

Terms

The recipient of the award receives prize money of approximately €1000 (or a round number of about the same value in the currency in which the prize is awarded), and is expected to give a public lecture, on a topic of his or her choice, at one of the international Digital Humanities conferences. This lecture is one of the keynote or plenary lectures of that conference. The host association for that conference takes steps to see that the lecture is publicised in appropriate ways and it is published in the journal, Literary and Linguistic Computing.

The recipient is a guest of honour of the host association at the conference at which the award is made and the lecture given, and all the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of attendance are paid by the association (and the next part of the process will be to manipulate the new part of the whole and then to continue).

Award procedure

The recipient is chosen by a selection committee of five members: three members are named by the association acting as host of the conference where the lecture will be given, and two by the other association. The selection committee chooses its own chair.

The selection committee is responsible for soliciting and receiving nominations, reviewing the nominees' work, deciding who is to receive the award, and writing a citation describing the achievements in recognition of which the award is given.

Timetable

The award is given triennially. The first award and lecture took place in 1998 in Debrecen, the second in New York in June 2001, the third in Göteborg in June 2004, the fourth in Urbana-Champaign in June 2007.

The normal schedule for the making of the award is as follows:

• In the year of an award: the two organizations choose a selection committee for the next award; the membership of the selection committee is announced at the Digital Humanities conference; and the first call for nominations is published.
• In the year after the award lecture, a further call for nominations is made, and the selection panel pursues its deliberations.
• In the second year after the award lecture, the selection committee makes its decision and the name of the person to whom the award is to be made is announced at the annual Digital Humanities conference of that year.
• In the third year, the award is presented and the lecture is given by the recipient at the annual Digital Humanities conference.

Roberto Busa Award 2007

The 2005-2007 cycle is completed:

• The selection committee was chaired by Lorna Hughes. The other members were Stéfan Sinclair, Willard McCarty, Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen, Espen Ore and Steve Ramsay.
• The recipient of the 2007 award was announced at the Digital Humanities 2006 conference in Paris in July 2006. He is Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Ott of the University of Tübingen, Germany. He gave his Busa Lecture at the Digital Humanities 2007 conference hosted at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Roberto Busa Award 2010

The following Busa Award will be given at the Digital Humanities 2010 conference.

The first call for nominations for this award will be published in July 2007.

Past Awards

• The 1998 award winner was Father Roberto Busa of Vicenza, Italy. He received his award and made his lecture at the 1998 ACH/ALLC conference in Debrecen, 5-10 July 1998.
• The 2001 award winner was Professor John Burrows of Newcastle, New South Wales. He received his award and made his Busa lecture at the 2001 ACH/ALLC conference in New York, 13-16 June 2001.
• The 2004 award winner was Professor Susan Hockey of University College London. She received her award and made her Busa lecture at the 2004 ACH/ALLC conference in Göteborg, 11-16 June 2004.

Information about the award, about the current selection committee, and the stage reached in the current award cycle is made available on the web sites of the ALLC and the ACH, and the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO).