This white paper was written early after HASTAC’s founding (in 2002-03) and early convening at NSF as part of the “collaboratory” initiative of “centers without walls” to support researchers across institutions and disciplines. This is an early defining document of HASTAC. The Summary begins: “HASTAC (“Haystack”) is a consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, and engineers from the nation’s
leading institutions dedicated to working together to develop innovative computing and information
systems that support interdisciplinary research and teaching in the humanities and arts.
HASTAC’s vision of the humanities is problem- or issue-based and collaborative in nature. It extends the
specialized knowledge produced by the traditional humanistic fields across disciplines, historical periods,
and regions. The questions researchers are asking are increasingly complex and intertwine issues of
biology, geography, the environment, technology, the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Legal,
ethical, social, historical, and aesthetic issues must also be carefully considered as we expand our
capacities for accumulating and analyzing data and as we push the boundaries of science and what it
means to be human. To these ends we seek visionary information and communications tools and
methods.”