Bamboo Rising: Are Databases the "New Ground" of Humanities Research?

For those who didn't have a chance to participate in one of initial Project Bamboo workshops, or who haven't had an opportunity to catch up with what's going on now in that context, I thought I might provide a pointer to the Project Bamboo Planning Wiki.

One current activity there is an attempt to Identify Themes of Arts and Humanities Scholarly Practice. My feed reader tells me that there's only one actual theme defined in this new section (just a bit ago), but I bet there will be more soon. The sole present one was offered by F. Allan Hanson (U. of Kansas, Anthropology):

  • Ground of Research: "Humanities research is changing (or will change, or should change) from being grounded in texts (bibliographies) to relational databases."
I bet my legions of gentle readers have some opinions about this assertion. Feel free to comment in the comments, or on your blog, or on a public list ... or in the Bamboo Planning Wiki itself.