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Three Days, One Community, Almost a Handbook: A Book Sprint at DHIP

Can you write (almost) a handbook in three days?

At the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP), we decided to try. Together with Anne Baillot and Julie Giovacchini, and with Lambert Heller as facilitator, we organised a Book Sprint, made possible thanks to the support of DARIAH-ATRIUM, Observatoire des Humanités Numériques de PSL, and the DHIP, to create a concise, practical guide to digital scholarly editing.

Preparation is key and so are highly motivated contributors

We launched a call for participation to bring together a group of highly motivated contributors with diverse expertise, presented here on the blog. The response ensured a carefully composed group of experts and committed practitioners—librarians, early-career researchers, and experienced editors working on digital scholarly editions in different contexts and from different countries.

This diversity was essential. Creating a digital scholarly edition involves a wide range of decisions, from data modelling and standards to infrastructure, workflows, legal issues, and long-term sustainability. No single perspective can cover all of these aspects. Bringing together contributors with different backgrounds and experiences allowed us to address this complexity in an international perspective and to shape a concise, practical handbook for newcomers.

Preparation played a key role in this process. Following Lambert’s advice, we deliberately did not define the structure of the handbook in advance. Instead, we developed four personas to describe concrete future users of the handbook. We also agreed on a style guide and reflected on how our book should differ from existing resources. All materials were shared with participants one week before the sprint.

Day 1: From Chaos to structure

The first half-day (we only started after lunch) was about getting to know each other and about turning a multitude of ideas into something that could become a book. Lambert gave a short introduction to the Book Sprint method. We then worked in groups, wrote ideas on cards, moved them across walls and tables, debated, rearranged, and started again. Under Lambert’s guidance, clusters began to form. He circled related ideas, connected them, reshuffled them…- and suddenly, almost unexpectedly, a structure emerged. “La mayonnaise a pris”, as the French say when things start to come together.

What struck me most at that moment was that, despite some disagreement and intense debates about where certain topics should be mentioned, the group shared a fundamental understanding of digital scholarly editing. Debates focused on where particular topics should be placed. There was a strong tendency to put almost everything at the beginning and into the first chapter: everything seemed important, everything felt fundamental. Yet these differences did not follow national lines or reflect distinct editorial “schools”. There was also a strong shared commitment to the values of Open Science.

Already on this first afternoon, we began writing. For Lambert, this was crucial: “Don’t over-plan—start writing.” In his view, sharing knowledge in writing from the outset matters a lot. One group developed a chapter template to ensure coherence across the handbook, including boxes with practical examples and reflections on how FAIR principles can be implemented. Meanwhile, the other participants opened files in the shared cloud and started to write.

We finished the day in a nearby restaurant with the fitting name “Le Progrès”.

Day 2: Writing together (and letting go)

The second day was intense: writing, discussing, rewriting. Anne coordinated the onboarding of our external contributors, informing them about our discussions and guiding them in their tasks. We worked in small groups, then switched chapters—sometimes reluctantly, but with a clear purpose: everyone should contribute to the whole book rather than feel responsible for just one chapter. These frequent changes were not always popular, but they helped ensure shared ownership of the text, a more consistent style, and fewer redundancies, as contributors became familiar with large parts of the book, even if not all of it.

Patricia, Janyce (left) and Nanette (right) writing in the Salon of the DHIP

At the same time, together with Béatrice Dippold (intern at the DHIP) and Mathilde Ackermann (PhD-candidate with strong skills in video editing), I documented the work of the participants in a series of short videos, which are embedded here and published as a playlist on our YouTube-Channel. We edited and published them almost in real time.

I also recorded a longer interview with Lambert Heller, in which he reflects on the Book Sprint method and its application in the humanities. If you are curious about whether scholars in the humanities approach Book Sprints differently from those in the natural sciences, stay tuned: the full interview will be published soon here on the blog.

On Day 2, we left the evening free for everyone to enjoy the warm Parisian spring night.

Day 3: Almost a book

By the morning of the third day, we were fully immersed in the process. We checked progress, coordinated via a self-made—slightly improvised but effective—analogue Kanban board, and kept writing. There was also time for informal moments—and even for some actual sports alongside the Book Sprint: a round of ping-pong and table football. These breaks not only helped us recharge and discover hidden corners of the Hôtel Duret-de-Chevry, but also sustained the collaborative spirit.

Our goal had been a handbook of around 100 pages. During the final wrap-up, we took stock: What is missing? What needs revision? We identified remaining gaps and recorded them in an editorial plan, while at the same time having already produced around 80–90 pages, including excellent illustrations created by one member of the group who focused in particular on this aspect.

We then distributed the remaining tasks, assigned responsibilities for revision and review, and agreed on the next steps. Our goal is to present the handbook at the end of May at the annual conference of the French-speaking DH community, Humanistica, which will take place in Paris this year on May 19-22, where our paper has already been accepted.

When we said goodbye, we were actually quite proud of ourselves. Not only because we had (almost) written a book, but because what emerged over these three days was also a community built around a shared project, as Lambert put it.

___

See also Anne Baillot, A three-day marathon, a sprint, a coffee in the spring sun, https://atrium-research.eu/news/blog-post-a-three-day-marathon-a-sprint-a-coffee-in-the-spring-sun/.


OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Mareike König (27. März 2026). Three Days, One Community, Almost a Handbook: A Book Sprint at DHIP. Digital Humanities am DHIP. Abgerufen am 13. April 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/15yph


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