On Teaching XQuery to Digital Humanists

XQuery provides an excellent means for teaching programming to digital humanists because it works seamlessly with their existing XML data, has an elegant and simple core with a well-structured standard library, and can be used in conjunction with XML databases to develop end-to-end web applications. Existing XQuery teaching materials, however, do not adequately address digital humanists’ needs, since they generally presuppose programming knowledge these learners lack. Drawing on the experience of teaching XQuery in three contexts—training sessions for librarians, a graduate seminar on the digital humanities, and a two-week NEH-sponsored institute—this paper proposes strategies for making XQuery more accessible to humanists.