The proliferation of open technologies and content in higher education is motivated by broad embrace of a principle of sharing that is consonant with various contemporary economic, pedagogic and policy drivers.At the same time, open technologies and content present the possibility of a departure in the culture of humanities research and teaching.The open frameworks celebrate and facilitate collaborative and cooperative modes of working which are, to a degree, alien to a traditional ‘individualist’ conception of work in the Humanities. But such collectivity and collaboration yield new benefits to individual humanist scholars and so are not a source for concern.