99 SPEC Kit 350: Supporting Digital Scholarship
including metadata creation and IT specialization. And empowering faculty and staff to devote portions
of their time to digital scholarship is a way in which libraries can provide excellent support for this
kind of academic endeavor without doing so in a purely service capacity. Rather, taking on an active
collaborative role as equal contributors within digital scholarship initiatives is a great way for librarians
to employ their expertise in different areas to work with faculty from across campus to work at the
forefront of digital scholarly developments. One important factor in making this kind of collaboration
possible may be hiring new librarians or empowering current librarians to make use of their own
experience as researchers to assist with digital scholarship in a tangible way. It is really helpful to
have someone in the libraries coordinating projects who has experience of conducting their own
research and teaching, and who can adapt that knowledge to give the best possible support to other
faculty members engaged in digital scholarship, so there may be some adjustments to make in terms
of distribution of personnel, or in the kinds of roles which librarians take on, as they have a leading
contribution to make in this area.
Greater emphasis on data management
I expect that digital scholarship activities in research libraries will continue to evolve within a
disciplinary framework and that the majority of DS publishing activities in the humanities will be
centered in the library—especially in the creation of born-digital scholarship. In STEM and the social
sciences, who have already created disciplinary repositories and built support into their professional
networks for publishing, the type of support research libraries can offer in these areas are support
based: consultation on licensing, copyright and rights management, open access, data management, and
grant writing.
I expect that research libraries will be important partners in digital scholarship activities, offering
expertise in areas such as programming, project management, data curation, and metadata, as well as
access to collections. They will also play an important role in preserving digital scholarship projects.
I expect that we will continue to see research libraries’ support for digital scholarship activities grow in
both the near and long terms as more traditional activities become automated and/or de-emphasized.
I see it as a growing area but am unclear as to how significant a role the libraries will play in terms of
scaling support for this type of scholarship.
I think it can be very, very rich and a great opportunity for the library—but the researchers need to
know the library can offer the services and not already have a place to get the support.
I think libraries will play an increasingly larger role in publishing, as open access journals grow
in number.
I think that it will continue to grow as scholarship and teaching evolve.
I think that research libraries’ role will grow with regards to supporting digital scholarship activities.
We know how to organize, manage, and share information the methods for doing so are changing and
so will our roles.
Integrated, core, and first-partner/connector for connecting with and across other groups
and communities
It will continue to be strong with great support from campus and administration.
It will continue to grow and evolve. We have done well with less planned organic development the
challenge is rationalize that a bit over the next few years.
It will increase, unless these sorts of activities migrate away from or outside of the libraries. Already
many institutions have set up separate centers or institutes to support what we refer to as DS activities.
including metadata creation and IT specialization. And empowering faculty and staff to devote portions
of their time to digital scholarship is a way in which libraries can provide excellent support for this
kind of academic endeavor without doing so in a purely service capacity. Rather, taking on an active
collaborative role as equal contributors within digital scholarship initiatives is a great way for librarians
to employ their expertise in different areas to work with faculty from across campus to work at the
forefront of digital scholarly developments. One important factor in making this kind of collaboration
possible may be hiring new librarians or empowering current librarians to make use of their own
experience as researchers to assist with digital scholarship in a tangible way. It is really helpful to
have someone in the libraries coordinating projects who has experience of conducting their own
research and teaching, and who can adapt that knowledge to give the best possible support to other
faculty members engaged in digital scholarship, so there may be some adjustments to make in terms
of distribution of personnel, or in the kinds of roles which librarians take on, as they have a leading
contribution to make in this area.
Greater emphasis on data management
I expect that digital scholarship activities in research libraries will continue to evolve within a
disciplinary framework and that the majority of DS publishing activities in the humanities will be
centered in the library—especially in the creation of born-digital scholarship. In STEM and the social
sciences, who have already created disciplinary repositories and built support into their professional
networks for publishing, the type of support research libraries can offer in these areas are support
based: consultation on licensing, copyright and rights management, open access, data management, and
grant writing.
I expect that research libraries will be important partners in digital scholarship activities, offering
expertise in areas such as programming, project management, data curation, and metadata, as well as
access to collections. They will also play an important role in preserving digital scholarship projects.
I expect that we will continue to see research libraries’ support for digital scholarship activities grow in
both the near and long terms as more traditional activities become automated and/or de-emphasized.
I see it as a growing area but am unclear as to how significant a role the libraries will play in terms of
scaling support for this type of scholarship.
I think it can be very, very rich and a great opportunity for the library—but the researchers need to
know the library can offer the services and not already have a place to get the support.
I think libraries will play an increasingly larger role in publishing, as open access journals grow
in number.
I think that it will continue to grow as scholarship and teaching evolve.
I think that research libraries’ role will grow with regards to supporting digital scholarship activities.
We know how to organize, manage, and share information the methods for doing so are changing and
so will our roles.
Integrated, core, and first-partner/connector for connecting with and across other groups
and communities
It will continue to be strong with great support from campus and administration.
It will continue to grow and evolve. We have done well with less planned organic development the
challenge is rationalize that a bit over the next few years.
It will increase, unless these sorts of activities migrate away from or outside of the libraries. Already
many institutions have set up separate centers or institutes to support what we refer to as DS activities.
