| Title: | Supporting Digital Humanities in the Library: Creating Sustainable and Scalable Services |
| Authors: | McCormick, Monica Vinopal, Jennifer |
| Keywords: | Digital Humanities;Digital Libraries;Libraries;Scholarship;Research;Services;Service model;Tools;Digital Scholarship;Organizational change |
| Issue Date: | 29-Jun-2012 |
| Abstract: | As the digital humanities become a mainstream option for many scholars, libraries and presses have the chance to rethink our services. We must grasp how scholarly communication is changing, and partner with scholars to build services they need. This working session reports findings from interviews with peer institutions and NYU faculty that explored service models to support new scholarly modes, and includes discussion of: evolving staff roles and skills needed to sustain these efforts; the relationship between enterprise services, one-off projects, and research and development; and models for ongoing partnership among scholars, libraries, and presses. This workshop should result in improved understanding about how to be effective partners within the evolving scholarly landscape. |
| Description: | The information landscape has evolved over the last few decades, resulting in an existential crisis for both academic libraries and university presses. Things we've taken for granted for more than a century (research and publishing models, our services, our content) are called into question and need to be redefined in partnership with our users. To date, changes in knowledge creation and dissemination have been more widespread in the sciences than in the humanities. Now, with the digital humanities' recent growth and evolution into the next big thing (http://goo.gl/1wz8d), we have the opportunity to follow the maturation of this field and rethink our services within this emerging paradigm. Some libraries and presses have long been involved in partnering with scholars on DH initiatives. But as DH becomes a mainstream option for more humanists, even libraries and presses late to the DH game will be forced to evolve their services accordingly. Libraries and presses must also explore how and when to collaborate to support scholars in our related, but not identical, missions. We must have a deep understanding of how knowledge production and dissemination is changing in the fields we serve, and partner with scholars to build new services that they actually need. Whether or not we do right by them will be the measure of our value going forward. The goal of NYU's current project is to better understand the research and publishing needs of scholars in the humanities at NYU and to research possible service and staffing models to support new web-based forms of scholarly communication. We are talking to peer institutions that already support these modes of scholarship and will interview NYU faculty to learn about what they need in this domain. The resulting report will identify a set of unmet user needs at NYU and will propose possible service and staffing models to address them. We will briefly describe our research and early findings from interviews with peer institutions and NYU faculty. We will then lead a discussion so participants can ask questions of each other and share experiences. Of particular interest: new service models adopted at other libraries and presses; evolving staff roles and skills needed to sustain these efforts; the relationship between enterprise services, one-off projects, and research and development; and successful models for ongoing partnership among scholars, libraries, and presses. This workshop should result in understanding and ongoing discussion among participants about how to be effective partners within the evolving scholarly landscape. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/31580 |
| Rights: | The presentation 'Supporting Digital Humanities in the Library: Creating Sustainable and Scalable Services,' by Monica McCormick and Jennifer Vinopal, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0). View License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ If you have questions about this item or the collection, contact monica.mccormick@nyu.edu or vinopal@nyu.edu |
| Appears in Collections: | Jennifer Vinopal's Collection |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McCormick_Vinopal_DLF2011_DHServiceModel.pdf | PDF version of PowerPoint presentation, including speaker notes | 10.91 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
| McCormick_Vinopal_DLF2011_DHServiceModel.pptx | Original PowerPoint presentation | 1.25 MB | Unknown | View/Open |
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