Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center? Page: 9
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Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center?
Lucky directors may find that they already have DH-skilled Librarians in their midst.
Sometimes one or two staff members will rise to the occasion for digital scholarship, while in
other ibraries everyone is encouraged to get up to speed. Occasionally the DH ibrarian is a
full-fledged participant on the project team, rather than playing a supporting role. In some
organizations jealousy might crop up when a "chosen" person gets the desirable assignments,
and in other settings staff may resent having to skill up in this new field. It goes without
saying that ibrarians with new job titles or responsibilities must be allotted the resources,
training, and time to handle their new assignments.
While some DH academics request support from the ibrary, they almost never expect the
library to contribute domain expertise. Should a DH scholar desire training with tools, for
example, it is critical to find out specifically what is wanted and whether the ibrary can
meet that need. A director can economize and foster collaboration by training ibrary staff
along with DH researchers.
Finding Sources
Primary Sources
When digital humanists talk about finding primary sources for their work, Libraries and
archives figure significantly in their thinking. In paralleL, directors are interested in mobilizing
their collections for new audiences and purposes, particularly where research converges with
archives and special collections. Digital humanists work at this intersection.
Humanities research has always placed a high value on exhaustive examination of all relevant
materials. However, many scholars have ong chafed at the time necessary to work
painstakingly through sitos of bibliographic and digital materials. For digital humanists, it is
not trivial to collect and prepare the desired corpus of materials; researchers report that they
(or their students) must touch each item individually in order to assemble the sources that
they use. They ong for a single point for discovery across a comprehensive corpus.
Most scholars prefer to locate, assemble, and prepare their sources themselves, whether the
materials are bibliographies, texts, oral histories, or images-and whether they are in their
local ibrary or archives, in distant ones, or out in the wild. One or two digital humanists say
that they would ike the library to acquire, transcribe and encode the source materials, but
we found this opinion quite rare.
Digitized Materials
Digital humanists and directors share the goal of making vast quantities of digitized materials
available for use. Humanities research has evolved and requires more sophisticated andhttp: //www.octc.oro,/content/dam/research/publications/Library/2014/oclcresearch-digital-humanities-center-2014. pdf
Jennifer Schaffner and Ricky Erway, for OCLC Research Page 9
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Schaffner, Jennifer & Erway, Ricky. Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center?, book, February 2014; Dublin, Ohio. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc272207/m1/9/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .