“Natural allies”. Librarians, archivists, and big data in international digital humanities project work
| Pages | 804-826 |
| Published date | 09 July 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2017-0137 |
| Date | 09 July 2018 |
| Author | Alex H. Poole,Deborah A. Garwood |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
“Natural allies”
Librarians, archivists, and big data in
international digital humanities project work
Alex H. Poole
Department of Information Science, Drexel University,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, and
Deborah A. Garwood
College of Computing and Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose –In Digging into Data 3 (DID3) (2014-2016), ten funders from four countries (the USA, Canada, the
UK, and the Netherlands) granted $5.1 million to 14 project teams to pursue data-intensive, interdisciplinary,
and international digital humanities (DH) research. The purpose of this paper is to employ the DID3 projects
as a case study to explore the following research question: what roles do librarians and archivists take on in
data-intensive, interdisciplinary, and international DH projects?
Design/methodology/approach –Participation was secured from 53 persons representing eleven projects.
The study was conducted in the naturalistic paradigm. It is a qualitative case study involving snowball
sampling, semi-structured interviews, and grounded analysis.
Findings –Librariansor archivists were involved officiallyin 3 of the 11 projects (27.3 percent).Perhaps more
importantly,information professionalsplayed vital unofficial rolesin these projects, namely asconsultants and
liaisons and also as technical support. Information and library science (ILS)expertise helped DID3 researchers
with issuessuch as visualization, rightsmanagement, and user testing.DID3 participants also suggestedways
in whichlibrarians and archivists mightfurther support DH projects,concentrating on three key areas:curation,
outreach, and ILS education. Finally, sixdirections for future research aresuggested.
Originality/value –Much untapped potential exists for librarians and archivists to collaborate with DH
scholars; a gap exists between researcher awareness and information professionals’capacity.
Keywords Collaboration, Interdisciplinarity, Digital humanities, Data management, Digital curation,
Data curation, Information and library science
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There is no shortage of enthusiasm and optimism in discussions of digital humanities (DH).
Klein (2015) observes, “Digital Humanities is a rapidly growing field at the intersections of
computing and the disciplines of humanities and arts, interdisciplinary fields of culture and
communication, and the professions of education and library and information science”
(pp. 1-2). DH appears “a vibrant and rapidly growing field of endeavor”to Schreibman et al.
(2016, p. xvii) anda “quickly evolving, contested and exciting field”to Svenssonand Goldberg
(2015, p. 1). Pannapacker (2012) boldly claims, “At this point, the digital humanities are ’the
thing.’There’sno“next”aboutit. And it will not be long until the digitalhumanities are, quite
simply, ‘thehumanities’”(p. 233). New publications, organizations,networks, researchcenters,
academic programs, and funded projects attest to its robustness (Klein, 2015).
Exploiting these channels, conversations in DH scholarship concentrate on a bevy of
topics: historicizing, defining, conceptualizing, theorizing, analyzing, critiquing, criticizing,
creating, building, producing, practicing, collaborating, disciplining and interdisciplining,
developing infrastructure, teaching, institutionalizing, professionalizing, disseminating,
rewarding, and archiving (Bartsherer and Coover, 2011; Berry, 2012; Burdick et al., 2012;
Cohen and Scheinfeldt, 2013; Crompton et al., 2016; Deegan and McCarty, 2012; Gardiner and
Musto, 2015; Gold, 2012; Jones, 2014; Klein, 2015; Klein and Gold, 2016; Nyhan et al., 2013;
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 74 No. 4, 2018
pp. 804-826
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-10-2017-0137
Received 2 October 2017
Revised 16 February 2018
Accepted 18 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
804
JD
74,4
Schreibman et al., 2004; Schreibman et al., 2016; Siemens and Schreibman, 2007; Svensson
and Goldberg, 2015; Warwick et al., 2012).
The Digging into Data Challenges, first offered in 2009, constitute one of the most
important endeavors in this flurry of activity. Its first call for proposals announced,
“The idea behind the Digging into Data Challenge is to answer the question ‘what do you
do with a million books?’Or a million pages of newspaper? Or a million photographs of
artwork? That is, how does the notion of scale affect humanities and social science
research?”[1] Digging into Data 1 stimulated innovative analytical research techniques
involving large data sets, and encouraged interdisciplinary, international collaboration,
and partnering with data repositories to ensure efficient access to their materials
(See footnote 1). Eight international teams received awards from four funders based in
three countries (Table AI).
These projects broke new ground. According to a Williford and Henry (2012) report,
the first Digging into Data Challenge introduced “a new paradigm: a digital ecology of
data, algorithms, metadata, analytical and visualization tools, and new forms of scholarly
expression that result from this research”(Williford and Henry, 2012, p. 2). Digging into
Data 2 featured eight funders from four nations; 13 projects received funding.
At the end of 2013, ten funders from four countries (the USA, Canada, the UK, and
the Netherlands) awarded a total of $5.1 million to fourteen international collaborations
comprising scholars, scientists, and information professionals. This article employs
these projects from Digging into Data 3 (DID3) as a case study to explore the following
research question:
RQ1. What roles and responsibilities do information professionals such as librarians and
archivistsassume in data-intensive, interdisciplinary, and international DH projects?
This paper first reviews the literature, concentrating on the relationships among DH,
Library and Information and Science (LIS), and libraries and librarians. Second, it explains
and justifies the study’s qualitative approach. Third, it reports the findings of the study and
discusses their ramifications, focusing on librarians’and archivists’official and unofficial
involvement in projects and on their specific roles and responsibilities. Additionally,
it probes three issues that speak directly to bolstering librarians’and archivists’
participation in projects such as DID3: digital curation, LIS education and professional
preparation, and outreach opportunities for librarians and archivists. Fifth, conclusions and
six recommendations for future research are advanced.
Literature review
Scholars discuss the ways in which DH and LIS complement each other, the possible roles
libraries and librarians can play in DH work, and the challenges libraries and librarians face
when engaging in such work.
DH and library and information science
As Bawden and Robinson (2012), Dalbello (2011), Koltay (2016), Poole (2017a, b), Robinson
et al. (2015), and White and Gilbert (2016) suggest, DH and information and library science
(ILS) complement each other. First, both fields focus on recorded information and
documents. Second, both concentrate in research and in practice on collection development
and management; searching and retrieval; digital libraries, archives, and repositories;
metadata and description; ontologies, taxonomies, and classification; scholarly production
and dissemination; open acces s and linked data; bibliography an d bibliometrics;
digitization; preserv ation and curation; user exper ience; interfaces and brows ing;
visualization; and Big Data and data mining (Robinson et al., 2015). Third, both
developed from service functions and often occupy the same academic units –even the same
805
Digital
humanities
project work
To continue reading
Request your trial