PARTNERS IN RESEARCH :
Outside the Library, Inside the Infrastructure
Sally Chambers @schambers3
Göttingen Centre for Digital Humanities / DARIAH-EU Coordination Office
Saskia Scheltjens @saschel
Ghent University, Faculty Library of Arts & Philosophy
Ghent University (Belgium)
May 30, 2013

A space in between….
22013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

UGent Ledeganck
Library of the
Botanical Institute
1883
http://www.beeldbank.ugent.be/fotoalbums/universiteitsarchief
19th
century
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

UGent Blandijn
Library Medieval
History, 2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/faclibflw/3931462838
20th
century
42013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

InQBate, University
Library of Sussex
http://www.designinglibraries.org.uk
21st
century
52013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

Inside Out/Outside In Paradigm
62013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://www.oclc.org/research/presentations/dempsey/liber.ppt
http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dem
psey/edmonton.ppt
http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dempsey/insideout.pptx

Outside in
1. User builds workflow around
library services
2. Towards a centered network
presence
3. Locally assemble externally
acquired colls
4. Discovery happens in the
library
5. Expertise hidden
6. Configure space around
collections
Inside out
1. Library services built around
user workflows
2. Towards a decentered
network presence
3. Engage with creation,
management, use and
sharing of all information
resources
4. Discovery happens elsewhere
5. Expertise visible
6. Configure space around
engagement
http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dempsey/insideout.pptx

The inside out library ..
the library as an actor in research
and learning environments of its
users
http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/presentations/dempsey/insideout.pptx

What is digital scholarship?
92013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
• ‘Allowing scientists to do faster, better
or different research’
• ‘new forms of data- and information-
intensive, distributed, collaborative
scholarship’
• ‘Intersection of scholarly behaviour
and technology’
Christine L. Borgman (2007)
Scholarship in the digital age:
information, infrastructures and the internet
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/scholarship-digital-age

What is digital humanities?
102013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/ddh
Kings College: ‘to study the possibilities of computing
for arts and humanities scholarship and, in
collaboration with local, national and international
research partners across the disciplines, to design and
build applications which implement these possibilities,
in particular those which produce online research
publications’

What is digital humanities?
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Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.ucl.ac.uk/dh-blog/2012/01/20/infographic-quantifying-digital-humanities
UCL: ‘Digital Humanities
research and teaching takes
place at the intersection of
digital technologies and
humanities…’

What is digital humanities?
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.gcdh.de/en
GCDH: ‘Digital Humanities (DH) is an area of
research, teaching, and development
concerned with the intersection of computing
and the various disciplines of the Humanities.’

NeDiMAH: Network for Digital Methods in the Arts and
Humanities
132013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
Themes:
• Space and time
• Visualisation
• Linked data & ontologies
• Digital Data
• Large-scale text
• Scholarly digital editionswww.nedimah.eu

What are Research Infrastructures?
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.cceh.uni-koeln.de/events/CologneDialogue

What are Research Infrastructures?
152013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.cceh.uni-koeln.de/events/CologneDialogue/Controversy5
Anderson & Blanke: ‘the future
for humanities infrastructure is
best framed around the idea of
a humanities specific
ecosystem’
Van Zundert: ‘big institutionally
based digital infrastructures are a
dead end for information
technology development and
application in the humanities.’

European Research Infrastructures
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/index_en.cfm?pg=esfri

Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities
172013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.dariah.eu
…a connected network of tools, information, people
and methodologies for investigating, exploring and
supporting research across the digital arts and
humanities…
DARIAH aims to enhance and
support digitally-enabled research
and teaching across the humanities
and arts…
…for researchers, by researchers…

Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities
182013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.dariah.eu
…a connected network of tools, information, people
and methodologies for investigating, exploring and
supporting research across the digital arts and
humanities…
…for researchers, ? by researchers…
DARIAH aims to enhance and
support digitally-enabled research
and teaching across the humanities
and arts…

THATCamp Ghent @ ELAG2013
192013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boekentoren/8868717578 http://ghent2013.thatcamp.org
PicturebyGeertRoels

What do humanities researchers want?
202013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
1. Make it easy to use
2. Make it easy to cite
3. Put it in their workflow
4. Provide clarity on objects and
processes
5. Build a community
6. Provide research support
7. Make the information easily
reusable
8. Offer ways to visualise
collections
9. Think about linked data
10. Provide a critical mass of content
http://www.rin.ac.uk/humanities-case-studies

How can we support the needs of humanities researchers?
212013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/sites/default/files/
reports/supporting-the-changing-research-practices-of-historians.pdf

222013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
Digital Humanities x Libraries
Ben Showers:
‘exploring the
evolving role of the
library supporting
researchers’
http://infteam.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2012/02/23/does-the-library-have-a-role-to-play-in-the-digital-humanities/

232013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
Digital Humanities x Libraries
http://infteam.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2012/02/23/does-the-library-have-a-role-to-play-in-the-digital-humanities/
Ben Showers: potential roles for
libraries in the Digital Humanities:
•Managing Data
•As ‘Embedded Librarians’
•Digitisation and Curation
•Digital Preservation
•Discovery and Dissemination

http://miriamposner.com/blog/?page_id=1033
242013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

http://miriamposner.com/blog/?p=1274
Digital Humanities x Libraries
Miriam Posner:
the complexity of
collaborating with faculty
• peculiar dynamics of this
kind of relationship
• the project will suffer if
the relationship isn’t truly
equitable
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Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

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Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

etc ...
272013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

‘The success of the library is not when the librarians
clap, but when the researchers do’
Norbert Lossau
282013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

Low engagement from libraries
292013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
Norbert Lossau:
‘Research libraries’
engagement with RIs
(research infrastructures
has been low’. (p134)
http://liber.library.uu.nl/index.php/lq/article/view/8028/8387

Increasing engagement from libraries
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.libereurope.eu/committee/scholarly-research

Towards Europeana for Researchers
http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-cloud

32
Europeana ‘research’ Cloud will be developing
tools, services and undertaking dissemination that
establish closer links with research communities

What are the 5 key barriers to using content
for Humanities and Social Sciences
research that we should overcome?

Supporting digital scholarship
342013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/16084/
Karen Calhoun:
‘advocating a fundamental
rethinking of the research
library service framework….’
Research libraries as ‘essential
contributors to emergent, network-level
scholarly research infrastructures.’

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Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
http://chrisalensula.org/digital-humanities-and-libraries-a-conceptual-model/

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Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens

Are you ready for the challenge?
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ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens
www.njlibraries.org

38
Sally Chambers
@schambers3
Göttingen Centre for Digital Humanities /
DARIAH-EU Coordination Office
sally.chambers@phil.uni-goettingen.de
http://www.dariah.eu
Saskia Scheltjens
@saschel
Ghent University
Faculty Library of Arts & Philosophy
saskia.scheltjens@ugent.be
http://www.flw.ugent.be/bibliotheek
Contact details
382013/05/30
ELAG 2013
Partners in Research – Chambers & Scheltjens