Opportunities beyond Electronic Resource Management: An Extension of the Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians to Digital Scholarship and Scholarly Communications

Abstract

This article will provide an overview of current topics in Digital Scholarship and Scholarly Communications (DS/SC) and draw connections between these new areas and the traditional skill set of electronic resources librarians. Commonalities between the skills outlined in the Core Competencies for Electronic ResourcesLibrarians and those needed for success in DS/SC will form the basis of the author's recommendations for involvement in these new areas.

Assessing safe spaces for digital scholarship in the library

“…As digital scholarship advances in academia, an increasing number of academic librarians are acquiring skills in computer programming, Web design, text encoding, geographic information systems and mapping, data analysis and storage, app development, online gaming, and 3D animation. As most librarians already have expertise in the digital scholarship areas that college faculty often lack, such as copyright management, digital rights management, metadata, and management of content management systems and institutional repositories (Dresselhaus, 2015;Keener, 2015;Marcum, 2014;Posner, 2013;Rumsey, 2011;Russell, 2013;Schaffner & Erway, 2014;Sinclair, 2014), the new technical skills that they learn actually help them with their work in creating wayfinding maps and games to help patrons navigate the library, as well as digitizing print resources and making those new electronic resources compatible with data analysis programs such as R. It is now possible for librarians to show students and faculty how to search databases such as Hathi Trust to find evidence of certain word usage, language trends, popularity of public figures, or other information that will answer a research question.…”

“…Makerspaces, Wikipedia edit-a-thons, hackerspaces and other collaborative learning situations hosted in the library encourage students and faculty of all disciplines to learn valuable STEM skills from each other in a perceived non-judgmental, social environment. Academic librarians also perceive that library involvement in digital scholarship maintains their relevance on university campuses (Dresselhaus, 2015;Pho & Masland, 2014;Vandegrift, 2012). At the same time, "traditional" librarian culture still views collaboration with other units within their physical library space as a threat (Vandegrift, Varner & Varner, 2013).…”

“…Digital scholarship took off as an emerging discipline and academic trend in the second decade of the 21 st century. Many librarians are still trying to understand the discipline and how they fit into it (Coble, Potvin & Shirazi, 2014;Dresselhaus, 2015;Schaffner & Erway, 2014;Vandegrift, 2012). Academic librarians have written detailed plans on building digital scholarship programs, centers, and support services within their libraries.…”

“…Now and then, the professional literature will address whether or not librarian culture and digital scholarship are compatible (Dresselhaus, 2015;Vandegrift, 2012;Vandegrift, Varner & Varner, 2013). Library plans to develop digital scholarship services, programs or centers in the library focus on assessing librarian skill sets, library resources, physical learning spaces, and building relationships with faculty engaged in digital scholarship (Dresselhaus, 2015;Lippincott, Hemmasi & Lewis, 2014;Schaffner & Erway, 2014;Vandegrift, Varner, & Varner, 2013). At this time, however, no literature exists to show how librarians perceived or assessed the climate of their learning environment, or if they actively created a safe space for learning as their unit pursued digital scholarship.…”