Update on Research Now: Cross-Training for Digital Scholarship

Abstract

In preparation for the opening of the Indiana University Libraries’ Scholars’ Commons, staff from across the libraries including, Collection Development & Scholarly Communication, Library Technologies, Reference Services, and Arts & Humanities, will engage in an extended, hands-on learning project known as Research Now: Cross Training for Digital Scholarship. Our project team will develop a digital archive tentatively called The History of the Indiana University Libraries, which is conceived as a comprehensive, multimedia, and perpetual digital archive documenting the earliest days of the Indiana University (IU) Libraries through present times. The archive will serve as an engaged learning opportunity for first-year, front line Scholars’ Commons staff as we retool our skills and knowledge in preparation for the opening of the Scholars’ Commons. The project aims to: consolidate two parallel web sites that cover the history of the IU Libraries by migrating the existing content into services such as Archives Online, Image Collections Online, and other services for long-term digital preservation and access digitize and describe existing content (35 mm slides, photographs, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and other ephemeral materials and objects) held by Lou Malcomb, Head of Social Sciences, Gov Docs and GeoSciences cross-reference existing digital content about the libraries’ history from related resources and repositories identify, digitize, and describe additional materials in existing repositories across campus create and compile original primary and secondary source contextual information by way of oral histories, essays, timelines and chronologies, biographical sketches, bibliographies, and other related information Above all, this is a learning project for frontline Scholars’ Commons staff with three broad goals: to understand the multi-faceted dimensions, iterations and phases involved in designing and developing a curated digital archive to contribute to this project as researchers to cultivate ad-hoc learning strategies Cross-training began in mid-November 2013, and we would like to take this opportunity to provide you with an overview of our praxis-based cross-training initiative, and an update several months into our program. For more on the Research Now: Cross-Training for Digital Scholarship initiative, visit our blog.