Going Digital in the Area Studies World: Pipedream or Necessity?

Abstract

Indiana’s "Collaboration, Advocacy and Recruitment: Area and International Studies Librarianship Workshop" stood strongly on its own and also resonated with several previous conferences and events, among them the "Global Dimensions of Scholarship and Research Libraries" forum held late in 2012 at Duke University. The "Global Forum" generated three broad recommendations for international information resources and services: an aggressive emphasis on digital resources; the radical adoption of international/global perspectives and capabilities across all library programs, systems, and tools; and a worldwide approach to cooperation that encompasses international as well as domestic partners. Many follow-up conversations with area studies specialists have snagged on the Global Forum’s call for a deliberate digital turn. One recurrent theme concerns who most appropriately speaks for scholars in the international arena. Are the information needs of researchers who focus on emergent "global" agendas really that different from those who are grounded in mainstream "area studies”? How do different resource types and presentation formats affect scholarly and collections agendas? Are we captives of the marketplace? If so, who can or should challenge its terms?