Beyond the Scanned Image: A Needs Assessment of Scholarly Users of Digital Collections

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of how humanities scholars use digital collections in their research and the ways in which digital collections could be enhanced for scholarly use. The authors surveyed and interviewed humanities faculty from twelve research universities about their research practices with digital collections and present analysis of the resulting responses. The paper also analyzes a sample of qualitative responses from the Bamboo Technology Project's workshops with faculty, librarians, and technologists about the use and functionalities of digital materials for humanities research. This paper synthesizes these data analyses to propose the critical need for interoperability and data curation in digital collections to increase their scholarly use, and the importance of user engagement in development of digital collections.umanities scholarship integrates the analog with the digital more fully than ever before, as new approaches to humanities scholarship incorporate digital materials, from comprehensive archival projects that require the gathering of materials from around the world to research that uses analytic tools for text mining and social network analysis. This evolution in humanities scholarship emerging from the rise of digital humanities and deeper interdisciplinary orientations for humanities scholars prompt us to ask critical questions about the digital collections that frequently play a significant role in these new scholarly methodologies: specifically, how effectively are digital collections meeting the research needs of scholars, and how should digital collections evolve to sustain and strengthen their value to digital humanities research?This paper presents the results of a study that examines how humanities scholars make use of digital collections and the ways in which digital collections could be enhanced for scholarly research. Through analyses of the survey and interviews of humanities scholars conducted for this study, combined with analyzed responses from focus groups of scholars at the Bamboo Technology Project workshops, this paper argues that libraries, museums, and archives should look beyond discovery

Managing a digital archiving project at the University of the West Indies Library

“…Several other Units have followed suit and implemented programmes which call on innovative strategies in the face of scare resources. Green and Courtney (2015) in their study maintained that humanities scholars need "effective discovery mechanisms … and the ability to mix and reuse digital material" (698). This places the onus on librarians to encourage researchers to use the digitized collections.…”

“…Several of these sessions facilitated by liaison librarians are attended by faculty members as well. Green and Courtney (2015) have emphasized the importance of discovery in the use of digitized collections. Consequently, the Library has placed emphasis on the creation of metadata, and collaboration with faculty towards this end, has resulted in the improvement of access.…”

Scholarly Needs for Text Analysis Resources: A User Assessment Study for the HathiTrust Research Center

“…The results of the study will help us assess the effectiveness of the HTRC, as well as make suggestions for development of future iterations of the HTRC's data services and toolkit. This paper builds on existing research into humanities scholars' use of digital tools (Frischer et al, 2006;Toms and O'Brien, 2008;Gibbs and Owen, 2012;Green and Courtney, 2015). While the interviews were conducted with specific focus on the HTRC, the results of our study point to opportunities for other large-scale data providers to develop solutions for allowing computational access to their content.…”

Communicating New Library Roles to Enable Digital Scholarship: A Review Article

“…Surveys have also proved to be valuable tools in understanding perspectives on open access (Moore, 2011), including different disciplinary attitudes (Creaser, 2010). They can helpfully inform the creation of digital collections (Green & Courtney, 2015) by elucidating the complex requirements of users and creating an understanding of how such collections are integrated into humanities scholarship.…”