Enabling Scholarship in the Digital Age

Abstract

With the ubiquitous digital ecosystem providing information to faculty and students in real time via a myriad of channels, does an academic research library continue to provide real value to faculty's research and teaching as well as students' learning? Or, has the academic research library become irrelevant to twenty-first century scholarship? Describing a variation on information literacy and research skills development approaches, this chapter makes a case for embedding good information practice into a library's products and self-service tools rather than investing in standalone instruction. Close alignment with institutional priorities, the application of user-centric product and service design principles, and a commitment to innovation in information management practices and platforms are cornerstones of this strategy in a graduate business school library. Loosely based on Harvard Business School's case method, this chapter details two frameworks used by HBS's Baker Library, and provides examples of information products created to enable student learning.