Digital Humanities – Digital Scholarship Special Interest Group

The Digital Humanities/Digital Scholarship SIG was formally created in 2017, with the following goals, exploring the scope of Digital Humanities (DH) and Digital Scholarship (DS) related theories, practices, case studies in a global library and information services communities:

• DH/DS scope, context and relevance in multi-sector library and information services organization missions;
• Librarian and information professional’s role in partnering, participating, supporting and facilitating DH/DS endeavors;
• The applications, tools and methodologies of DH/DS from both scholar’s and library/information service organization’s perspectives;
• DH/DS related digital repository, metadata, discovery, presentation, publishing and preservation;
• DH/DS related space design, technology infrastructure, and staffing model;
• DH/DS related core competencies, workforce development, knowledge skills building and training;
• DH/DS funding, partnership model and sustainability;
• The global DH/DS best practices.

Guided by the above scope of work the SIG, since its inception, has focused all its work and activities on:

• Providing a globally engaged DH/DS forum among IFLA communities for exploring, developing and exchanging ideas and best practices regarding DH/DS in the context of libraries and information service organization’s evolving missions.
• Providing a platform within IFLA to explore, assess and develop the avenues of response from IFLA to this strategic and evolving area.
• The SIG has identified and addressed several key areas of concern that affect libraries and information service organizations. For example: the need for sharing of DH/DS scope and relevance in library context, case studies (successes and failures) of various organizational models, funding models, partnership models, tools and applications, workforce and skills development, and the technologies and infrastructure support.