• The hybrid scholarly archive and responsive digital resources

    My original submission was as follows:

    “The modern scholar conducts research using a three-part “archive” of source materials.  This 3-part archive that consists of: 1) Institutions’ physical collections of books and materials; 2) the digital texts and online materials that are available within the Library and outside of it; and 3) the “invisible college,” which is the ephemeral archive of scholarship and ideas that flows through their scholarly communications networks.  I’d like to explore how librarians, information professionals, and other researchers can support this complex and constantly evolving scholarly archive of sources and expand its power with the development of humanities computing tools.”

    To expand upon this, my session will first discuss the evolution of scholarly research and communications from the physical–research materials in libraries and archives, in-person meetings at conferences and via letters and print journals–into this three-part archive.  This new scholarly archive is particuarly marked by digital methods of research and communication such as digitized texts in digital archives and databases, e-journals and e-books, and the dynamic debates via web forums, blogs, email and chat, etc.  I believe that humanities scholars are among the most prominent types of scholars using a hybrid “archive” of both print and digital resources, and I want to explore how librarians–as well as information scientists, programmers, etc.–can support this new scholarly workflow.

    One way of supporting this workflow is through the development of resources that reflect their needs. As such, I would like to discuss specific digital tools and resources that are being developed at the University of Illinois that can support this hybrid archive of scholars’ research: These tools include MONK, a textual analysis tool recently released as a public research tool; Digital libraries and archives such as the HathiTrust Digital Library and the Farm, Field, and Fireside newspaper collection at UIUC’s History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library; and the Novelarium digitization project of 19th-century American novels that I’m currently working on.  I’d like to also consider other major outside projects, such as the digital resources built by NINES.

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