Digital scholarship programs, a university unit of relatively recent origin, provide support and ... more Digital scholarship programs, a university unit of relatively recent origin, provide support and community for scholars integrating digital technologies into their research, teaching, and engagement work. But they have not been well defined in higher education scholarship and sometimes not even well understood on their campuses. To clarify the nature of digital scholarship programs, we surveyed what they do in practice. Using a combination of systematic searching of university websites and a survey instrument with 12 qualitative and 5 quantitative questions, we investigated the infrastructure, activities, and perceived successes and challenges of digital scholarship programs at Carnegie Classification R1: Doctoral Universities. Our study reveals that these programs exist at more than three-fourths of R1s, and their staff serve a critical function at the intersection of technology and scholarship. While our survey finds many commonalities between digital scholarship programs, such as supporting the application of research programming languages or offering professional development training, it also illustrates that these units have more heterogeneity and a broader scope than more established scholarly support units at research institutions. The degree to which we find digital scholarship programs already representing interunit partnerships and striving for even more collaboration illustrates increased cooperation and a will for further coordination in the face of a culture of internal competition under academic capitalism. Digital scholarship programs’ partnership structures offer higher education a model for building bridges between organizational silos in a fashion that respects the autonomy and distinctiveness of individual units, reduces internal competition, and offers user-centered scholarly support.
Academic Librarians and Academic Freedom Survey Data
The files in the dataset include a CSV file with survey responses, a codebook in both PDF and TXT... more The files in the dataset include a CSV file with survey responses, a codebook in both PDF and TXT formats, a TXT file that contains the survey questions, a TXT file that contains open ended comments provided by some of the survey respondents, and a readme file.The data is a spreadsheet downloaded from survey responses in Qualtrics. The authors surveyed academic librarians about their attitudes toward and experiences with academic freedom in their workplaces. Of the nearly 750 people who began the survey, just under 600 qualified for the survey as current academic library employees who gave their consent to the survey. The authors have only included the survey data for this subset of respondents. Also included is a set of comments made in an optional free-text field at the end of the survey. They are presented separate from their authors’ survey responses to ensure anonymity
R1 Digital Scholarship Program Survey Dataset, 2020
Three CSV files (dss_data_q4_12.csv, dss_data_q13.csv, dss_data_q14_17.csv) include de-identified... more Three CSV files (dss_data_q4_12.csv, dss_data_q13.csv, dss_data_q14_17.csv) include de-identified survey responses for questions 4 to 17, covering aspects of the practices of Digital Scholarship programs at R1 institutions. Qualitative responses in the dataset are represented by the inductive codes applied by the study authors to those free-text responses. Quantitative responses are included as submitted by respondents. Answers to questions 1 to 3 are not included to protect respondent anonymity. The survey_questions.txt file lists the complete questions from the survey, as exported from Qualtrics. The readme.txt file includes detailed documentation for each file.This data represents responses to a survey instrument with twelve qualitative and five quantitative questions used to investigate the infrastructure, activities, and perceived successes and challenges of digital scholarship programs at Carnegie Classification R1: Doctoral Universities in 2020. Our study reveals that digital scholarship programs at large research universities tend to be support-oriented organizations most commonly rooted in libraries but partnered with or funded by other units within major research universities. These programs exist at over three-fourths of R1 institutions and their staff serve a critical function at the intersection of technology and the three core facets of scholarship--research, teaching, and engagement
Introduction Academic librarians† might believe they are protected by academic freedom policies, ... more Introduction Academic librarians† might believe they are protected by academic freedom policies, but how extensive are their protections and what is their lived experience when it comes to freedom to speak and act in the workplace or in public? In the United States, the 2016 election and the rise of the Far Right and state oppression of marginalized communities brought urgency to these questions. Many librarians feel compelled to speak and act against oppression in and outside of the library. Academic freedom protection for librarians is far from settled practice, and is complicated by the profession’s focus on the broader concept of intellectual freedom for library users. The authors are interested in studying the experiences and perceptions of academic freedom among academic librarians, a topic which has not been widely studied. We are also interested in studying the relationship of social identity and financial status to academic freedom for library staff. Doing so raises interes...
Digital Humanities in Libraries: Where Are We Now?
It\u27s been five years since the first DASHcamp took place at the University of Minnesota, an ea... more It\u27s been five years since the first DASHcamp took place at the University of Minnesota, an early landmark meeting of digital humanists in Minnesota. This roundtable session will reflect on how far digital humanities has come since then, and speculate on DH\u27s future. Panelists are all DH practitioners working at local academic institutions
Power and Status (and Lack Thereof) in Academe: Academic Freedom and Academic Librarians
Academic librarians (AL) do not experience full academic freedom (AF) protections, and AF for AL ... more Academic librarians (AL) do not experience full academic freedom (AF) protections, and AF for AL is not well studied. We surveyed ALs, with over 600 responses. This article focuses on librarian faculty status and how it intersects with AF perceptions and experiences. Librarianship should pay more attention to AF. Solidarity with other non-traditional faculty is an avenue for allyship and advocacy.
Making Something Out of Nothing: Building Digital Humanities Partnerships
In many smaller institutions, librarian partnerships on digital humanities projects can be piecem... more In many smaller institutions, librarian partnerships on digital humanities projects can be piecemeal at best. Many of us engage in this work due to a personal interest (or even passion) for it, but work outside of big grants or specially-designed positions. In this workshop, we hope to engage participants in a lively discussion of strategies for engaging faculty, students, and other communities we work with to enhance ongoing projects and forge new ones together. This will be a highly participatory endeavor; we will share what has worked for us (and what hasn\u27t) and hope you will do the same
All Guides: Authors and books in Marlon James' convocation speech 2016: a brief guide
Many of the authors discussed at Macalester's convocation, with links to the library's ca... more Many of the authors discussed at Macalester's convocation, with links to the library's catalog
What does digital piecework have in common with laboring in the warehouse of a large online shopp... more What does digital piecework have in common with laboring in the warehouse of a large online shopping platform? How is data cleaning related to digitization work and AI training in prisons? This panel suggests bringing these diverse ways of laboring in the digital economies together by considering these practices as infrastructural labor that takes the shape of shadow work (Illich, 1981) and ghost labor (Gray & Suri, 2019). Work and labor in modern, capitalist society imply power, authority and possibility for resistance, and these dimensions are crucial for understanding why and how infrastructures are realized and how they work. Infrastructure labor is ambiguous. It is both visible and invisible depending on the specific tasks and their inherent power relations (Leigh Star & Strauss, 1999). It includes both manual and cognitive labor. It is geared towards innovation as well as repair, maintenance and servitude. The panel aims to paint the contours of infrastructural labor at the ma...
On November 29, 2017, a photo of a sign asking library patrons “please do not let in the cat” wen... more On November 29, 2017, a photo of a sign asking library patrons “please do not let in the cat” went viral. It wasn’t long before the Internet lore surrounding Max the Cat exceeded the scope of the original post. Until news agencies picked up the story and tracked us down, the image (and the cat) was largely divorced from its original context.
Libraries Bibliography," which helped flesh out our literature 2 review. Everyone who contributed... more Libraries Bibliography," which helped flesh out our literature 2 review. Everyone who contributed to the conversation about the ethics of teaching with digitized primary sources on Twitter,
Librarians' liminal (intermediate) position within academia situates us to make unique contributi... more Librarians' liminal (intermediate) position within academia situates us to make unique contributions to digital humanities (DH). In this article, we use genre theory, feminist theory, and theories of emotional labor to explore the importance of discourse mediation and affective labor to DH and the interplay between these areas and academic structural inequality. By claiming our expertise and making explicit work that is often not visible, we can advocate for new and varied roles for librarians in digital humanities. Our analysis is informed by both theory and practice, and it takes a dialogic approach that depends upon the interactions between the two.
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Papers by Alexis Logsdon