Digital Scholarship Librarian: What Skills and Competences are Needed to be a Collaborative Librarian

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecently a partnership between digital humanities and digital libraries is being forged, coagulating in a demand for digital humanities centers within academic libraries and an increase in the call for “Digital Scholarship Librarians.” What skills and competences are necessary for librarians to fulfill this new role? and What training allows them to develop these skills? The paper examines the collaborative role of the digital scholarship librarian, what this new role entails and what it means to bring the two areas of practice together. After examining current literature and job applications surrounding this role, the skills needed to fill this role are identified in a case study of a digital humanities project which operated on the collaborative model with digital librarians, together making use of digital methods to answer questions specific to its field. The final section proposes a training agenda by matching current opportunities with the new skill which librarians interested in digital scholarship need to develop.