In 2018, the Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL) Research Group organised a survey of Irish research libraries and institutions to better understand how we currently structure digital scholarship services and supports.
Results show the most supported digital scholarship activities are digitisation, making digital collections, metadata creation, and digital exhibitions. These mainly exist as primarily library functions, yet high levels of collaboration from both inside and outside the library are used to be effective in these activities. In addition, we see a highly collaborative (ad-hoc or structured) approach to enabling key digital scholarship activity, with IT staff, researchers, and finance staff appearing as the most frequent collaborative partners. Finally, the most critical digital skills gaps and areas to improve are digital preservation, data curation and management, computational text analysis/support.
The main aim of the survey was to identify current approaches to digital scholarship services and supports in Irish research and national libraries. What roles exist, what services are provided, and what gaps there are. In addition, we focused on how CONUL can help progress, improve, and institutionalise digital scholarship in Irish research institutions. The overall goal was to better understand how we currently structure digital scholarship services and supports and to collate information about existing digital scholarship activity in Irish research libraries. Results will be used to facilitate knowledge sharing between CONUL libraries and contribute towards the next steps taken by the CONUL Research Group.
Read the full digital scholarship services and supports survey report. You can also access the survey dataset.
Report title:
Digital Scholarship services and supports – an overview from Irish Research and National Libraries
Authors:
Cillian Joy; Eoin Kilfeather; Caleb Derven; Arlene Healy
Editor(s):
Julia Barrett