Article 9: The Librarian's Role in Promoting Digital Scholarship: Development and Metadata Issues by Eileen Llona

Scholarship in both the arts and sciences continues to make increasing use of technology to analyze information and create new knowledge.  The impact of digital technology continues to be felt in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.  Digital scholarship is defined as the products, results and tools that are either born digital or have been converted to digital format.  

Although digital scholarship is on the rise, Llona explains that there are still many constraints and barriers when it comes to managing digital scholarship.  First, when scholars retire or leave an institution, support for their resources might not continue.  In many cases, the library is asked to take ownership of the project.  Second, confusion over copyright issues can block the production or preservation of digital scholarship.  Librarians have the ability to educate scholars about these issues and options for copyrighting their materials.  The constant change of technology standards can also serve as a barrier for some scholars.  Once again, librarians can educate scholars about proper file formats and programs.  Finally, attaching the correct metadata can also be a problem.  The description of these projects can prove problematic, but this is another area in which librarians can apply their training.

Llano writes that librarians need to be aware of these issues because we as a profession are becoming more and more involved in digital scholarship.  Not only to we have the skills necessary to preserve scholarship, but also to give advice on information architecture.  Also, specialists in metadata, content description, and search and access methods are also needed to ensure new forms of scholarship.

Other ways that librarians can be helpful is keeping informed about funding opportunities for digital projects so that scholarship can begin or continue.  It is also important to understand file formats, how they work, and which formats should be used when.  Keeping up to date on the latest metadata standards is also important. Even if a professional is not a metadata specialist, it is still important to at least have an idea about this field in order to communicate about these issues effectively. 

Another issue that Llano briefly mentions is the issues of storage and providing access.