2013 Articles

Digital Humanities in Libraries: New Models for Scholarly Engagement

Rockenbach, Barbara A.

In Debates in the Digital Humanities, Matthew Gold opens with an essay entitled “The Digital Humanities Moment (2012).” This moment is characterized by a swell of scholarly and popular publications on digital humanities (DH), funding opportunities for DH projects, jobs requiring DH skills, and DH centers forming in colleges and universities. The same could be said about a parallel moment in libraries. In the past few months job postings for positions with titles such as Digital Humanities Librarian, Librarian for Digital Humanities Research, and Digital Humanities Design Consultant have multiplied. Additionally, many libraries are integrating support for DH or digital scholarship into their service profiles. However, there are few articles in the library literature, much less in the DH literature, focused specifically on the role libraries are playing or could play in this emerging approach to humanities scholarship.