2011 Articles

Supporting Humanities Doctoral Student Success: A Collaborative Project between Cornell University Library and Columbia University Libraries

Gessner, Gabriela Castro; Jaggars, Damon E.; Rutner, Jennifer Anne; Tancheva, Kornelia

In recent years there have been a number of major, large-scale studies in the United States on the high attrition rates for doctoral students in the humanities. The results of these studies reveal a significant gap between the humanities and other disciplines. None of the studies consulted has specifically considered the role of the library in supporting doctoral program completion, even though it is often characterized as the humanist‘s equivalent to the scientific laboratory. This collaborative study includes focus groups and individual interviews with doctoral students in the humanities at both Cornell and Columbia. The study investigates whether the research library might positively impact doctoral student success in the humanities and discusses specific strategies it might employ to do so.