Danielle Cooper
Senior Researcher, Libraries and Scholarly Communication Program
Ithaka S+R
Roger Schonfeld
Director, Libraries and Scholarly Communication Program
Ithaka S+R
Substantial evidence from many sources shows that digital innovation has led to changing research practices among some humanities faculty, necessitating the creation of new forms of expert consultation and training in technologies. But, which of these needs for new services among early adopters are becoming the needs of the faculty-at-large? In this presentation we compare findings across three of Ithaka S+R’s large-scale cross-institutional qualitative research projects on scholars in history (2012), art history (2013) and religious studies (2017) focusing on their adoption of new research methods, and their approaches to information discovery and information management. In this presentation, we will examine both disciplinary and shared needs and suggest opportunities for more systematic approaches to delivering the research support needs of humanists. As many institutional programs are still in the early phases of creating programs to support emerging research activities, understanding how the wider humanities field is engaging with digital innovation is crucial to identifying and prioritizing which initiatives should be scaled up, how and by whom.
