Forming a Digital Scholarship Consultation Model with Library Colleagues

Scenario Description

You are the newly hired Digital Scholarship Librarian and you have been tasked with chairing a working group focused on developing a digital scholarship consultation model. The working group is made up of primarily liaison librarians who split their time between three main responsibilities: reference, instruction, and collection development. They each have varying relationships with departments they liaise with, from very close to nonexistent. Similarly, they are all in different places in terms of skill level and openness to digital scholarship. Some clearly resent being on such a group, which they see as an imposition from administration; others are excited to learn more about a new area that interests them.

As leader of this working group, you’ll have a good deal of say in shaping this new service at your library—but taking on this leadership role is daunting!

Discussion Questions

  1. Your colleagues’ context
    • Their prior knowledge is:
    • Their motivation is:
  2. Your context
    • Your prior knowledge is:
    • Your motivation is:
  3. You recognize that everyone is coming in with different preexisting knowledge about emerging research practices and digital scholarship. What training or professional development ideas could help? How might you balance skill building as a group versus training undertaken on an individual basis?
  4. Some librarians are vehemently opposed to the idea of providing consultations on digital scholarship topics. How would you approach them? Are there resources you could share or talking points you might employ?
  5. How would you describe the similarities between digital scholarship consultations and a reference interview to help increase your colleagues’ comfort in this new area?