Reaching Out: What do Scholars Want from Electronic Resources?

The potentials for teaching and learning using technology
are tremendous. Now, more than ever before, computers
have the ability to spread scholarship around the globe, teach
students with new methodologies, and engage with primary
resources in ways previously unimaginable. The interest among
humanities computing scholars has also grown. In fact at
ACH/ALLC last year, Claire Warwick and Ray Siemens et al.
gave some excellent papers on the humanities scholar and
humanities computing in the 21st century. Additionally, in the
most recent version of College and Research Libraries
(September 2004), a survey was conducted specifically among
historians to determine what electronic resources they use. The
interest in this is obviously growing, and the University of
Michigan as both a producer of large digital projects as well as
a user of such resources is an interesting testing ground for this
kind of survey data. Theoretically, Michigan should be a
potential model for high usage and innovative research and
teaching. In many cases it is; nevertheless, when one looks at
the use of electronic resources in the humanities across campus
and their use in both the classroom and innovative research, it
is not what it could be. The same is true at other universities.
At many universities across the U.S. and Canada, including
those with similar large scale digitization efforts, use remains
relatively low and new potentials of electronic resources remain
untapped. Why?
During 2004 and 2005, the Text Creation Partnership (TCP)
project, one of the largest digital projects at the University of
Michigan, has undertaken several studies to answer that exact
question, specifically for its own resources but also including
other similar projects. Rather than asking the question of what
the humanities scholar is and wants, TCP has sought to answer
what is inhibiting use of current resources and what can the
community do to enhance their experience with already existing
resources. With the help of the School of Information and
Departments of English and History at the University of
Michigan as well as the cooperation of librarians and scholars
throughout the US, UK, and Canada, TCP has set out to
determine how its databases and other similar resources are
being used, what potentials scholars could see for use, what are the barriers inhibiting use, and what the community can do to
reach out to those scholars who may not have used electronic
technology as much as they perhaps could. The results have
been divergent and quite interesting.
So far in this continuing study, the TCP has tried to cover as
many bases as possible. Project staff and students at relevant
departments have interviewed many relevant scholars in the
field (both those who have used technology and those who have
not), sent out surveys to faculty and students, held a focus group
of University of Michigan faculty and two with faculty from
outside the University of Michigan, completed interviews with
faculty throughout the U.S. and Canada, created sample syllabi
and educational materials for scholarly review, and surveyed
the use of electronic resources and citations within scholarly
literature. Responses have ranged tremendously. Some scholars
see interface as the primary concern; such resources are not
designed to do the kind of search they want. Others see selection
as a problem; the materials that databases choose to select are
too narrow to be of use to scholars outside of that field or are
too broad and produce too many results. Still others question
the legitimacy of the source itself. How can an electronic copy
be as good as seeing the original in a library? Other, more
electronically oriented scholars, see the great value of
accessibility of these resources, but are unaware of the added
potential for research and teaching. The most common concern,
however, is that scholars believe they would use these resources
if they knew they existed. Many are unaware that their library
subscribes to resources or that universities are sponsoring this
kind of research. Others feel that there is no incentive within
the university system for scholars to use these kinds of new
resources. In all, the humanities computing community has a
great deal to do to facilitate further use.
What kinds of things should the community do? Some answers
are as simple as new interface tools and methods of interacting
with the database itself. Yet, even more fundamentally, many
feel that the community needs to raise awareness of these
resources and create incentives to use them. Librarians can
certainly be a part of this in helping to raise awareness among
their local faculty. Faculty also need to be involved by raising
awareness beyond their own community to those colleagues
who may not be as aware of the potential for these kinds of
resources. Some faculty suggested that the community work
together to create even more grants, contests, or prizes to
encourage innovative electronic publication and research.
Others have suggested that, given time, researchers will realize
the potential and use it.
These responses raise several questions. How should designers
of electronic resources structure their databases to maximize
use? How should librarians, scholars, and users of electronic
resources reach out to the community to increase use? What
obstacles are there in increasing use of technology in the
classroom or in scholarly research? What role will such sources
play in the future? How will this change the study of the
humanities? What benefits or detriments does it bring to the
profession? What role does or should the humanities computing
community play in all of this? By analyzing the data to these
questions and by gaining insights from others, it is hoped that
we can supplement and continue an ongoing dialog about what
the community is, what it needs, and what should be doing
either to change current practices or to enhance already existing
ones. In all, there would seem to be much work to do to increase
the potential of electronic resources in the humanities, and the
questions and answers brought up in these surveys may help
to focus thinking on many aspects of the profession.1
1. I would also like to thank Julia Gardner and Kathy Schroeder for
conducting interviews among scholars and working on the survey
materials for this project.
Bibliography
Blouin, Francis X. "History and Memory: The Problem of
Archive." Publications of the Modern Language Association
of America 119.2 (March 2004): 296-298.
Dalton, Margaret Stieg, and Laurie Charnigo. "Historians and
Their Information Sources." College and Research Libraries
65.5 (September 2004): 400-425.
Gould, Constance C. Information Needs in the Humanities:
An Assessment. Standford, CA: Research Libraries Group,
1988.
Siemens, Ray, Elaine Toms, Stéfan Sinclair, Geoffrey Rockwell,
and Lynne Siemens. "The Humanities Scholar in the
Twenty-First Century: How Research is Done and What Support
is Needed." Paper presented at ALLC/ACH 2004, Gothenburg.
2004.
Warwick, Claire. "No Such Thing as Humanities Computing?
An analytical history of digital resource creation and computing
in the humanities." Paper presented at ALLC/ACH 2004,
Gothenburg. 2004.