It's a Match

Digital Scholarship Services als zu gestaltender Freiraum zwischen Bibliotheken und Forschung

Abstract

The potential of digital collections is enormous: on the one hand, libraries and other memory institutions provide extensive, high-quality digital and digitised content in great volume and breadth of content. On the other hand, there are numerous and rapidly growing research fields that have a great need for such datasets in order to use them for their digital research. At this interface between collections and innovative forms of re-use, free spaces are created in which the interplay of library content and services, open science and co-creation can be shaped and in which the library takes on an active role as a cooperation partner. In order to make use of this potential, ETH Library’s Collections and Archives set up the Digital Scholarship Services Unit in mid-2021. The article focuses on motivations and (pilot) projects from the machine learning area as well as insights into the practice of the initial phase of the specialist unit. What research interests, for example, do computer science professors have in collections of digitised old or archive holdings? How can corresponding collaborations be initialised and consolidated? What requirements do the researchers have in terms of competencies, data and infrastructure, and where do new forms of cooperation need to be tested within the library? What added value can be realised for mutual benefit? An initial conclusion on the contribution of digital scholarship services to the focus of enriching existing content with AI support and thus enabling new types of use rounds off the article.