“We can find books, teach us about metadata.” Traditional library practices such as collection development may not seem particularly relevant to digital humanists, who may already be adept at using basic library tools and services. If librarians and information professionals
wish to build relevant and productive partnerships with researchers working in such a dynamic and rapidly evolving discipline, they must be better attuned to current scholarly information practices and needs.
In this presentation, the authors outline the methodology and results of a comprehensive scoping review designed to model and identify the information practices of digital humanists based on
empirical studies published between 2005 and 2023 from the global digital humanities and library and information sciences.
Scoping reviews offer an approach to synthesizing research evidence for mapping broad topics in a way that is rigorous, transparent, and replicable (Pham et al., 2014). The authors followed Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) methodological framework for scoping reviews and adapting Leckie, Pettigrew, and Sylvain’s (1996) model for studying professionals' information practices in an academic context and summarized and synthesized the literature to assess its current state and produce a model of the digital humanist as a professional. Their model highlights the varied professional tasks, roles, and contexts that shape their information practices. Understanding these elements is crucial as they significantly influence the nature of digital humanists’ information practices and their outcomes.
Information practices encompass a range of activities related to the creation, use, seeking, and avoidance of information. While much is known about the information practices of what is frequently referred to in the literature as “traditional” humanists (Gould, 1988; Bouazza, 1989; Watson-Boone, 1994; and Palmer & Neumann, 2002), a burgeoning body of literature in digital humanities and library and information studies (n = 43) has highlighted ways in which the information practices of digital humanists differ from their “traditional” counterparts. No other comprehensive review of recent studies examining digital humanities information seeking has been produced, despite the identified need for such a review (Case, Given, and Mai in 2016), and the increasing frequency with which such studies are being published. This review and model are necessary to ensure that librarians and information professionals effectively develop strategies to support digital humanists’ practices and meet their rapidly evolving needs.
As such, this presentation contributes to digital humanities scholarship threefold: it outlines a method for conducting scoping reviews in low-consensus disciplines like digital humanities; it provides a high-level overview of the characteristics of reviewed literature; and it introduces a model derived from an analysis of the diverse information practices of the digital humanist as a professional working in an academic context.