Librarians and archivists are an important target group for RESILIENCE. Not only can they use the future services of the research infrastructure, but they themselves are an important link between scholars and the sources, acting as service providers. How that works?
Important Role
From our experience in the Design Phase (2020-2022) and Preparatory Phase (2022-2026) until now we learned, that we can expect that librarians and archivists will play an important role in the future.
Users
Librarians and archivists as an important group of users of the future research infrastructure. They can benefit from access to tools and services tailored to their needs. RESILIENCE offers them expert advice and support for new developments, especially in the field of Digital Humanities. Librarians can benefit from RESILIENCE trainings, helping to describe their sources according to international standards for example. They can train their digital skills to use the new media the library will acquire to complete its e-library and digital library. Supported by the collaboration services of RESILIENCE, librarians will be also able to broaden their network and to invite other librarians to use their collections. RESILIENCE will help to disseminate unique and valuable collections, improve digital and physical access and increase engagement with collections.
Our research to date has shown that librarians want to be provided with excellent data and solutions, so that they can offer their support to researchers and enhance the research in Religious Studies. As to the digital aspect, they need a digital research infrastructure that unites different library catalogues in an overarching system, so that the librarians are connected and can assist each other.
The needs of librarians and archivists are currently being further investigated using semi-structured qualitative interviews. The results of this are expected in November 2024.
Service Providers
Based on the interviews we conducted until now with reseachers of various academic fields in religion, we know that accessibility is at the top of their wish list. Thereby it is evident that the keyword “accessibility” refers in particular to literature. This literature is best accessible in a digitized form online, or accessed via libraries and archives throughout Europe, supported by RESILIENCE.
Librarians and archivists are pivotal in this: they are the ones who help make sources known and accessible to the scholars. With their knowledge and expertise, they can help scholars further on their way to physical and digital sources. From this perspective, librarians and archivists are also service providers, indispensable in a well-functioning infrastructure.
For RESILIENCE it is helpful to be in contact with many librarians and archivists throughout Europe, to be able to tailor the services to their needs best, so that they can serve scholars best, also considering the ongoing innovations in the field.
Read more in the Deliverables D3.1, D3.3. and D3.5.