Creating Community through Digital Scholarship

Spencer Keralis

Join ASU Library for a digital scholarship discussion with Spencer Keralis, former head of the Digital Humanities and Collaborative Programs Unit at the University of North Texas Libraries. He is also the founding director of Digital Frontiers, an annual conference that brings together the makers and users of digital resources for humanities research, teaching, and learning.

Keralis is an excellent resource in speaking to libraries as radically inclusive, community-building spaces, and to librarians as scholars and collaborators. Through his engagements, he aims to inspire colleagues to reach into their community and practice radical inclusion and collaborate across disciplines and positions to produce meaningful work.

The traditional roles imagined for scholars as solitary practitioners, and for librarians as arbiters of information within the confines of their institutions, position seclusion as a virtue. In this talk, Keralis offers a particular vision for radically inclusive digital scholarship that challenges the value of solitude and favors community. He proposes that digital collaborations can break down social and institutional silos between librarians, archivists, faculty, technologists and the students we serve. Radical inclusion means respecting difference and honoring labor, and using technology to enhance accessibility. He presents examples of projects that approach digital scholarship as a form of community building. The projects bring people together within the academy and reach wider publics, and engage with diverse communities beyond the campus. 

Patty Odle
ASU Library
patricia.odle@asu.edu
-
Hayden Library, room C6A