Library-led Digital Scholarship for Undergraduates at a Small Institution

R.C. Miessler, Lauren White, Keira Koch, and Julia Wall (Gettysburg College)

In the summer of 2016, Gettysburg College’s Musselman Library piloted the Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship (DSSF), a library-led, student-centered introduction to digital scholarship.  The Fellowship, a 10-week, paid, summer program for rising sophomores and juniors, is programmatic, based on a curriculum designed to introduce the student fellows to digital tools, project management, documentation, and the philosophy behind digital scholarship. The Fellowship aimed to create a digital scholarship community of practice at Gettysburg College, collaborating with educational technologists and faculty engaged in digital scholarship to support the needs of the first cohort; in addition, the Fellowship supported the digital scholarship activities of students participating in other summer research programs.
R.C. Miessler, coordinator of the Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship, will discuss the creation, development, implementation, and future of the program. The student fellows, Keira Koch, Julia Wall, and Lauren White, will reflect on their experience and present the digital projects they created.

R.C. Miessler is the Systems Librarian at Gettysburg College’s Musselman Library and coordinator of the library’s Digital Scholarship Working Group. A lifelong geek in all things religion and technology, he’s interested in how students and faculty can use technology to present and interpret humanities research, as well as exploring the intersection of gaming and digital humanities.

Keira Koch is a sophomore at Gettysburg College, majoring in History and minoring in Public History. The digital project she created as a Digital Scholarship Summer Fellow with Musselman Library analyzed women’s history at Gettysburg College during the 1950s. Her project used an array of digital tools including Scalar, StoryMapJS, and Voyant Tools. She plans on continuing her research on women at Gettysburg College throughout the 2016-17 academic year.

Lauren White is a junior at Gettysburg College double majoring in English and Environmental Studies, and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This past summer, Lauren worked as a Digital Scholarship Summer Fellow with Musselman Library and created an interactive timeline of student-led social justice movements at Gettysburg College. Her interests include advancing diversity in the digital humanities and interdisciplinary scholarship.

Julia Wall is a sophomore at Gettysburg College. She is majoring in History with a focus on Military History and minoring in Civil War Era Studies. As a Digital Scholarship Summer Fellow at Musselman Library, she created a database of West Point cadets of the class of June 1861 including interactive timelines for each cadet and a comprehensive map of battles.

[gview file=”http://budsc16.scholar.bucknell.edu/files/2016/11/Library-led-Digital-Scholarship-for-Undergraduates-at-a-Small-Institution.pdf”]