Disrupting the library
Digital scholarship and Big Data at the National Library of Scotland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5260546 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah Ame (0000-0002-0118-189X, National Library of Scotland, corresponding author), Stuart Lewis (0000-0001-9904-8116, National Library of Scotland) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Big Data & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2053-9517 • E-ISSN: 2053-9517 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/2053951720970576 |
| OpenAlex | W3106848329 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 9 |
With a mass digitisation programme underway and the addition of non-print legal deposit and web archive collections, the National Library of Scotland is now both producing and collecting data at an unprecedented rate, with over 5PB of storage in the Library's data centres. As well as the opportunities to support large scale analysis of the collections, this also presents new challenges around data management, storage, rights, formats, skills and access. Furthermore, by assuming the role of both creators and collectors, libraries face broader questions about the concepts of 'collections' and 'heritage', and the ethical implications of collecting practices. While the 'collections as data' movement has encouraged cultural heritage organisations to present collections in machine-readable formats, new services, processes and tools also need to be established to enable these emerging forms of research, and new modes of working need to be established to take into account an increasing need for transparency around the creation and presentation of digital collections. This commentary explores the National Library of Scotland's new digital scholarship service, the implications of this new activity and the obstacles that libraries encounter when navigating a world of Big Data
Big data · Cultural heritage · Data science · Digital library · Digital scholarship · Digitization · Library science · Political science · Scholarship · World Wide Web · Archaeological Research and Protection · Computer Science · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Digital Humanities and Scholarship
| Citations per year | 0.8 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |