The role of Digital Curation in enhancing scholarly research visibility

The marked upshift in digital content due to the impact of technologies are well documented. Adapting to the new information seeking patterns and expectations require that information professionals keep abreast of the changes and leverage on the technologies to keep the age-old role as memory of the society. This paper attempts to give a ‘bird’s eye’ view of the emerging area in archival and library and information science professions and how it can improve research visibility of the intellectual efforts out of Nigeria and Africa in general. It attempts to define and describe digital curation, an emerging field of theory and practice that embraces digital preservation, data curation, and management of information assets over their lifecycle. It dissects key issues and debates in the area while arguing that digital curation is a vital strategy for enhancing research visibility. The paper recommends proper packaging and publicity for research; funding agencies should impose data sharing and managing funded projects; and the need to design and implement data management and curation programs to help improve dataset fidelity and preservation for the future