Beyond the Usual Suspects: Building a 21st Century Reading Community in Scotland

In the context of the development of national and international digital scholarship communities and the emergence of text and data mining (TDM) tools, library labs, and library carpentry services, there is growing research capacity with regard to digital scholarship in academic institutions. However, there is no comparable forum in Scotland that brings together other key stakeholder groups, such as digital industry; the wider gallery, library, archive and museum (GLAM) community; and, perhaps most crucially, independent researchers, creatives, and practitioners. In preparation for the appointment of its first dedicated Digital Scholarship Librarian in early 2019, the National Library of Scotland found itself in the fortunate position of being able to learn from other digital scholarship services, while at the same time seeking to ensure that its efforts and services remain relevant to more than just the ‘usual suspects’, by aiming to expand beyond the traditional digital scholarship link between libraries and academic scholars. Home to circa 5 million digital collection items (growing by hundreds of thousands every year), the Library therefore decided to address this lack of cross-sector connection by running a year-long engagement programme of “21st century reading” workshops on TDM skills throughout 2018. The fundamental position upon which these workshops were based was the understanding that collaboration is essential so that researchers, developers, GLAMs, and independent innovators are able to discover what they can offer each other, what they need from each other, and what they can potentially achieve together. The intention of the series, which was run in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and with funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, was to bring the four stakeholder groups (academia, GLAM, industry, and independents) together to query the current state of awareness and ability regarding TDM within Scotland, to explore the potential for wider communities to make use of these approaches to knowledge and data, and to investigate how massive text collections of cultural heritage organisations can be exposed to researchers both outside, as well as within academic institutions. Based on findings from the workshop series, this paper will outline the often underrepresented stakeholder-diversity driven approach to setting up a dedicated large-scale digital scholarship programme at a national institution, and discuss the impact such an approach can have on the different stakeholder groups. It will give an insight into the successes and challenges faced throughout the workshop series, as well as the consequent lessons learned. [This paper would be of interest to those at a similar or earlier stage of digital scholarship development, to hear about lessons learned regarding the stakeholder-diversity approach taken by the National Library of Scotland.