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Digital Literacy in VU Libraries

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Digital Literacy in VU Libraries
Language: English
Authors: Cazembe Kennedy, Zach Johnson
Source: New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 2024 (180):25-37.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Academic Libraries, Digital Literacy, Library Administration, Library Automation, Library Development, History, Libraries, Library Networks, Library Services, Strategic Planning, Change Strategies, Long Range Planning
Geographic Terms: Tennessee (Nashville)
DOI: 10.1002/tl.20606
ISSN: 0271-0633
1536-0768
Abstract: In this chapter, we explore the organizational units, projects, and support that exist for digital literacy within the Vanderbilt University Library system. We frame the chapter chronologically, starting with the efforts of the past, then moving toward the present efforts, and concluding with where future efforts are going.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1451817
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0181439507;ndt01dec.24;2024Dec09.02:20;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0181439507-1">Digital literacy in VU Libraries </title> <sbt id="AN0181439507-2">INTRODUCTION</sbt> <p>In this chapter, we explore the organizational units, projects, and support that exist for digital literacy within the Vanderbilt University Library system. We frame the chapter chronologically, starting with the efforts of the past, then moving toward the present efforts, and concluding with where future efforts are going.</p> <p>This chapter discusses Vanderbilt's Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries' integration of digital literacy and scholarship through three phases: the past, present, and future. In 2017, leaders in the digital space at Vanderbilt wrote a white paper defining digital literacy, points of curricular and cocurricular integration, and recommendations to ensure the growth of digital literacy (VU Libraries, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref1">7</reflink>]). The digital literacy efforts at Heard Libraries have grown from this foundational report. In the following, we address the challenges faced in this growth, and our efforts to overcome them. In this white paper, we set forth the following recommendations: 1. Establishing micro credentialing (curricular and/or non‐curricular) for digital learning; 2. Establishing modules and workshops to help students learn digital tools; 3. Negotiating site licenses for software tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud; and 4. Developing cross college initiatives to support the creation and maintenance of digital projects. These recommendations are noted throughout this article.</p> <p>From this white paper, the Vanderbilt University Library system has taken multiple actions to address these recommendations. This chapter discusses some of these initiatives taken, framing organizational units and projects from the past digital literacy efforts, current ones, and future planned efforts. We want to show other institutions some of the steps that academic libraries can take to work with faculty, staff, and students to promote and foster the advancement of digital literacy. Past efforts have been siloed, with digital literacy occurring in various units and through ephemeral initiatives. However, the Libraries have currently invested in centralizing the digital literacy efforts, with one big step being the creation of a Digital Lab (discussed in <emph>Current Digital Literacy</emph> section). This chapter documents that process intending to provide guidance and that other institutions can choose to replicate and build on.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-3">PAST DIGITAL LITERACY EFFORTS</hd> <p>One of the main ways for a library system to engage with faculty and learning is to involve the staff in curricular‐related activities. Co‐curricular learning opportunities through the libraries have historically been multimodal (occurring in various auditory, verbal, and written forms) and emanating from several distinct units, as there was no centralized location for digital scholarship within the university. These multimodal opportunities have been shown to benefit students (Charney, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>]; Wilson et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref3">8</reflink>]; Zehner, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref4">9</reflink>]). Teaching and learning opportunities related to digital scholarship were previously offered by three primary, yet administratively distinct, units: the Office for Digital Scholarship and Communications (DiSC), The Digital Commons, and The Digital Humanities Center. The latter of these, while a strong campus partner, was not formally a part of the Libraries. The CDH was involved in multiple faculty‐led projects and regularly provided financial support for graduate students to explore digital tools.</p> <p>The digital literacy learning opportunities discussed in this chapter were developed from a combination of recommendations from the 2017 white paper and specific community needs. Often these were fueled by specific faculty projects and the need to equip students with the necessary technological and methodological skills to join those projects for immersive learning experiences. In other cases, the Libraries developed programming in response to areas of expressed community curiosity. There was also a strategic organizational shift in response to these siloed digital units, centralizing them under one new unit, the Digital Lab.</p> <p>Learning opportunities took various forms dependent on the topic area and the target audience. These included workshops/one‐off presentations in cases where the material could be delivered quickly and result in a tangible outcome for participants within an hour‐long window. Working groups, in which a faculty member requested ongoing support for a specific project that interested a broader audience. Learning communities, in which a group of students and faculty expressed interest in a topic for cooperative exploration. And structured lessons for cases in which the material required up to six 1‐h sessions to convey. Typically, workshops and lessons were developed in each office and delivered over the course of a semester, while working groups and learning communities were community‐driven.</p> <p>The following represent the variety of learning opportunities offered to improve digital literacy through Vanderbilt. These examples can serve as inspiration for other institutions that desire to support digital literacy through co‐curricular opportunities.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-4">Learning communities</hd> <p>Learning communities are result‐focused groups that center around a particular topic/interest and promote cultures of collaboration (DuFour, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref5">4</reflink>]). Vanderbilt Libraries have led efforts to bring together interested parties on topics relating to digital literacy, fostering collaboration and with the intent to bring together students, staff, and faculty from different fields and backgrounds. These communities have been in the areas of augmented/virtual reality, qualitative data analysis tools, digital media literacy, and text mining. These groups are self‐led, with individuals in the community sharing research they have conducted in a space that can cultivate partnerships, while affording opportunities to engage with others in the community, and even receive feedback on works‐in‐progress.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-5">Programming language working groups</hd> <p>The variety of programming languages in use today continues to proliferate. The Digital Lab hosts structured working groups focused on strategies to incorporate a variety of languages into both curricula and research. In 2017, the Libraries first hosted a working group dedicated to exploring the application of XQuery, a programming language used to query XML databases, in Digital Humanities research. Sessions were often led by librarians with appropriate skills and had a loose guiding framework for people to learn the language while also keeping a flexible schedule that encouraged users to come with their own research problems that could be worked through as a group. This format accommodated the flexible schedules of faculty and students and gave users of all levels the chance to participate. Working groups devoted to R and Python later grew out of this model.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-6">Augmented/Virtual reality (AR/VR)</hd> <p>Augmented reality has been defined as "a real‐time direct or indirect view of a physical real‐world environment that has been enhanced/augmented by adding virtual computer‐generated information to it" (Carmigniani & Furht, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref6">2</reflink>]). Virtual reality expands on this by using an entirely computer‐generated environment. AR is both interactive and registered in 3D and combines real and virtual objects. Across the University, there have been a variety of interests in the augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) space. A learning community centered around these topics allowed faculty to connect and see ways there could be collaboration. This community brought together panelists and allowed Vanderbilt to see projects such as:</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-7">AR stage play</hd> <p>For this AR project, a Vanderbilt faculty member worked to create products that transformed physical stage productions into virtual environments. Prompted by the COVID‐19 quarantine, this Cinema and Media Arts faculty member pivoted to incorporate AR and VR elements into a play she created. She wrote the script, worked with one of her graduate students remotely to record the voiceover, and used headsets and motion capture equipment to do the emoting of the character. This type of work opens doors for people in both creative and technology‐centered spaces to work together and produce creative and impactful content.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-8">Accessible photogrammetry</hd> <p>Photogrammetry involves taking multiple still images and combining them to create a three‐dimensional rendering of the original artifact. A faculty member presented a panel hosted by the Libraries on multiple low barriers to entryways to bring photogrammetry and 3D scanning of images to the masses, giving live demonstrations of free mobile apps that allow phones to take multiple pictures or even video scans of objects that can then be converted into 3D scanned images and used for design and image augmentation work. Polycam (https://poly.cam/) was used as an example that is agnostic of the operating system, and VU Libraries have since integrated the usage of the tool into Buchanan Library Fellowships, particularly the fellowship that focuses on teaching students 3D scanning/printing and image augmentation tools (described in the <emph>Buchanan Library Fellowship</emph> section).</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-9">Qualitative data analysis tools</hd> <p>This learning community brought in speakers to train the community on some of the powerful tools that can be used for qualitative data analysis. Qualitative data analysis tools offer the ability to perform functions such as categorizing and coding text data, collecting statistics on words or phrases used in transcripts, and creating visualizations for data. Examples of these tools include Dedoose and NVivo. The community brainstormed ways to gain support for university‐wide licenses and determined where there was a widespread need or desire for these tools. Focusing on how these tools can be used helped dispel some of the beliefs particularly held by Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) researchers on the relevancy of qualitative analysis methods in their work.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-10">Digital media literacy</hd> <p>In Spring of 2021, the Libraries launched a matrixed team of both digital scholarship staff and subject liaisons to explore the intersection of digital media literacy and research productivity. Digital media literacy looks at learning and understanding of technology, tools, and processes that are used in digital media formats, such as podcasting and videography. Founded on the 2019 VA Tech Digital Literacies Framework Toolkit, the team developed a series of remote workshops covering facets such as follows: statistical literacy in media, citation management tools, misinformation spread through scholarly communications, synthetic media, digital self‐defense, and critical thinking about data visualization. The series was intentionally broad in nature aiming to highlight the role of "traditional" information literacy training in new and open research and media environments. To extend the impact of this type of training outside of the libraries and in collaboration with campus partners, the Digital Commons built on this success by launching a diverse and open learning community focused on integrating digital literacies broadly across the university.</p> <p>This learning community is at the forefront of articulating and expanding the scope of digital literacy within the University. It brought together faculty, staff, and students from both Vanderbilt and VUMC to define digital literacy and the potential impact of increasing educational opportunities around digital literacy within our institutions. This community is set to explore a range of practical and theoretical topics for research and teaching, including why people share mis/information, the role of science communication (particularly with respect to presenting and manipulating data), modalities for sharing and absorbing digital information, and mental shortcuts used (or not used) to fact check information.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-11">Visual resources center</hd> <p>The Visual Resources Center (VRC) at Vanderbilt is devoted to producing high‐quality images for use in teaching and research, educating students and faculty in copyright and appropriate tools for finding and using digital images, instructing students on scanning and imaging techniques, and curating the 120,000 images that comprise the History of Art Image Repository. Originally created in the History of Art Department in the 2000s, the VRC integrated with the Vanderbilt Libraries in 2019. This integration took advantage of the Libraries' core teaching and learning role to bring the expertise to a larger audience across the university. The VRC found success by teaching users about the interconnected relationship of producing, preserving, and using images in appropriate ways. Later changes saw the VRC come under the auspices of the former Digital Imaging and Preservation department until arriving in 2023 at its new home within Special Collections & University Archives.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-12">PRESENT DIGITAL LITERACY EFFORTS</hd> <p>Currently, digital literacy efforts on campus are embedded in multiple units, some within the Library system and some not. The Libraries' units included: Digital Scholarship and Communications (DiSC), the Digital Commons, and the Digital Imaging and Preservation unit. DiSC provides skills, training, workshops, and support on regularly used digital tools such as R, GitHub, and Geographic Information Systems (Rec. 2). The Digital Commons created and led learning communities on topics such as augmented/virtual reality, digital media literacy, and qualitative analysis tools, and hosts workshops on innovative technologies faculty and students might incorporate into their teaching and research (Rec. 2). These recommendations correspond to the 2017 white paper mentioned in the <emph>Introduction</emph> section of this chapter. Finally, Digital Imaging and Preservation provided a foundational set of tools related to 3D scanning, printing, and virtual object manipulation while contributing expertise in high‐level imaging techniques.</p> <p>As a library system, we launched a Digital Lab, which is intended to be a one stop shop for faculty, staff, and students to collaborate, learn, and receive support on their digital projects. This lab emerged out of the shared goals and resources of DiSC and the Digital Commons as well as some additional support to help reproduce and maintain projects that were created by the Center for Digital Humanities. The upcoming sections address the lab as a means to implement some of the recommendations articulated above. This includes ongoing and upcoming collaborations with institutional partners and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, expansion of Geographic Information Systems to its own lab, our Buchanan Library Fellowship program, and other initiatives. These efforts offer the opportunity to embed co‐ and extracurricular learning experiences into the Vanderbilt learning experience and provide exemplars for other institutions to adopt and adapt as they see fit. These current projects are detailed below.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-13">Digitally preserving history and culture</hd> <p>VU Libraries has a rich tradition of supporting digital humanities projects. Two of the more globally impactful of these include the Slave Societies Digital Archives (SSDA) and Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal (SYRIACA). SSDA (https://<ulink href="http://www.slavesocieties.info/">www.slavesocieties.info/</ulink>) is focused on ensuring that documents related to Africans and African‐descended people from slave societies are perpetually preserved. The archive currently includes more than 700,000 digital images.</p> <p>SYRIACA (https://<ulink href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/syriaca‐org/),">www.vanderbilt.edu/digitalhumanities/syriaca‐org/),</ulink> is a digital archive that captures and preserves the history of Syriac culture. These projects involve technologies and methodologies such as the Text Encoding Initiative (https://tei‐c.org/), digital preservation of physical artifacts (books, journals, images, letters, etc.), database construction and management, and some script writing/computer programming. Through the support of VU Libraries in general and the Digital Lab in particular, pipelines are being created that allow students to learn these skills so they can assist with the projects. We are partnering with the computer science department but also looking to departments in the humanities to provide a well‐rounded balance of marketable skills for those students. This effort is supported by Buchanan Fellowships (discussed later) and Immersion projects (required engaging learning experiences for Vanderbilt undergraduate students) and will become regularly integrated into student employment positions.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-14">Digital diarees</hd> <p>Digital Diversity + Inclusion Archival Repository for Equitable Employees (Digital DIAREEs), is a living digital history and employee development tool for underrepresented Vanderbilt employees. This initiative was started in the Digital Commons and now is housed within the Digital Lab. These employees include, but are not limited to: BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), LGBTQIA+ community, women, veterans, persons with disabilities, neurodivergent community, and so on. Students will be the primary source of organizing, collecting, and editing the digital artifacts in this archive. This work provides students access to learn and refine audio/video (AV) skills, while incorporating other technologies and digital skills that relate to digital storytelling into this project.</p> <p>This project will benefit and integrate multiple humanities disciplines, as storytelling is a concept that is relevant in fields including History, Anthropology, English, Political Science, Sociology, Art, Communication Studies, and more. Vanderbilt professors in some of these fields are already involved in oral history projects or podcasting, both of which fall under the storytelling umbrella. This digital storytelling collective affords students opportunities for co‐ and extra‐curricular activities and projects to learn about tools and technologies that can elevate their sense of storytelling. This will directly give students skills to use throughout their major or in future careers by training them through faculty and staff‐led workshops on the tools. The Library staff and faculty will collaborate to develop curricula and workshops/trainings on digital tools that can be used in the storytelling process and treat it as a pipeline, allowing students who have successfully completed various levels of workshops and trainings the ability to train other students, sharpening their skills and increasing their digital portfolio (as well as giving them the chance to earn additional income while in school).</p> <p>This project has the potential to expand beyond the boundaries of Vanderbilt. With support from the Vice Provost of Arts and Libraries, Dr. Tracy Sharpley‐Whiting, we are collecting stories of Black women leaders in academia. The project is also being incorporated into regular Buchanan Fellowships, where students can take ownership of a DIAREE entry throughout the semester while learning about the technologies and tools for A/V production. Our Digital Lab is investing in the DIAREEs as an archive, with continued student employment support existing to collect these stories and create a website and repository for the content.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-15">Play nicely</hd> <p>Play Nicely is an educational tool designed to prevent violence and mitigate toxic stress in children. It is based on research conducted by physicians at Vanderbilt University Medical College (VUMC) and was made into a website in the early 2000s. The creators wanted to update the website to allow for a more user‐friendly experience and account for the parents who would use the tool who might not be as digitally literate. To that end, VUMC partnered with Vanderbilt's library system to create a new version of the website. This was accomplished through the process of using the personnel and skills within the library combined with subcontracting out tasks. This project management‐focused model is one that the Digital Lab intends to use moving forward, with library staff having the digital and technical literacy to understand and dissect the needs faculty digital projects and determine the skills, resources, and time both internally and externally that can be committed to the projects. Play Nicely was completed under budget, and the Library intends to stay involved with the continuous improvement of the software, bringing in students and other stakeholders to perform usability testing on the website to ensure that it is functional for individuals of varying levels of digital skill. This model of digital project management is being replicated with other faculty projects and offers students the opportunity to get hands‐on experience with web development and the software development life cycle.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-16">Immersive projects with spatial.io</hd> <p>Spatial.io (https://<ulink href="http://www.spatial.io/">www.spatial.io/</ulink>) is a tool we are integrating into workshops, learning communities, and even considering showcases or instruction. This is a free, open‐source VR environment that allows one to speak with others who join one's space. Users can also upload content and interact with 2D and 3D content in detailed ways (expand, shrink, turn, walk on, etc.). VU Librarians used this tool to allow an Archeology postdoctoral research fellow to show various spaces from archaeological digs, as well as show artifacts that have been 3D scanned using advanced photogrammetry tools and techniques at Library‐hosted workshops. Being able to unearth the history of these sites and research and examine them allows future scholars to learn from and discover new facets of history without the need to physically access the locations and artifacts. Spatial.io also enhances inclusivity and access by allowing individuals to join on and share their content with people remotely, exposing digital modeling/imaging work and other digital creations to wider audiences. This tool allows for an immersive way of exploring virtual environments and presents many opportunities that students, staff, and faculty will be able to take advantage of moving forward.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-17">Text mining working group</hd> <p>Text mining involves gathering unstructured texts and converting them into structured data so that it can be easily analyzed. While considering textual data, we have a group that is focused on building community on mining and analyzing text. This group is hosted through the Digital Lab with the support of Lab staff, covering topics such as text mining, web scraping, extracting text from images and audio, handwriting recognition, building a corpus, entity recognition, sentiment analysis, and using Large Language Models for text analysis. Sessions are facilitated by group participants based on interest and relevance to their work.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-18">GIS lab</hd> <p>In the Fall of 2023, the VU Libraries opened a Geographic Information Systems Lab in our Peabody College of Education Library. This lab provides access to powerful software and hardware to advance the exploration of research and application within the GIS community. The machines are fitted with tools for geospatial, quantitative, and qualitative analysis, and the space will be used for workshops, classes, and events that focus on the understanding and application of GIS concepts and techniques. This lab is a great example of curricular and co‐curricular/exploratory activities being able to be housed in the same space.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-19">DIGITAL LITERACY IN THE FUTURE</hd> <p>As we continue to expand and explore the bounds of digital literacy, there are multiple future initiatives that the VU Libraries is looking to start. Now that we have centralized digital scholarship within our organization under the Digital Lab unit, we're positioned to grow sustainable partnerships, increase usage of and interaction with our staff, tools, and resources, and promote new initiatives across the institution. This section explores the ways we intend to accomplish these things.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-20">Seed grants</hd> <p>One of the core foci of the Digital Lab is to incubate, advance, and preserve new digital projects for the university. To this end, we are providing seed grants to promote incubator environments for faculty to expand the reach of their digital projects, or to establish proofs of concept for emerging projects. These support the Vanderbilt community broadly defined, with an emphasis on projects that are culturally important, globally impactful, and preservable in perpetuity. These funds may be used for:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> Proof of concept</item> <p></p> <item> Student support</item> <p></p> <item> Project evaluation</item> <p></p> <item> Term‐limited consultants or skilled workers</item> <p></p> <item> Technology or software licenses/products</item> <p></p> <item> Professional development workshops/training directly related to a digital project</item> </ulist> <p>Criteria for seed grants are as follows:</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-21">Digital technologies/innovation</hd> <p>Funds will be approved only for projects that are digital in nature. This can include technologies, skills, and innovative techniques in realms such as artificial intelligence, archiving/preservation, digital collections/exhibits, digital storytelling, 3D scanning/printing, augmented/virtual reality, digital media literacy, and more.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-22">Interdisciplinary work</hd> <p>Another criterion is focused on the ability to collaborate and show interdisciplinary value with the proposed projects. These grants are an opportunity to promote inclusivity and diversity in technology and digital spaces, and to bring forth ideas that connect various academic backgrounds and skillsets.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-23">Future funding opportunities</hd> <p>We will ensure that these projects are sustainable and preservable. To this end, an important criterion for employees seeking these funds will be if there is an opportunity to apply for external funds in the future. For this criterion, our lab would have the capacity to think through ways the project could grow, however, we will encourage applicants to consider growth through ways their idea could spin off into other research projects able to support funding.</p> <p>Outcomes from initiatives like these seed projects will allow students to start gaining skills and credentials attached to their resumes whilst bolstering their digital literacy. These credentials will be piloted through a tool Suitable (https://<ulink href="http://www.suitable.co/knowledge‐center/events/digital‐badges‐product‐showcase),">www.suitable.co/knowledge‐center/events/digital‐badges‐product‐showcase),</ulink> which our career center is currently rolling out university wide. The career center has branded this badging tool as VandyPASS (https://<ulink href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/career/vandypass/),">www.vanderbilt.edu/career/vandypass/),</ulink> and it is providing a digital road map for experiences and skills able to be offered by the university.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-24">Buchanan library fellowships (BLFs)</hd> <p>One vessel for enacting and improving digital literacy through the Libraries has been with our Buchanan Library Fellowship (BLF ‐ https://<ulink href="http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/buchanan‐library‐fellows/">www.library.vanderbilt.edu/buchanan‐library‐fellows/</ulink>) experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate students. This is a semester‐long program where students learn about various topics and must have a final product/project that incorporates the things they have learned. Since 2022, these fellowships are increasingly being created to think about digital literacy, including topics such as 3D scanning, image augmentation, digital storytelling, artificial intelligence, text mining, and misinformation. These opportunities allow students to explore technology and digital literacy in immersive and guided ways, but without the pressure of grades attached to projects. They also allow us to bring in students who are not normally as involved with digital projects because their majors are outside of the STEM fields.</p> <p>VU Libraries intends to make digital literacy an accessible reality for individuals across our institution. This will occur through a sustainable slate of programs that are building the knowledge and skills in the digital space for students, staff, and faculty. We have worked with faculty within the humanities department to gain an understanding of the digital tools that students could learn that would be useful for various projects. We will support projects that work across university initiatives, making considerations for when there are external grants that can support ideas. We will focus on bridging the gap between technology/technical skills and the humanities, providing low entry barrier tools and opportunities that allow the technically proficient to practice in a reduced stress environment and students without as much technical know‐how to build up marketable skills.</p> <p>We have conducted multiple Buchanan Library Fellowships that have focused on teaching 3D imaging and digital augmentation technologies to Vanderbilt students. This program has pushed library staff to discover and learn new imaging techniques and object manipulation tools to better serve students and find solutions that allow them to fully explore their ideas. Over multiple semesters, we have been able to recruit students from backgrounds that did not directly relate to technology, such as Human and Organizational Development undergraduates. The students have cleverly integrated 3D imaging into their own research areas to create unique projects that make them stand out amongst their peers.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-25">Artificial intelligence (AI)</hd> <p>Artificial intelligence is currently a hot button topic in academia, industry, and throughout the world. This is a component of digital literacy that has many facets that can be explored through interdisciplinary lenses. In our Library, we are thinking of creative ways to allow students to experiment with AI software and beginning the process of creating pipelines to credentialing students in these software tools so that they can train others and assist in research occurring throughout the university. This model is being piloted Spring 2024 through an internal grant where we will host an AI image generation 2‐day boot camp. Our Libraries have also been doing internal surveys to see where AI is being used and in what new ways it can be used. In addition, our Law Library has recently created an AI Law Lab to explore how artificial intelligence can be incorporated into legal studies, research, and proceedings/applications.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-26">Digital storytelling</hd> <p>We are currently seeking funding to provide a makerspace for Vanderbilt affiliates to work on digital storytelling, which allows creation and innovation that can lead students to partner with others from similar or different disciplines while thinking through captivating stories that can be told. This could combine a plot written by an English major with innovative music produced by a Music major and an Art major working with a Computer Science major to create 3D graphics/environments to incorporate into a story that is then viewable in an augmented or virtual reality space. Practical results for this initiative include the following: providing a makerspace for Vanderbilt affiliates to work on digital storytelling; bolstering research in the digital storytelling arena with intentional staff/faculty guidance; and developing curricula and workshops/training on digital tools that can be used in the storytelling process.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-27">Site/Software licenses</hd> <p>Throughout the University, there is a desire to obtain more licenses to help with increasing their understanding of tools and ability to create and innovate with those tools. Multiple academic departments have made the case to have the Adobe Suite available for students to explore graphic/website design, AI image generation, photo manipulation, and even various aspects of social media. The skills that can be learned through access to this tool would help improve the marketability of all majors, and particularly students in the humanities fields.</p> <p>Qualitative data analysis software tools such as Dedoose (https://<ulink href="http://www.dedoose.com/">www.dedoose.com/</ulink>) and NVivo (https://lumivero.com/products/nvivo/) are also being considered and advocated for to boost access to digital tools that can be taught and used for research. These tools can be used to categorize and code text data, collect statistics on words or phrases used in transcripts, create visualizations for data, and more. As it stands, there is support for quantitative data analysis tools such as SPSS and R, but as qualitative and mixed methods research is increasing throughout many academic fields, there is value that can be gained from investing and learning about the power of tools to conduct these analyses. A learning community was formed in the 2022 academic year to bring together individuals with experience and interest in these qualitative tools, which has helped to build the case for licenses.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-28">CHALLENGES</hd> <p>In broadening and centralizing digital literacy across our institution through the library, we have noticed a plethora of challenges that exist. These can be the result of organizational structure, resource allocation, awareness (or lack thereof), and support from administration. We have noticed these challenges organically through attempting to advance various initiatives, and some of them were documented in the white paper mentioned in the <emph>Introduction</emph> section.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-29">Academic silos</hd> <p>Within an academic institution, it is not uncommon to have units, departments, colleges, and so on, working in silos, where they are aware of what <emph>they</emph> are doing but do not always have a grasp of what is going on outside of their scope. At Vanderbilt, we noticed that many units had "digital" in their title and were related to digital literacy and scholarship in one way or another. The Digital Lab being created was one big step toward addressing this challenge, as it subsumed multiple "digital" units within the Library and focused their efforts on connecting with the digital projects and research occurring within the university at large. Intentional collaboration with faculty is a way we are working to bridge the higher‐level silo that exists with respect to our robust library organization compared to the rest of the university.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-30">Resources</hd> <p>A challenge that is virtually guaranteed when trying to expand and increase the scope of an organization at scale is focused on resources. Some of the units that were focused on digital projects were not able to obtain the support that they needed. To address this, we have begun looking at creative ways of supporting projects and research. Programs such as the Buchanan Library Fellowships and Vanderbilt Immersion provide ways for the library to build digital skills and help support projects at minimal costs. We are also beginning to look at smaller funds that can be obtained in the service of piloting research meant to successfully obtain larger funding. This relates back to the aforementioned seed funding program that the Digital Lab is implementing but also helps develop a comprehensive list of internal and external funding opportunities (with a focus on ones that can support smaller projects). Interdisciplinary research and work are also important to overcome this challenge, as there are more opportunities spread out if you have more fields represented and a better chance to obtain the funding for those opportunities.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-31">Advocacy and education</hd> <p>Another challenge faced is ensuring there is a focus on advocating for the importance of increasing digital literacy and educating the relevant market/population on why they should engage with the various efforts and activities that we are continuing to build out. While there is overlap, digital literacy and scholarship common in humanities fields does not have the same support as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. That being said, we have seen students in the humanities field struggle to see themselves in the digital world and believe it is vital that we provide those entry points to skills, technologies, and tools that can help set students, staff, and faculty apart in their research and other endeavors. Understanding the history of technology and being able to view its application from a humanist lens has been shown to be useful, particularly as the technology advances to places where language and nuance are critical to properly inform the usage of the technology (Ahnert et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref7">1</reflink>]; Davidson, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref8">3</reflink>]; Svensson & Goldberg, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref9">5</reflink>]). To address this problem, we will keep good data (quantitative and qualitative) in our learning communities, form committees, and working groups to focus on advocating for various software licenses, products, and technologies, and focus on increasing communication of the notable digital success that is occurring from our students and employees.</p> <hd id="AN0181439507-32">CONCLUSION</hd> <p>Vanderbilt's Libraries are an ever‐growing and evolving organization that sees the critical need to focus on digital literacy and scholarship. With the past having these concepts tackled in siloed units, we are looking to centralize our efforts to provide tools, support, and collaboration opportunities to Vanderbilt. While not directly addressed in this chapter, some of the efforts such as Digital DIAREEs, SYRIACA, Slave Societies Digital Archive, and other initiatives have an impact that can span the local Nashville and wider regional/global communities. The Digital Lab is looking to bring a capacity of project management focusing on technical and digital solutions that we want to expand and offer throughout the University, while also bringing on student and other personnel support to replicate this model at scale. The lab is integrally connected with other units and departments across the institution that provide technology solutions so that efforts are doled out appropriately. The lab is also working to bring digital skills and options to explore to students from varying academic backgrounds, as we know there is an increasing number of technologies and software products being released aimed at allowing people to produce innovative and interesting outputs without needing a high saliency of a technical background. There are many ways a Library system can have a pivotal role in facilitating digital literacy efforts for students, staff, and faculty. Even something as simple as promoting the skills to more effectively search Google and create and use online bibliographic databases is a crucial skill with research content moving increasingly more online (Svensson, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref10">6</reflink>]). With the communities we are forming, the research we are generating and supporting, and tools, trainings, and partnerships we are building, the Vanderbilt Libraries are putting themselves in a position to bring forth a new generation of digital scholars.</p> <ref id="AN0181439507-33"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref7" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Ahnert, R., Ahnert, S. E., Coleman, C. N., & Weingart, S. B. (2020). The network turn: Changing perspectives in the humanities. Cambridge University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Carmigniani, J., & Furht, B. (2011). Augmented reality: An overview. In Handbook of augmented reality (pp. 3 – 46). Springer.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref8" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Charney, M. K. (2014). Academic librarians and the sustainability curriculum: Building alliances to support a paradigm shift. Collaborative Librarianship, 6 (1), 3.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref5" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Davidson, C. N. (2010). Humanities and technology in the information age. In The Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity (pp. 206 – 219).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref9" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> DuFour, R. (2004). What is a "professional learning community"? Educational Leadership, 61 (8), 6 – 11.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref10" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Svensson, P., & Goldberg, D. T. (Eds.). (2015). Between humanities and the digital. MIT Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref1" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Svensson, P. (2016). Humanities computing as digital humanities. In Defining digital humanities (pp. 159 – 186). Routledge.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref3" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Vanderbilt University Libraries. (2017). VU white paper on digital literacy (ies).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref4" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Wilson, D., Jones, D., Kim, M. J., Allendoerfer, C., Bates, R., Crawford, J., Floyd‐Smith, T., Plett, M., & Veilleux, N. (2014). The link between cocurricular activities and academic engagement in engineering education. Journal of Engineering Education, 103 (4), 625 – 651.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Zehner, A. (2011). Co‐curricular activities & student learning outcomes. Purdue University, Office of Institutional Assessment.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Cazembe Kennedy and Zach Johnson</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Cazembe Kennedy is a director of projects and partnerships, Digital Lab, Vanderbilt University.</p> <p>Zach Johnson is an associate director of Digital Special Collections, Vanderbilt University.</p> </aug>
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  Data: In this chapter, we explore the organizational units, projects, and support that exist for digital literacy within the Vanderbilt University Library system. We frame the chapter chronologically, starting with the efforts of the past, then moving toward the present efforts, and concluding with where future efforts are going.
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