Brown University Library News

The Brown University Library is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Steven Lubar as the inaugural Faculty Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS). Serving as a senior Library leader during this three-year appointment, Professor Lubar will spearhead the development of academic programming relating to digital scholarship at Brown, working closely with Library leadership and campus partners to advance CDS’s role as the University’s primary hub for new and emerging modes of scholarship that are enabled by digital technology. His directorship began on January 1, 2020 and will run through June 30, 2023.

Steven Lubar

Steven Lubar is Professor of American Studies, Professor of History of Art and Architecture, and Professor of History. He has written and taught about museums and museum history, public and digital humanities, and the history of technology and skills. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship helped support his most recent book, Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present.

Professor Lubar was director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage from 2004 to 2014 and director of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology from 2010 to 2012. He received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago.

Enthusiastic about the possibilities this new role entails, Professor Lubar stated, “I am delighted to join the Center for Digital Scholarship as we continue to build on our long history of innovative digital scholarly projects. I look forward to creating connections across the campus and finding new ways to work with faculty, students, and staff to support and expand the exciting work of digital scholarship at Brown.”

CDS Faculty Director

As Faculty Director, Professor Lubar will have primary responsibility for building academic community and programming at CDS. This will include creating a regular digital scholarship seminar and other forums for faculty, students, and staff to consider theoretical, methodological, and practical questions involved in these new and emerging modes of scholarly work. He will also organize an academic oversight structure to guide CDS in its support for faculty’s digital scholarly projects. He will continue ex officio as a member of the faculty advisory committee for the Mellon Foundation-funded Digital Publications Initiative, which will now become a formal part of CDS. 

This new role also includes building stronger partnerships with other campus departments, centers, and programs with aligned interests, exploring new academic program initiatives, and helping to represent Brown in the international community of digital scholarship centers. He will continue teaching and performing other faculty duties in his departments. 

Strengthening Center Organization and Operations

Stemming from the University Library’s strategic plan and further informed by an external review of CDS in 2019, the creation of a Faculty Director is one element in a broader effort to enhance CDS. Other organizational changes are in process to ensure that CDS’s academic programs and service functions form an integrated and coherent suite of resources for digital scholarship at Brown.