In addition to supporting excellence and innovation in academic programs, the Library is also an active site of integrative scholarship itself and can further strengthen its role and identity as an incubator for new knowledge. Whereas the previous objective, Academic Integration, focuses on how the Library should reach outward to build more intentional and systematic linkages with campus teaching and research programs, the objective of Knowledge Generation is to activate more scholarly activity within the Library:
Destination Research: World-class research libraries are magnets for researchers from around the globe, particularly when their scholarship draws upon rare and unique materials that the libraries have expertly collected, preserved, and curated over time. Today, distinguished collections can be virtual as well as physical destinations. In addition to targeted investment in new special collections to support and strengthen Brown’s academic mission, we need to look afresh at the extraordinary array of materials already at the John Hay Library, identify the fields in which these collections constitute a national or international-level resource for deep study, and make these strengths more visible and accessible to the world through prioritized digitization, enhanced description, innovative curation, processing important collections that are still inaccessible to researchers, and funding opportunities for scholars whose work necessitates on-site consultation. (Currently, the Hay has only one endowed fund to support visiting scholars, the S. T. Joshi Fellowship for research on H. P. Lovecraft.)
Faculty Residencies: Enhancing faculty time available for scholarship is one of the strategic goals for academic excellence identified in Building on Distinction. Faculty already collaborate with Library experts and make intensive use of Library resources in many ways, and the Library should offer even greater support for faculty work.
- A first step, now underway, is creating an open and transparent system for allocating 35 faculty study rooms in the Rockefeller Library based on a clear set of criteria for sustained and intensive use of Library resources, research collaborations, and other important scholarly uses
- Beyond offering valuable space for scholarly activity, a program of funded residencies would also support the time faculty need at critical junctures in their work, such as advancing digital scholarship projects; pursuing research data management questions; making intensive use of special materials for research, exhibitions, or other projects; developing and teaching new experimental courses; and providing intellectual leadership to strategic collection-building and description work (digital or physical).
Graduate Fellowships: As Brown’s recent accreditation review affirmed, it is essential for Brown to build stronger graduate programs if the University is to realize its academic ambitions. Many graduate students are already involved with the Library’s services and programs, applying their skills and gaining new scholarly knowledge through working on digital projects, contributing to specialized cataloging, learning to teach with special collections, and other key activities. The Library should expand opportunities for graduate students to learn from staff’s considerable expertise in a broad array of scholarly tools, methods, skills, and materials in ways that augment and complement the disciplinary training that graduate programs provide.
- Currently, the Library hosts PhD fellowships or proctorships in the Center for Digital Scholarship, the Digital Publications Project, and (jointly with the Center for the Study of the Early Modern World) the John Hay Library. Such opportunities serve not only to advance students’ own research, but also cultivate important scholarly skills that are beneficial for their job prospects and careers. The Library should expand the array of doctoral research fellowships it can offer.
- The Library is also a frequent training site for master’s students in Public Humanities. This important relationship could be strengthened, particularly in light of the Library’s resources for digital scholarship and recently enhanced capacity for mounting outstanding exhibitions.
- Consistent with the University’s goals in the creative arts, we should also explore new opportunities for graduate students in arts programs to engage with and draw inspiration from in Library materials.
- Library staff currently contribute to training students in the Doctoral Certificate in Spatial Analysis, and our distinctive capabilities and expertise can play a greater role in addressing graduate students’ interest in specialized qualifications. In particular, based on the Center for Digital Scholarship’s extensive work with graduate students over the years as well as general trends across other institutions, the Library should work with the Graduate School and partner academic units to explore developing and supporting a Doctoral Certificate in Digital Scholarship.
Undergraduate Research: Brown was an early leader in undergraduate research, and the Library has long served as a site for students to encounter and investigate source materials of many kinds.
- We should pursue ways to strengthen our current participation in UTRAs and other campus programs promoting undergraduate research.
- We can create other kinds of opportunities to engage undergraduates in the possibilities of Library-based research. One model being piloted in the summer of 2019 is a fellowship program for original undergraduate research using the collections at the John Hay Library. Over ten weeks, with guidance from curatorial staff, a cohort of students will build research skills using primary sources to develop an original project based on substantive use of the rare books, manuscripts, artwork and/or other objects at the library.
- The Library should provide a more systematic and widely accessible platform for hosting and preserving students’ completed research such as theses, journals, digital projects, and other work.
- A postbaccalaureate training fellowship would create an opportunity for recent Brown graduates to explore a career in library and information science and related areas. In addition to strengthening fellows’ preparation for top library and information schools, such a program could also be geared toward diversifying the library profession.
Diversity and Community: In conjunction with approaches described above under the Academic Integration objective (e.g., strategic collection-building), enhancing the Library’s role as a center of scholarship through new kinds of affiliations for visitors, faculty, and students can advance Library and University goals for increasing “scholarly resources to support education and leading-edge research on issues of race, ethnicity, inequality, and justice around the globe” (DIAP) — especially if fellowship and research opportunities give priority to those topics. Stronger connection with community partners should include exploration of supporting their research needs, including the possibility of Community Research Fellowships.