I was delighted to collaborate with my team mates Adi, Neil, Nora, Rossitza and Stella on a chapter titled 'Embedding Digital Humanities in the British Library' (pre-print version) for The Routledge Companion to Libraries, Archives, and the Digital Humanities, published in late 2024. Huge thanks and congratulations to the editors Isabel Galina Russell and Glen Layne-Worthey.
Abstract: The British Library's Digital Research Team's mission is to enable the use of the British Library’s digital collections for research, inspiration, creativity, and enjoyment. We are embedded within collections departments and collaborate on digitisation and research projects, demonstrating strong ties to curatorial and collections work while complementing other teams' technical expertise. To help fulfil that mission, we focus our activities through five key purposes: we support digital scholars, we connect and share, we are agents for change, we invest in our staff, and we innovate and collaborate.
This chapter reflects on our activities in the decade since our formation, using these key purposes to describe our activities and contemplate on lessons learnt and how they might be useful for others. We consider how the field of Digital Humanities has influenced our approach to training Library staff, enabling external scholars to use digital collections and data, engaging students and the public, and motivating digital transformations for Library users and staff alike. Looking ahead to our strategic plans from now until 2030, we consider how the lessons we have learned over the past ten years can inform our thinking about digital scholarship in libraries.