With the advent of digital information and concerns over barriers to reading and using research, libraries are increasingly focused on facilitating open access to research publications. This allows libraries to position themselves as key providers of knowledge to anyone with an internet connection.
In a diverse local and global information ecosystem, maintaining community and trust is paramount, but increasingly difficult. Participatory processes and collective action can help address concerns and empower groups. Public open digital scholarship holds promise to achieve these ends. Below I highlight three of the Indiana University (IU) projects I have been involved in that have done so.
First, IU Libraries’ Land, Wealth, Liberation (LWL): The Making and Unmaking of Black Wealth in the United States digital resource collection tells stories of how formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants in the US generated individual and collective wealth. It also explores how events and institutions encouraged or limited progress.
Producing this resource was a collaborative effort among librarians and student library workers. My colleagues and I sought to counteract the historical marginalization of people of color in library collections, academia, and digital scholarship by prioritizing diversity in recruitment with targeted outreach and then offering training to perform the work.
Libraries often require extensive prior qualifications of student workers, which can be both extractive—meaning the worker is viewed as only a resource with little regard for their needs or growth—and exclusionary. We found that adopting a training mindset, using a minimal computing approach that requires limited equipment and experience, and giving students agency in selecting areas of focus within the research helped us successfully complete the project. It also made the experience more beneficial for students. They learned skills and expanded their concept of, and relationship with, libraries. One student said it enabled them to envision a future in librarianship as a member of a marginalized community.
Moreover, local Black women farmers have engaged with LWL content and attended a launch event in March 2022. There they asked questions of Valerie Grim, a professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at IU, about how these resources are pertinent to their livelihood.
Public open digital scholarship can promote participatory knowledge production.
Secondly, the Water Epistles is the final project for the “Contemporary Social Issues in the African American Community” class. It is an open pedagogy collaboration funded by ALA’s Civic Imagination Stations program. Learners used the LWL resource as they co-constructed and shared knowledge about the sociopolitical economy surrounding access to water in Black communities locally and across the US with people beyond the classroom. Students gained confidence in using digital tools as creators, recognizing social issues, using digital technology to address these issues, and thinking critically about information access.
Finally, a collaboration with Oscar Patrón, IU assistant professor of higher education and student affairs, created an open access reader, Critical Race Theory in Education. Students selected articles, crafted reviews, and formulated discussion questions for inclusion in the reader. Students appreciated that their work had value beyond the classroom and their own learning, becoming part of a broader scholarly conversation.
These projects demonstrate that public open digital scholarship can promote participatory knowledge production by centering issues important to marginalized groups and using digital methodologies. As such, they can serve as models for inclusive, community-driven scholarly communication. The foundations of change lie not solely in technology and tools but also in fostering a strong sense of togetherness and shared purpose. Libraries should continue to embrace these values and more deeply engage with a co-creative community.
