Lab developed to create digital resources

The University has launched a new lab for creating innovative digital resources to enhance scholarship.

The Digital Scholarship Lab will focus on exploration and experimentation.

“It will serve as an incubator for the development of innovative digital tools,” said Kathy Monday, vice president for information services. “It will bring together scholars, technologists, librarians and appropriate resources and operate on a model of team-based creative collaboration.”

President Edward Ayers, a pioneer of digital scholarship in the humanities, led the movement to create the lab. Ayers was founding executive director of the Virginia Center for Digital History, and his prize-winning Web site, “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War,” has been used by millions of people from all over the world. 

“Digital scholarship is entering a new era, and I hope the University of Richmond can be at the forefront. Visualization and mapping, in particular, hold out exciting opportunities, and the Digital Scholarship Lab can pioneer in that work,” said Ayers.

Faculty members and students will be able to use the lab to create such digital resources as an online mapping interface related to their research, data visualization and models, animations or wiki-style programs that allow students to share classroom insights with one another.

The lab also will establish strategic partnerships with institutions and individuals outside the University who can assist in developing aspects of projects that require resources not available on campus. It will coordinate with Boatwright Memorial Library, Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, infrastructure architects, programmers and system administrators.

As the lab develops, it will create “a local digital resource network, support scholarship and cultivate strategic partnerships,” said Monday.

Betsy Curtler, assistant vice president for foundation, corporate and government relations, expects the lab to attract additional interest and funding to the University. 

“Funders understand that their investment in digital resources can serve students and faculty around the country, and the world,” she said.

The lab, to be located in Boatwright Memorial Library, will open later in the fall.