Cyberinfrastructure and liberal arts

Still reading, but there appears to be a lot of good stuff in this special edition of Academic Commons. For example, here is a brief excerpt from an interview with James O'Donnell, Provost of Georgetown University:

Leveraging Institutional Change: An Interview with James J. O'Donnell

...snip...
David Green: What's the role of librarians in this [cyberscholarship; creating & using digital resources]? They seem to be leading in pushing for the provision of digital resources.
James O'Donnell: Librarians are very good inside and outside agitators in this regard. A logical way to make progress happen is to substantially support them in what they do. I have to say at Georgetown every time we do something digital in the library, foot traffic in the building and circulation of physical material goes up. For example, we offer more transparent web access to the library catalog with more links on it, letting you order stuff from other libraries--and foot traffic goes way up. We can't stop them coming in (and sure aren't trying to!).

David Green: So the building will be around for a while?
James O'Donnell: Let me be provostial here and say not only will the building be around, but in five years we'll have to seriously renovate and consider building an extension. And this for many of our stakeholders (board members and donors) is at first glance counterintuitive: "I thought all that stuff was digital now." But students are going in more and more, and going in collaboratively–to see and talk to each other. I'm left figuring how to budget for it.
...snip....

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