{"id":721,"date":"2022-01-25T15:23:03","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T14:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/?p=721"},"modified":"2022-01-25T15:23:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T14:23:03","slug":"bnf-datalab-a-brand-new-digital-humanities-service-to-the-research-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/2022\/01\/25\/bnf-datalab-a-brand-new-digital-humanities-service-to-the-research-community\/","title":{"rendered":"BnF DataLab: a brand new digital humanities service to the research community"},"content":{"rendered":"

An evolving context<\/strong><\/p>\n

As more and more data and digital collections are available in libraries, the expected role of such libraries in the digital humanities field is becoming a key issue. \u201cProviding access to collections for a wide audience\u201d (as defined by the French law for Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France, or BnF) is in fact one of the core missions of a national library. But such a goal cannot be reached nowadays without providing, not only access to digital material, but also support and assistance to understand and work on digital collections and\/or data.<\/p>\n

With the availability of new massive digital collections, new ways of exploring data started to emerge, along with new requests from academic community. Those new uses challenged BnF to rethink all the services offered around such collections. As librarians, we all know that giving access is not enough. We needed to build a strong service allowing global support, not only from a simple technical point of view, but also on collection expertise, research in residence, project monitoring and so on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 \u00c9lie Ludwig<\/p>\n

A place to meet and learn<\/strong><\/p>\n

To welcome researchers and create interaction between experts, we needed an identified location. We also had to take into account that part of the digital collections, especially web archives, are only accessible inside the premises and that some of our researchers are both in demand of work spaces and expert support: this is why our new lab, called BnF DataLab, is located within the research library.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 \u00c9lie Ludwig<\/p>\n

Building a research path<\/strong><\/p>\n

We also had to create a service catalogue which could cover widely the lifecycle of project, as follows:<\/p>\n