Perhaps I could pull my Emory DiSC colleagues, Miriam Posner and Stewart Varner into this conversation to talk more about some about how we might integrate librarians into DH. That’s what we (more them than me) have been working on for the last year.

And for a very librarian-centered view on where things are going for librarians, I’d also point to this white paper produced by some of our subject librarians on The Futures of Subject Librarians.

It’s interesting that these conversations continue to happen. Back when we first started the CLIR postdoc in 2004, there were similar calls to reform library education and to bring in people with PhDs and IT experience, and similar protests on the part of MLIS librarians. I can find links to those, as well.

I have to say that I’ve never quite understood why having PhDs in the library would contribute to the “next library” phase: IT, sure, but not so much PhDs. And when I worked at NCSU and Emory libraries, I didn’t see any notable lack of subject knowledge.

Anyway, I’d love to learn more about this incident and to weigh in.