The Digital Scholarship Summer Research Fellows (DSSRF) program at Bucknell was launched in 2017 by librarians Carrie Pirmann and Courtney Paddick. Building on Bucknell’s larger digital scholarship initiatives, DSSRF is an eight-week, cohort-based interdisciplinary program in which students develop and pursue their own research projects. Throughout the program, students are introduced to a range of digital scholarship tools and methods and receive mentorship from library staff as they identify a research question, explore appropriate research methodologies, and discover resources that support their project goals. Rather than producing a traditional static website, each student’s final project is a dynamic, accessible, and interactive digital resource that communicates their research in engaging and innovative ways.
Over the years, DSSRF participants have applied the knowledge and skills gained through the program in a variety of ways. Students have developed honors theses from research they began during DSSRF, used their newly acquired skills to secure internships and employment, received awards and scholarships recognizing their work, and been inspired to pursue careers in librarianship. The cohort model brings together students from diverse backgrounds and academic disciplines, creating opportunities for collaboration and shared learning. Together, students explore not only how digital tools can be used to develop and present research, but also the broader applications and implications of digital scholarship for storytelling, communication, and public engagement.
DSSRF is a highly collaborative effort, drawing on the expertise of colleagues from across Library Services and Institutional Research & Analytics. Our program was heavily influenced by similar programs at both Gettysburg College (Digital Humanities Fellowship) and Lafayette College (Digital Humanities Summer Scholars). We thank R.C. Miessler at Gettysburg and Sarah Morris (formerly at Lafayette) for sharing ideas and insights as we planned our program.