For the last several summers, Muhlenberg College has provided support for students to pursue digital scholarly projects, in collaboration with faculty and independently. Much of this work has been in dialogue and partnership with fellow members of the Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts with the aim of connecting students, staff, and faculty across campuses who are exploring digital scholarly modes and practices.

In Summer 2021, five Muhlenberg College students participated in a six-week program in Digital Scholarship, engaging in intellectual and creative activities designed to support their understanding and application of digital tools for scholarly inquiry and knowledge sharing. Collaboratively facilitated by Library and Digital Learning staff, the experience highlighted possibilities for applying digital scholarship methods and tools to bring into view new readings, interpretations, analyses, and ways of thinking about and looking at cultural, historical, and social phenomena.

During the program, students had opportunities to work with a variety of tools, platforms, and software–from paper made zines to multimodal timelines–before determining how to conduct and present their own digital scholarship. Along the way, students’ understandings of digital scholarly practice and theory was informed by invited faculty and staff guests who shared their own digital scholarship and accounts of how doing and sharing research digitally has opened up new possibilities. In their work, they enacted principles of collaboration, openness, and interdisciplinarity, values that are visible in their projects.

Funding was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the “Practicing the Liberal Arts: Developing and Applying Scholarly Skills” grant to Muhlenberg College.