Digital Scholarship and Open Science Imperatives for Nigerian Academic and Research Libraries

Abstract

The ubiquitous digital technologies continue to maintain steady, in some cases, and in most instances, overwhelming impacts on virtually every domain of human endeavor. No doubting it, scholars and the environment in which they conduct their works are changing with time and technologies. Nearly every aspect of the research process now has one digital tool or the other to perform it be it conceptualization of idea, laboratory assay, data analysis, communication or publication of research results, search and access of information, bibliographic referencing and all. Emerging from the intersection of digital content, networked distribution and Open practices, digital scholarship (DS) is a concept that is not just about technologies but also concerned with ideological issues like openness in relation to the conduct and communication of research. The Open Science (OS) arm of DS, has received growing global attention and discourse such that it has led to the evolution and development of policies and infrastructure at both disciplinary, national and international levels to foster Open practices. To this end, this paper reviewed extant literature using the paper synthesis approach to expatiate on core constructs and reviewed the status of research on digital scholarship in Nigeria. Based on the identified dearth of research on the subject and observed low participation in DS, the paper challenged Nigerian academic libraries to follow the models of north American and China reported in the literature to meet the scholars in their new environment by rendering digital scholarship services (DSS) through the establishment of a specialized unit of the library.

Keywords: Digital scholarship, Digital scholarship services, Open science, Openness, Open practices, Open access, Nigeria, academic libraries