On May 15th, Camille Villa of Research IT met with the Force11 Catalog Working Group on behalf of the DiRT Directory. Force11 is a community of scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers and research funders united by an interest scholarly communications and digital tools. Several other tool directories from a variety of disciplines were invited to the discussion, such as SciCrunch, Connected Researchers, and 400+ Tools. While many tool lists begin as the project of a few dedicated individuals, scaling the project and attracting a community willing to contribute and maintain data is a challenge. Force11 invited DiRT Directory to share its recent community sustainability efforts and discuss its volunteer-driven model.
Research IT staff will continue to participate in the Force11 Catalog Working Group, with the goal of identifying a technically and socially sustainable model for the organization to provide researchers with information about tools. As a diverse community of professionals with an interest in the future of research communication, Force11 faces challenges negotiating its own scope of work in the context of related efforts by individual institutions, publishers, and other organizations. The experience that Research IT staff have developed through working on Project Bamboo will be an asset here.
Read more about DiRT's recent features and integrations with other spaces in the digital humanities community here.