The Digital Scholarship Centre (DSC): Advancing Research and Open Scholarship at SFU Library

The Digital Scholarship Centre (DSC) Advancing research and open scholarship at SFU Library Alison J. Moore, Nicole White, Janice Banser, Rebecca Dowson, Carla Graebner, Nina Saklikar, Melissa Salrin, Joey Takeda, and Sarah Zhang SFU Library The library is a natural home for the DSC by virtue of its access to rich collections of data, primary source materials, audiovisual materials, maps, manuscripts, special collections, and papers, and because of the expertise and depth-of-knowledge of its librarians and technical support staff. Our work brings together and advances current research and practice in the digital humanities, library & information science, research data management, and scholarly communications disciplines. Background In January 2025, Simon Fraser University (SFU) Library convened the Digital Scholarship Centre Working Group (DSCWG) to explore how best to structure, support, and govern a Digital Scholarship Centre (DSC) to advance research and open scholarship at SFU. Environmental scan of DSCs Strategic documents reviewed Concept presented to Senate Library Committee Working group formed and Terms of Reference established Dean of Libraries & A ssociate Deans consulted V ision & values developed Services and operational framework developed I nternal consultations Report shared with Dean of Libraries our process Tasked with investigating open research and scholarship services in the library and identifying areas of existing strength and expertise, the DSCWG has taken a collaborative and consultative approach to improve user experience, mobili z e expertise within the library, and identify evolving areas of strength and potential collaboration. Digital scholarship at SFU L I brary open education and Oer digitization media and maker commons D igital S cholarship cent RE D H & D igital project support S cholarly communications R esearch data management digital pedagogy digital and multimodal publishing thesis support & redefining the thesis open source research software G I S , M aps , and open data researcher engagement R esearc  P artnerships A N G rant S upport  open scholarship & Open access policy ojs support institutional repository collections as data W eb archi v ing V alues S tewardship & S ustainability RES P ECT & I N CL U S IO N openness C ommunity C ollaboration in q uiry SFU L ibrary’s DSC reimagines what it means to create, publish, and preserve scholarly work. T he division brings together the Research C ommons, T hesis Office, D igital Humanities I nnovation L ab (D H I L) , scholarly communications, digital publishing, and data services teams to engage with researchers as partners in collaborative projects, consult on research and publishing questions, and provide defined services that align with our expertise in the research enterprise. Contact us : digital-sc[email protected] Simon Fraser University Library is grateful to be located on the lands of the x ʷ m əθ k ʷə y ə m (Mus q ueam), S ḵ wx  w ú7 mesh (S q uamish), s ə l  ilw ə ta ʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), qí c ə y  ( K at z ie), k ʷ ik ʷəƛ ə m ( K wikwetlem), q i qé yt ( Q ay q ayt), qʼʷ a : n ƛʼə n  ( K wantlen), S ə my á m ə (Semiahmoo), and sc ə wa θə n (Tsawwassen) Nations 