MTSU Walker Library is hiring a graduate assistant (GA) for spring 2022. The GA will be able to expand their own knowledge of technology and library services and gain on-the-job training in the design, digitization and/or management of digital projects. Specific projects vary by semester (see the Job Description for details). The position comes with a stipend and tuition waiver.

There is no specific skill or experience required, we encourage anyone with an interest to apply.

Over summer 2021, the Digital Seed Grant Committee received applications for its fifth year of awarding Digital Seed Grants. The proposals received were of high quality despite the impact of Covid-19, Walker Library is committed to keeping the library’s charge of accelerating teaching and research with digital technologies and methodologies. One way the library does this is by funding seed grants.

The Digital Seed Grant Committee was exited to receive 12 applications from a diverse background of projects and disciplines and commends all the applicants on their proposed research or teaching projects. We are pleased to announce the 2021-2022 winners in no particular order:

Project: Revisiting the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with Computerized Linguistic Analysis

Led by Ms. Cindi Brown, MTSU graduate student in the Department of Psychology

Project runs July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022

A recent Digital Seed Grant recipient is looking to fill a vacant position to help with project research. Please see the position description below, and contact the primary investigator, Cindi Brown, with questions and interest by June 17, 2021.

Position

Project Assistant: Revisiting the Thematic Apperception Test with Computerized Linguistic Analysis

Project Description

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test which was important in the history of psychology. Developed by Dr. Henry Murray in the 1930's, the TAT was used extensively by psychologists between the 1930s and the 1970s. Since the TAT was administered extensively for decades, it is suspected that many of these TAT narratives still exist. The initial purpose of our project will be to locate these historical TAT narratives, archive them, and make them available for interested researchers who wish to apply more modern interpretive techniques. The second phase of the project will involve original research using the archived narratives.

Tasks

• Assist with research
• Type handwritten narratives
• Transcribe recorded oral narratives
• Perform data entry and data analysis

Qualifications

Employee must be a student (graduate or undergraduate). Any major accepted, but job might be of special interest to psychology or history majors. Strong clerical skills, including knowledge of Excel, desired.

The Digital Seed Grant (dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant) had impressive applications for its third year (award period 2019-2020), which initially launched in 2016 for the award period of 2017-2018. The Digital Seed Grant Review Committee and Dean of Libraries decided to award two grants for the 2019-2020 academic year. One recipient later declined due to scheduling conflicts. The AY 19-20 awardee was announced on the website at https://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant19-20.

Announcing the call for Digital Seed Grant Awards

The Digital Seed Grant competition for 2021-2022 is now open. Walker Library Digital Scholarship Initiatives invites proposals for seed grants to support individual or collaborative digital scholarship projects in research, teaching, or public outreach from any discipline or area at MTSU. The call for proposals (CFP) is open to MTSU faculty, staff, researchers and graduate students pursing digital scholarship projects (from the arts to sciences and everything in between). Projects run from July 1 to June 30. Applications for the 2021-2022 cycle are due April 16, 2021.

Examples of digital projects, past winners, and application guidelines are available at http://dsi.mtsu.edu/dsgrant.

Announcing the recently published Digital Scholarship Initiatives Highlights 2019-2020: A Digital Scholarship Center Assessment

The 6^th annual DSI Highlights brochure summarizes the past year's development (2019-2020). The brochure highlights initiatives lead by the MTSU Walker Library for the creation, access, dissemination, and preservation of digital and scholarly initiatives. Digital Scholarship Initiatives (DSI) Programs include opportunities to:

• learn and share digital tools and methodologies

• create and preserve university scholarship

• fund research and teaching opportunities through seed grants

• encourage and support development of digital projects

• provide and support open access publishing

A pdf copy of the double-sided brochure is available at https://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/handle/mtsu/6377.

Digital scholarship at Walker Library is interdisciplinary, collaborative, and committed. As a method, it emphasizes the use of interactive technologies to expand the participation, modes of access, diversity of analysis, and the dissemination, and preservation of scholarship. The frequently used term, digital humanities (DH), is a subset of digital scholarship (DS)--the larger umbrella of all scholarship including the arts, sciences, and everything between.

Specific examples include but are not limited to:

• Metadata, descriptive records that aid in the indexing and discovery of digital collections

• Open access publishing through library hosted journal software for peer-reviewed journals and open educational resources (OER)

• Institutional repository (JEWLScholar) that promotes, highlights and indexes scholarship of campus (including peer-reviewed articles, department newsletters, theses, dissertations, conference proceedings, OER, etc)

Earlier in spring-summer 2020, the Digital Seed Grant Committee was excited to receive applications for its fourth year of awarding Digital Seed Grants. The proposals received were of high quality despite the turn of events with COVID-19 and although these challenges continue, the Walker Library is committed to keeping the library’s charge of accelerating teaching and research with digital technologies and methodologies.  One way the library does this is by funding seed grants.

The Digital Seed Grant Committee commends all the applicants on their proposed research or teaching projects. We are pleased to announce the 2020-2021 winners in no particular order:

Project: Hidden Town in 3D Website

Led by Dr. Molly Taylor-Poleskey, MTSU Department of History

Project runs January 19, 2021 through January 18, 2022

Project: Studio Art Teaching Resources

Led by Professor Mark Mcleod, MTSU Department of Art and Design

Project runs September 1, 2020 through December 9, 2021