Case Study: Citizen Science in Digital Humanities context

Abstract

Modern academic librarians strive to qualitatively meet the information needs of their users. At the same time, librarians seek to take an active part in the organization and conduct of research. In this paper, we present the successful experience of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (Ukraine) in working on the wiki project “Dictionary of Borys Grinchenko” which uses elements of digital humanities, citizen science and gamification. The main aim of this project is to involve university students in getting acquainted with the Dictionary of the famous Ukrainian ethnographer and ethnographer Borys Grinchenko (1863–1910). During the project, students compete among themselves who will add the most quality explanations and visualizations of the Grinchenko’s Dictionary words to the University wiki portal. The results show that this project not only promotes the development of university web resources but also promotes cultural heritage, develop successful team building, helps to the involvement of students in research activities. This experience will be useful for other academic libraries looking for ways to join the digital humanities and can be replicated in small, low-budget academic institutions.