Robinson Crusoe and the Robinsonades are a major part of digital humanities scholarship, particularly in the fields of English, Education, History, Religion, and the Fine Arts. Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 by Daniel Defoe and has remained a popular adventure and colonialist text to this day. The University of Florida’s Digital Collections (Baldwin Library) has a subset collection on Robinson Crusoe – ufdc.ufl.edu/defoe – that allows scholars to compare the numerous editions of the text since its first printing.

I would like to have a discussion about how Robinson Crusoe is used by digital scholars. In particular, I would like the discussion to emphasize how Robinson Crusoe is used in the public sphere and the classroom to create new interpretations of digital information and metadata.

Digital collections and libraries are often created through collaboration with librarians, teaching faculty, and others. This panel would be a discussion panel on current strategies and best practices for engaging scholars and librarians in collaboratively supporting digital libraries and new forms  of digital scholarship with those libraries. The discussion could include considerations of roles, practices, and concerns for best supporting and engaging with a scholarly advisory board for digital libraries, collections, and projects.

The discussion could include a current example of how to best support the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature Digital Collection in collaboration with and utilizing the expertise of faculty on campus as a scholarly advisory board. The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature is one of the top of its kind in the world and faculty regularly travel to the collections, teach with the collections, utilize the collections in research, and more, all of these activities continue, extend, and alter in ways for the digital collections of the Baldwin.

The discussion could also include the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) with its Scholarly Advisory Board, new forms of digital scholarship, facilitated peer review, and more.

The discussion will include how to ensure full attribution and recognition for activities, as well as engagement and collaboration for ongoing development and for new opportunities for library growth and new digital scholarship works.