Sarah Potvin

Professional Responsibilities

The Digital Scholarship Librarian serves as a primary resource on digital humanities and humanities data curation for the University Libraries. The Librarian advances research and enhances undergraduate and graduate education at Texas A&M by applying digital humanities methodologies and epistemologies across disciplinary boundaries. The Librarian provides outreach and community support to the University for digital humanities.

The Digital Scholarship Librarian assists in developing and implementing strategies for digital stewardship, working with relevant stakeholders to ensure that digital projects (1) unique to the Libraries or (2) hosted and maintained by university affiliates are robust, persistent, and preserved. The Librarian is responsible for consulting on the development and testing of systems and protocols that support and advance new models of scholarship and collections. As a member of the Office of Scholarly Communication, the Librarian will advise and contribute to initiatives around open access, alternative publishing models, researcher identity management, and other efforts to advance equitable access to the University’s scholarly and creative work. Additionally, the Librarian will advise on ethical and practical limitations to open access, particularly as they pertain to underrepresented and marginalized populations.

The Librarian is expected to consult with faculty regarding humanities datasets and research collections. The individual serves on Texas Digital Library (TDL) committees and University working groups as assigned. The librarian is expected to maintain awareness of digital humanities and digital library trends in order to make informed policy decisions, and serve as a general resource for Texas A&M University and its affiliates. This includes providing consultation services, training, and participating on Texas A&M University committees as needed.

Education

• M.S. The University of Texas at Austin (2007 — 2009)
• A.B. Harvard University (2000 — 2004)

Research Interests

• Digital Humanities and libraries
• The history and evolution of scholarly communication
• Open access
• Metadata, policies, and workflows for student work
• Metadata for legacy collections
• Metadata reuse
• DSpace
• Dublin Core
• Linked data
• Data curation, preservation, and stewardship

Select Publications

• Spencer D. C. Keralis, Elizabeth Grumbach, and Sarah Potvin, “The Boilerplate Problem in Data Management Plans,” ResearchDataQ Editorial (October 21, 2019).
• Thomas Padilla, Laurie Allen, Hannah Frost, Sarah Potvin, Elizabeth Russey Roke, Stewart Varner, “Final Report. Always Already Computation: Collections as Data,” (May 22, 2019). 180 pages (with all deliverables included).
• Robin Sewell, Sarah Potvin, Pauline Melgoza, James Creel, Jeremy Huff, Gregory Bailey, John Bondurant, Sean Buckner, Anton duPlessis, Lisa Furubotten, Julie Mosbo Ballestro, Ian Muise, Brian Wright, “When a Repository is not Enough: Redesigning a Digital Ecosystem to Serve Scholarly Communication,” Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 7, no.1 (2019).
• Aaron Mauro, Daniel Powell, Sarah Potvin, Jacob Heil, Eric Dye, Bridget Jenkins, Dene Grigar, “Towards a Seamful Design of Networked Knowledge: Practical Pedagogies in Collaborative Teams,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 11, no. 3 (2017). Imagining the DH Undergraduate: Special Issue in Undergraduate Education in DH. Eds. Emily Christina Murphy and Shannon R. Smith.
• Sarah Potvin, “And Who Will Review the Review(er)s?” College and Research Libraries 78, no. 6 (September 2017): 734-740.
• Kara Long, Sarah Potvin, Santi Thompson, and Monica Rivero. “The ‘Wicked Problem’ of Neutral Description: Towards a Documentation Approach to Metadata Standards.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 55, no. 3 (2017).
• Sarah Potvin and Santi Thompson, “An Analysis of Evolving Metadata Influences, Standards, and Practices in Electronic Theses and Dissertations.” Library Resources and Technical Services 60, no. 2 (April 2016): 99-114.
• Sarah Potvin and Laura Sare, “Public Goods and Public Interests: Scholarly Communication and Government Documents in Research Libraries.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 16, no. 2 (2016): 417-441.
• Sarah Potvin, Santi Thompson, Monica Rivero, Kara Long, Colleen Lyon, Kristi Park, Texas Digital Library Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Version 2.0 (September 2015).
• Chelcie Juliet Rowell and Sarah Potvin, “Technical Services Report: Preservation Metadata for Digital Forensics. Report of the ALCTS PARS Intellectual Access to Preservation Metadata Interest Group. American Library Association Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, June 2014.” Technical Services Quarterly 32, no. 3 (2015): 320-325. Open Access Version.
• Zach Coble, Sarah Potvin, Roxanne Shirazi, "Process as Product: Scholarly Communication Experiments in the Digital Humanities," Journal of Librarianship & Scholarly Communication 2, no. 3 (2014).
• Sarah Potvin and Chelcie Juliet Rowell, "Technical Services Report: Involving Users in Preservation Metadata. A Report of the ALCTS PARS Intellectual Access to Preservation Metadata Interest Group Meeting. American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, Philadelphia, January 2014," Technical Services Quarterly 31 (2014).
• Sarah Potvin, “The Principle and the Pragmatist: On Conflict and Coalescence for Librarian Engagement with Open Access Initiatives,” Journal of Academic Librarianship (2013).
• Sarah Potvin and Catherine Coker, "Arcane Magic: Hal Hall and the Creation and Transformation of Science Fiction Indexing," Reference & User Services Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2013).
• Bruce R. Scott and Sarah Potvin. “Capitalism and Democracy.” In Bruce R. Scott, Capitalism: Its Origins and Evolution as a System of Governance. New York: Springer, 2011. Pp. 67-110.
• Bruce R. Scott and Sarah Potvin. “Creating Capitalism and Democracy in the United States, 1630-1830.” In Bruce R. Scott, Capitalism: Its Origins and Evolution as a System of Governance. New York: Springer, 2011. Pp. 227-276.

Awards

• Esther J. Piercy Award, Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, American Library Association, 2017.
• Margaret T. Lane / Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award, Government Documents Roundtable, American Library Association, 2017.
• Texas Digital Library Scholarly Communications Award, 2016.
• Texas Digital Library Award for Excellence in Digital Libraries, 2014. [team award]