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Digitization of Scholarly Knowledge through the Prism of Research Practices

Numérisation des savoirs scientifiques au prisme des pratiques de recherche

Memories, Uses and Critical Issues

Mémoires, usages et enjeux critiques

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Published on Friday, October 10, 2025

Abstract

Français English

This conference invites participants to examine the impact of digitizing scholarly literature on research practices and the memory of scholarship. Beyond issues of access, digitization entails epistemological, documentary, and political choices that shape the circulation and appropriation of knowledge. Discussions will revolve around three main themes: the institutional and epistemological stakes of digitizing scholarly heritage, the practices and tools employed in ongoing projects, and the conditions for the valorization and reuse of digitized resources.

Announcement

Français English

Presentation

For more than two decades, digitization programs have profoundly reshaped the ways in which knowledge is accessed. Numerous projects have emerged at both national and international levels to preserve, make accessible, interconnect, or enrich scholarly heritage, including theses, journals, monographs and other academic outputs across all disciplines. These dynamics are embedded in an interdisciplinary ecosystem that brings together libraries, research teams, platforms, and heritage institutions.

In 2012, Frédéric Darbelley emphasized that “digitization should not be [...] understood merely as a way of making humanist and cultural heritage visible, nor solely as a means of providing open access to knowledge”. Indeed, it would be reductive to confine digitization to a tool for visibility or open access. It entails epistemological, documentary and political choices that shape the memory of knowledge and the modalities of its appropriation in an increasingly digitally native environment.

This conference invites critical, collective, and interdisciplinary reflection on the transformations induced by digitization in research practices and scholarly uses. How do choices of corpora, tools or formats shape research practices? What kind of memory of knowledge is thus produced, made visible, or, on the contrary, devalued? What mechanisms – existing or in development – can ensure that the digitization of scholarly literature effectively supports research practices, whether traditional or emerging?

The aim is to cross perspectives on heritage corpora and contemporary scholarly literature, to question the role of research communities in shaping digitization policies, and to reflect on the concrete conditions of informed access, use and reuse of digitized resources. In this spirit, we welcome proposals from all disciplines and contexts, engaging with critical, methodological, or experimental dimensions.

Proposals should fall within one of the following three broad thematic areas of reflection, with some suggested (non-exhaustive) directions.

Epistemological and Institutional Issues

  • Continuity and preservation of scholarly heritage;
  • Effects of digitization on the construction of the memory of knowledge and disciplinary narratives;
  • Impact of digitization choices (disciplines, periods, collections, languages, stakeholders, etc.) on the research landscape;
  • What has the “digital imperative” done to research practices? Continuity or rupture in disciplinary approaches;
  • Representations of scholarly knowledge, and of the spaces and modes of its production;
  • The role of digitized corpora in the ecosystem of open science and bibliographic transition;
  •  Digitized scholarly heritage as research data: what status, what reuses?

Practices, Tools and Experiences of Knowledge Digitization

  • Feedback from heritage or scholarlship digitization projects;
  • Comparison of national or institutional policies (objectives, priorities, tools, formats);
  • Norms, standards and best practices: observing international uses;
  • Design, choice, and use of platforms providing access to corpora (public infrastructures, alternative channels, private ecosystems);
  • Adapting tools designed for born-digital data to digitized corpora;
  • Tooling needs in research practices: annotation, extraction, enrichment, visualization;
  • Non-academic or subversive uses of digitized scholarly corpora.

Discovery, Accessibility and Enhancement of Digitized Resources

  • Are born-digital resources being valorized at the expense of digitized corpora?
  • Use of digitized academic literature by generative AI: potential, biases, opacity;
  • Contribution of digitized corpora to the rediscovery, reinterpretation or valorization of sources;
  • Digital accessibility of scholarly heritage: accounting for audiences with disabilities (visual impairment, dyslexia, etc.);
  • Pedagogical and public uses of digitized academic resources.

Terms of Submission

Proposals for presentations, written in French or English, should not exceed 500 words (not including bibliography). They must be accompanied by a short biographical note and 5 keywords.

Contribution formats are open and may include various forms (individual papers, round tables, thematic panels, collaborative workshops, feedback sessions, posters, or experimental formats).

We particularly encourage proposals fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, exchanges between documentation specialists and researchers, as well as comparative approaches (territories, disciplines, infrastructures).

Proposals should be submitted to the organizing committee via the conference website: https://impacts-num2026.sciencesconf.org,

before November 30 (midnight, Paris time)

Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than the end of January 2026.

The conference will take place on May 27-28 at the University of Lille (University Library Lilliad, Villeneuve d'Ascq).

Places

  • Lilliad - 2 Av. Jean Perrin
    Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France (59)

Event attendance modalities

Hybrid event (on site and online)


Date(s)

  • Sunday, November 30, 2025

Keywords

  • littérature scientifique numérisée, mémoire des sciences, pratiques de recherche, épistémologie du numérique, humanités numériques, valorisation et réutilisation des ressources, patrimoine et données de recherche

Contact(s)

  • Karolina Suchecka
    courriel : karolina [dot] suchecka [at] univ-lille [dot] fr

Information source

  • Karolina Suchecka
    courriel : karolina [dot] suchecka [at] univ-lille [dot] fr

License

CC-BY-4.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Karolina Suchecka, « Digitization of Scholarly Knowledge through the Prism of Research Practices », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Friday, October 10, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/14vz8

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