Call for paper: Cultivating Human-Centered Digital Libraries through Transdisciplinary Collaboration

Cultivating Human-Centered Digital Libraries through Transdisciplinary Collaboration

This Special Issue, “Cultivating Human-Centered Digital Libraries through Transdisciplinary Collaboration,” aims to foster collaboration among experts in computer science, engineering, and library and information science. It investigates the evolution of digital libraries into human-centric ecosystems, promoting secure, trustworthy, and sustainable collaborative environments. This is achieved by developing a shared understanding of digital libraries within the overarching “Cultural Cyber-Critical Ecosystem” framework.

The “Cultural Cyber-Critical Ecosystem” is a comprehensive framework that integrates human-centric principles with advanced technology in digital libraries. It signifies a transition from purely technology-driven approaches to a holistic perspective, viewing digital libraries as dynamic socio-technical systems. This ecosystem encompasses:

Human-centric principles: Prioritizing user engagement, social interaction, and community participation in the design and operation of digital libraries.
Transdisciplinary collaboration: Bridging diverse fields (e.g., computer science, library and information science, social sciences, and humanities) to cultivate a shared understanding.
Integration of human, cyber, and physical elements: Recognizing the interplay between human users, cyber technologies, and the physical aspects of information and its access.
Emphasis on critical aspects: Addressing concerns related to security, trustworthiness, resilience, sustainability, and ethical considerations, particularly in response to emerging threats and global changes.

List of Topic Areas

We are interested in receiving research papers highlighting current research initiatives and best practices that explore the following themes:

Digital Libraries as reliable socio-technical systems:

Trust: cybers security, authenticity, provenance, privacy, confidentiality
Resilience: Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) infrastructures, distributed approaches, recovery strategies, adaptive solutions for Digital Library service survivability
Sustainability: green computing, optimization, tokenization of business models

Human-Centered Design in Secure Digital Libraries:

User experience (UX) studies and design methodologies.
Accessibility and inclusivity in digital library interfaces.
Personalization and customization of digital library services.
Human factors in Digital Library Cyber Security.

Transdisciplinary Approaches:

Collaborative models involving engineering, computer science, library information science, social sciences, and other disciplines.
Case studies of successful transdisciplinary projects.
Theoretical frameworks for understanding digital libraries as socio-technical systems.

Impact and Evaluation of Human-Centric Approaches:

Metrics and methods for evaluating the impact of user-centered designs.
Studies on the effectiveness of community engagement and participation strategies to secure DL trust, resilience and sustainability .
Long-term impacts of transdisciplinary collaboration on digital library sustainability.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a Human Touch in Digital Libraries:

How can AI in Digital Libraries be secured, audited and certified to avoid misrepresentation of the reality or fostering false or manipulated narrations?
How can AI be implemented in Digital Libraries to personalize user experience, enhance accessibility, and foster community engagement in a trustworthy condition?.
Ethical considerations of AI in digital libraries with an emphasis on transparency and bias mitigation.
Examples of successful AI applications that promote human-centered interactions.

Submission Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here:

Submit via ScholarOne

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:

Author guidelines

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.