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Roberto Vargas
[email protected]
You will always win the arguments you have with others insie your head. You will always understand the points you make to others inside your head.
To that end, I am currently in the middle of a Masters of Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought at the European Graduate School to get outside my head.
I have an MLIS from Drexel University that allowed me to work at:
Swarthmore College, Libraires currently as the Head of Research and Instruction and Humanities Librarian. I was the Humanities Librarian before but my supervisor, who was very thoughtful, spoke on my behalf. I startered working at Swarthmore Libraries in 2013 in a 9 month position and with a combination of a lot of luck and work, I became the Library Resident.
I have had other jobs before, both as a failed community organizer and in a health center. For me, there was no sign I would become a librarian so I am hesitant to romantize my path to where I work now. That said, these previous positions greatly affected how I think about work in general.
I now do a combination of digital and liaison work. When I started my work, specially in Digital Scholarship, I knew very little coding but Nabil Kashyap was super helpful and gracious as he taught along. Some of what I know is:
Web & Frameworks: HTML, CSS, Jekyll, Django, Omeka CMS, Wordpress CMS
Computer Languages: Python, PHP, R, JavaScript
Since tools come and go please don't look too closely into the list above but hopefully what you see is a desire to learn something new and an ability to learn something new
In trying to make sense of what I've done during my time at Swarthmore, I have worked with my colleagues in writting the following:
// Vargas, Roberto and Licastro, Amanda. Grounding Digital Scholarship in the Analogue: Reimagining Library Fellowships Post-Pandemic. VRA Bulletin: “The Root of Things: Grounding the Digital Humanities in an Increasingly Groundless World.” Forthcoming, Winter 2024.
// Elichko, Simon, Higgs Kopin, Emily and Vargas, Roberto Individualism is obsolete. Chapter. In “Digital Transformation in Academic Libraries for Research and Learning” ed. Nicollette Brant and Hema Ramachandran. World Scientific Press. Forthcoming 2024.
// Jackson, Lorin and Vargas, Roberto. Making, Spaces for Ethnic Studies. Chapter. In “Ethnic Studies in Academic and Research Libraries” ed. Raymond Pun, Melissa Cardenas-Dow, and Kenya S. Flash. ACRL, 2021.
// Vargas, Roberto, Baruzzi, Andrea and Harris, Pamela. Interns, Inclusion & Iteration: Undergraduates Influencing the Profession. Chapter. In “Diversity and Inclusion in Action” ed. Christine Bombaro. ALA, 2020.
// Vargas, Roberto and Harris, Pam. (2019). "Supporting The Changing Research Practices Of Scholars Across English Literature And Modern Languages And Literatures At Swarthmore College". Library Staff Works. DOI: 10.24968/2476-2458.libr.82 Larger report: Cooper, Danielle, et al. "Supporting Research in Languages and Literature." Ithaka S+R. Ithaka S+R. 9 September 2020. Web. 21 January 2021. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.313810
I have also presented at conferences and taught at DREAM since 2019. The two most recent presentations I did were
// “Grounding Digital Scholarship in the Analogue: Reimagining Library Fellowships Post-Pandemic”. DH, 2024
// “Collaborating on nothing: spaces for learning and reflecting on Digital Scholarship. DLF 2022. October, 2022
I include these presentations because they were about two topics I have been recenlty tihnking about:
- Analogue vs Digital
- Unproductive spaces