Professional participation in digital curation

•The study conducted an online survey of practitioners who identify themselves as digital curators.•Definitions of digital curation emphasize preservation, lifecycle approach, access, and adding value to research products.•Digital curators work in diverse places, their positions range from managerial to academic and technical.•Professionalization of digital curation occurs via the top-down agenda setting and the bottom-up convergence of practices.•The top-down approach offers coherence, while the bottom-up one builds upon inclusiveness and accommodates heterogeneity.

Digital curation is being recognized as a new domain that demands its own skills and expertise. The perceived or occurring professionalization of digital curation calls for a deeper analysis of what it means to do digital curation. Drawing on the findings of an online survey of professionals, who identify themselves as digital curators, this research offers insight into who digital curators are, what they do, and how they describe their skills and the relevance of these skills to their jobs. Having synthesized definitions of digital curation and profiles of digital curators, the study distinguishes between top-down and bottom-up professionalization and identifies similarities and differences between them. While the top-down, agenda driven approach offers coherence and consistency for digital curation as a profession, the bottom-up, practitioners-driven approach thrives on inclusiveness and heterogeneity. The study concludes by pointing out the lack of certain themes in the professional discourses, such as the themes of user communities, open access, and advocacy.