Background & Aim: The pervasive digitization of literary archives, the rise of computational text analysis, and the emergence of new digital-native literary forms have fundamentally reshaped the field of literary studies. This study aims to empirically assess the current state of digital literacy—defined as the suite of technical, analytical, and critical skills required to engage with digital tools and media in literary research and pedagogy—among active scholars. The objective is to map competency levels, identify key skill gaps, and examine the perceived impact of these literacies on research output and teaching practices.

Methodology: A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was employed. Quantitative data were collected via an online survey disseminated globally to scholars in literary studies (n=417), measuring self-reported proficiency across four digital literacy domains: Information & Archival Digitization, Computational Text Analysis, Digital Publishing & Dissemination, and Critical Digital Theory. Qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews (n=28) with a purposively sampled subset of respondents to explore experiential dimensions and institutional challenges.

Key Results: Survey results indicated a significant disparity in proficiency levels across domains. While 78.3% reported high confidence in Information & Archival Digitization skills, only 31.7% reported proficiency in Computational Text Analysis (p<.001). A positive correlation was found between computational skill proficiency and higher self-reported research productivity (r = 0.42, p<.01). Qualitative analysis revealed three central themes: the tension between traditional close reading and distant reading methodologies, institutional support deficits for skill acquisition, and ethical anxieties surrounding algorithmic bias in literary analysis.