Browsing by Author "Starcher, Christopher"
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Item Automating Digital Collection Processes(2016-05-25) Starcher, Christopher; Luttrell, Robert; Texas Tech UniversityProcessing digital collections is tedious and time consuming. It is also susceptible to human error. Although it is impossible to automate all digital collection creation processes, at the Texas Tech University Libraries, we have taken steps to automate many of our processes in an effort to expedite digital collection creation and to eliminate human error where possible. The University Library and the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library conduct digital collection projects autonomously and collaboratively. While some of the processes at each library are similar, others are unique to the individual environments. In this presentation, we will discuss the needs of each environment and reveal the solutions implemented to meet those needs.Item Diving into Data: Implementing a Data Repository at the Texas Digital Library(2016-05-26) Thompson, Santi; Park, Kristi; Donald, Jeremy; Herbert, Bruce; Quigley, Elizabeth; Buckner, Sean; Kaspar, Wendi Arant; Lauland, Nick; Peters, Todd C.; Rodgers, Denyse; Smith, Cecelia; Starcher, Christopher; Uzwyshyn, Ray; Waugh, Laura; University of Houston; Texas Digital Library; Trinity University; Texas A&M University; Harvard University; Texas State University; Baylor University; Texas Tech UniversityThe need for Data Management services is one of two large‐scale needs consistently expressed by members of the Texas Digital Library (TDL), a consortium of academic libraries throughout the state. In particular, members are seeking a repository that offers researchers a platform for publishing, citing, reusing, and preserving research data. In response to this need, TDL has formed a series of working groups aimed at building a statewide data repository. This panel session presentation will document the work of two TDL working groups focused on the storage and accessibility of research data, as well as connect their efforts to a growing number of research data repositories worldwide: The first group, the TDL Data Management Working Group, selected a platform to act as the statewide repository. Panel presenters will outline the group’s methodology, including the development of researcher use cases and system evaluation criteria and the testing of Dataverse, an open source platform for research data sharing and management developed by Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS). They will also highlight the results of these efforts and discuss why the group recommended that TDL and its members implement the Dataverse repository. Secondly, presenters will share the current activities of the TDL Dataverse Implementation Working Group, which is charged with launching an instance of Dataverse as the statewide data repository for Texas. Updates will focus on the work of four subgroups (Budget and Business Model, Policy and Governance, Technical Configuration, and Workflow and Outreach) as well as the results and lessons learned from an initial pilot launch of the software in Spring 2016. Finally, a representative of the Dataverse project from Harvard IQSS will situate the TDL Dataverse project within a wider community of Dataverse implementations, both at Harvard and elsewhere across the globe. As more institutions consider launching a repository for research data, our panel presentation offers important lessons that others may value. Attendees of our session will learn more about the assessment of data repositories, including potential methods and criteria for evaluating systems, as well as the challenges and benefits to building a collaborative, consortial data repository.Item Streaming Audio & Video Experience (SAVE): A Solution to Publish Music-related ETDs(2016-05-26) Yang, Le; Starcher, Christopher; Ketner, Kenny; Luker, Scott; Patterson, Matthew; Johnson, Daniel; Texas Tech UniversityThe current literature of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) has frequently discussed issues regarding ETD collaborations, discovery, metadata, system improvement, and long-term preservation strategies. However, rare literature discussed music-related ETDs; no found literature provided a solution to address the concerns of multimedia publishing in music-related ETDs. Main challenges associated with music ETDs are integration of a variety of music format and software, as well as the appropriate use of copyrighted materials of music. One of the common ways to publish music-related ETDs merely include multimedia supplements in ways of attaching original audio files, allowing free downloads of the copyrighted performing works. Realizing the current concerns and unresolved issues that are still existing in music-related ETDs, TTU Libraries has developed a system called Streaming Audio and Video Experience (SAVE) that includes an authenticated streaming multimedia player, a responsive-design user interface, and a web-based submission and management system. The TTU Libraries is using SAVE, integrated with DSpace-based Institutional Repository, to publish music-related electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) for the College of Visual & Performing Arts. The integrated system – including both the technology solution SAVE and the publishing model – overcomes physical and technological limits while expanding access to music-related ETDs and other multimedia collections to patrons from any computer with an Internet connection. Through the SAVE system, distance education students have the same access to multimedia collections as local students do. Also, these multimedia collections can be made available for use in networked classroom and course management systems across campus. Professors are able to use these collections in their lessons without having to check out the physical copies from the library. By offering this online accessible system, physical multimedia files avoid substantial amount of future damage caused by heavy use and frequent check-outs. The development and implementation of SAVE system fill the blank in the current literature of the music-related ETDs and also ETDs in general, as well as offer a solution to resolve the essential conflicts between open access ETDs and copyrighted performing works. The TTU Library wants to propose it as a solution to handle other multimedia collections on the TTU campus and to release it as open source software for other institutions with similar needs. In addition, TTU Libraries plans to release the SAVE technology as open source software to benefit the universities that have similar needs.Item Texas Digital Library Dataverse Implementation Working Group Final Report(Texas Digital Library, 2016-09-30) Thompson, Santi; Herbert, Bruce; Parks, Kristi; Donald, Jeremy; Rodgers, Denyse; Buckner, Sean; Kaspar, Wendi; Smith, Cecilia; Starcher, Christopher; Peters, Todd; Uzwyshyn, Ray; Steans, Ryan; Lauland, Nick; Waugh, LauraSince September 2015, the Texas Digital Library (TDL) Dataverse Implementation Working Group (DIWG) has worked with Texas Digital Library staff to pilot and implement a consortial repository for small to medium-sized research data, as well as to develop policies and workflow documentation associated with a data repository service. Comprised of 14 librarians and technical staff across six universities and the TDL, the DIWG's charge was to "pilot test, assess, and launch a consortial repository for research data archiving and management," addressing costs and possible funding models, technical configuration of the repository, workflows and outreach, policy and governance, and metadata needs. The DIWG built upon the work of a predecessor group - the TDL Data Management Working Group - which evaluated multiple available data management platforms and recommended the use of Dataverse as a consortial service. The result of the group's work is the Texas Data Repository (https://data.tdl.org), a platform for publishing and archiving datasets and other data products created by faculty, staff, and students at Texas higher education institutions. The repository is built in Dataverse and is intended for sharing small- to medium-sized datasets from any discipline.Item To Stream the Impossible Stream: Liberating the Texas Tech University Libraries' Sound Recording Collection(2007-05-30) Thomale, Jason; Starcher, Christopher; Texas Tech UniversityThe Texas Tech University Libraries’ sound recording collection consists of more than 4,000 compact discs that feature art music, jazz, and folk music from around the world. The collection sees substantial use from students and faculty alike, but the medium on which the recordings exist is not optimally accessible—it requires patrons to come to the library building and allows only one patron to listen to a recording at a time. For this reason the collection was a prime candidate for being incorporated into the Texas Tech digital library; as a digital library collection, it would be accessible anytime, anywhere via the web. Thus, the concept for the Streaming Sound Collection (SSC) was born. In implementing the SSC, the project team faced a wide variety of challenges that are common to many digital-collections-building projects—the ways in which the team overcame these challenges are instructive for others embarking on similar journeys. The initial complication was the most obvious: copyright. In an age when corporations feel compelled to prosecute children and the elderly for relatively minor offenses, it was hardly an issue that a large state university could ignore. It was imperative that the content be protected. There were two areas of concern for which we could not equivocate—who shall have access and what type of access they shall have. These two issues drove many of the decisions that were made, including such crucial decisions as format and delivery mechanism of the content. The objects that make up the SSC are not simple. Providing access to them so that they would be both findable and usable was a key consideration in building the collection. The initial step toward this end was to decide on the system where the objects would reside. The project team first considered putting them in the catalog and later toyed with contracting a programmer to invent a completely customized web application—but both of these solutions proved untenable because neither comprehensively served the complete set of library needs, digital library needs, and collection needs. In the end, the project team developed a solution that successfully balanced all of these needs sets. Efficiently creating quality metadata for the collection was the third major challenge. Jane Greenberg, E. D. Liddy, and others have deftly described this as the “metadata bottleneck.” Indeed—if one views metadata creation similarly to library cataloging, in which a trained expert must carefully examine an object and use an arcane syntax to record minute details about it, then the process quickly gums up what might otherwise be an efficient project. The SSC project, however, by the way it leverages existing catalog records and workflows, serves as an example of how creative automatic metadata processing can help widen the bottleneck. It also demonstrates how an early understanding of the collection’s metadata needs and foresight about how one might process existing data has helped the resulting metadata become more than the sum of its MARC.Item Vireo 4(Texas Digital Library, 2019-05-22) Smutniak, Frank; Starcher, ChristopherThe Vireo 4 Thesis and Dissertation Management System is ready for deployment and use following several years of development. Vireo provides institutions with the capability to customize their workflows and use specific controlled vocabularies. Submitted documents can then be reviewed by the student's committee and be annotated for licenses and embargoes. It is available for download or as a service hosted by Texas Digital Library. Vireo 4, built using java and spring-boot, is both a technical and functional update from Vireo 3. We will discuss key differences, new features, deployment, and porting data from Vireo 3.