Browsing by Subject "archives"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 27
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item All In For the Bears: The History and Impact of the Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive(2015-04-27) Stuhr, Darryl; Ames, EricWhen members of the Digital Projects Group in Baylor’s Electronic Library first sat down with legendary football head coach Grant Teaff, they couldn't have predicted the scope and impact the resulting Baylor University Libraries Athletics Archive (BULAA) would have on preserving university history, raising funds and promoting morale with alumni. Darryl Stuhr – Assistant Director for Digital Projects – and Eric Ames – Curator of Digital Collections - will address the history of the project, its workflow and mechanics, and its impact on donors, Bears supporters and historians around the world. Attendees will gain insight on how to manage a multi-source digital collection, tips on selecting outsource service providers and soliciting support from nontraditional givers.Item Archivematica: More human than robot(2015-04-27) Mumma, Courtney; Artefactual SystemsThis talk will discuss workflows and preservation planning in Archivematica. Its focus will be on ways that Artefactual develops the system to allow for automation of as much as possible without overlooking tasks and decisions which require essential professional human intervention.Item ArchivesDirect Pilot - Road-testing Archivematica hosting in DuraCloud(2015-04-27) Mumma, Courtney; Rushing, Amy; Barrera-Gomez, Julianna; Artefactual Systems; University of Texas at San AntonioUTSA Library was one of 9 pilot partners who tested Archivematica hosted in DuraCloud over several months in the Fall/Winter of 2014/2015. The purpose of the testing was to launch the first open-source, OAIS digital preservation service in March 2015. Pilot testers communicated via discussion lists and a group wiki, sharing their use cases and workflows. Artefactual and DuraSpace, the developers behind Archivematica and DuraCloud, respectively, offered training, workflow consulting, system support and enhancements, and scalability strategies. This panel will discuss the pilot from the administrative, processing and developer perspectives, with a focus on the UTSA experience and the changes that had to be made to the software to allow for large-scale processing and hosting.Item The Austin Fanzine Project: Phase Two(2013-03-21) Hecker, Jennifer; Powell, Kevin; University of Texas at AustinA fanzine is a "nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share their interest” (Wikipedia). You can think of them as pre-internet blogs. Fanzines are lately gaining popularity in college classrooms, as professors in journalism, anthropology, art, and literature incorporate them into their curricula, and librarians and archivists all over the world are finding ways to increase access to and preservation of these ephemeral, sometimes unique objects of human expression. Archivist Jennifer Hecker founded Austin Fanzine Project in the summer of 2012 as a way to increase access to the fanzines that document Austin's 1990s underground music scene by crowd sourcing their digitization, transcription and indexing. The project also functions as an ad-hoc learning lab for issues around digitization, transcription, linked data, digital preservation, privacy and copyright, and archival collaboration and innovation. Phase One of the project was a self-contained test run focusing on only one document. Phase Two has already begun and will feature more material, more complex issues, and more collaboration. Ms. Hecker will introduce the project and describe progress made to date, while UT iSchool master's degree candidate, Kevin Powell, will discuss the policy and workflow issues he addressed during his Spring 2013 Capstone work on the project.Item Barn Raising the Digital Humanities(2013-04-16) Christy, Matthew; Potvin, Sarah; Clement, Tanya; Henry, Geneva; Mitchell, J. Lawrence; Hoover, Ryan; University of Texas at Austin; Rice University; Texas A&M University; St. Edwards UniversityWriting in a recent special issue of Journal of Library Administration dedicated to exploring “Digital Humanities in Libraries: New Models for Scholarly Engagement,” Miriam Posner references libraries and archives as formative to Digital Humanities (DH): “what we now call digital humanities grew out of a set of practices, and a community of practitioners, which themselves arose in libraries and archives.” This foundational relationship continues to shift and grow, some have argued, to the mutual benefit of academic DH and cultural heritage institutions (including galleries, libraries, museums, and archives) alike. Jefferson Bailey, writing for dh+lib, notes that “DH tools, methods, and technologies have the potential to help enhance and evolve a wealth of professional practices beyond academic … It is this ability to reinvigorate the work of non-academics, such as librarians, archivists, and collection managers, that has many of us in cultural heritage excited about DH as an emerging idiom within memory institutions.” With the increasing popularity and growth of Digital Humanities, however, the question of how universities can and will support this emergent area asserts itself. In 2009, Christine Borgman observed a lack of basic infrastructure for DH and recommended: “Much work remains to build the scholarly infrastructure necessary for digital scholarship to become mainstream in the humanities. Humanities scholars must lead the effort, because only they understand the goals and requirements for what should be built. Librarians, archivists, programmers, and computer scientists will be essential collaborators, each bringing complementary skills.” Four years later, what does this infrastructure look like? With this background in mind, our panel seeks to meet two objectives: First, and simply, we aim to introduce TCDL attendees to a range of DH projects and initiatives underway in universities across Texas. To this end, we’ve invited a number of distinguished panelists-- based in academic departments, libraries, archives, and information schools-- engaged with a variety of DH projects and asked them to provide an overview of their work. Second, we are interested in understanding and examining the structures and supports in place to enable DH collaboration, as well as those being built. In considering this, we’ll pay particular attention to the role of libraries and archives. What has institutional collaboration looked like for those engaged in DH activities from the perspective of libraries, archives, and academic departments? And what has facilitated or impeded this collaboration? Panelists: Tanya Clement, Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Texas at Austin Geneva Henry, Executive Director, Center for Digital Scholarship, Rice University J. Lawrence Mitchell, Professor, Department of English, and Director of Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University Ryan Hoover, Assistant Professor, English Writing and Rhetoric, St. Edwards University Moderators/Proposers: Sarah Potvin, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University Libraries Matthew Christy, Lead Software Applications Developer, Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture, Texas A&M UniversityItem Being an 'a11y': Increasing Accessibility in Born Digital Preservation(2014-03-25) Snider, Lisa; Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at AustinIn the past few years, archivists and librarians have grappled with issues associated with the long term preservation of born digital materials. Are we considering the needs of people with disabilities when preserving these materials? This presentation will explore how we can increase accessibility when preserving born digital materials. Taken from an archival point of view, the presentation will focus on one solution that may make our born digital material more accessible to people with disabilities.Item "Better Living in North Carolina": Challenges of Presenting Agricultural Statistics From The Past(2016-05-25) Stewart, James R.; North Carolina State UniversityThe Special Collections Research Center at NCSU Libraries is exploring historical datasets as part of its LSTA-funded digitization project “Better Living in North Carolina: Bringing Technology To The People.” Through the project, thousands of resources from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service will be digitized. Among these materials are annual statistical reports completed by agricultural extension agents from 1923 to 1967. These reports contain potential legacy datasets from various agricultural fields, from farming soils to home health and nutrition. This poster will present examples, insights on the challenges of extracting data from digitized archival materials, and the value of these resources for today’s researchers. We hope that data researchers across multiple disciplines may find new and unexpected datasets in special collections.Item Digital Collections in a Small Archives: Using Google Services to Help Present and Promote An Oral History Project(2014-03-14) Wolfe, Erin; University of KansasProviding online access to media collections, such as oral histories, can be challenging to do well, particularly for smaller institutions with limited resources. This presentation will focus on a recently completed project in which the Dole Archives leveraged freely available tools to provide access to a high profile oral history collection in a variety of formats, including streaming audio/video, full text searching capabilities, and a finding aid with direct links to digital content. By integrating Google services into our own website, the project receives benefits both from (a) local branding and exhibit/content hosting and (b) the increase of visibility of the materials to a wider audience through Google-based searches. Designed with end-user access in mind, it is our hope that this project will help to expand our audiences beyond the academic and be useful (and usable) for a variety of purposes, from K-12 student research to serving as a case study for future fundraising opportunities. This presentation should be of interest to institutions looking for a low-cost approach to providing online access to media collections or those who may be interested in seeing a new approach to using web-based tools to provide access to archival materials.Item Digitizing San Antonio’s LGBTQ publications: A Portal to the City’s Queer Past(2014-03-25) Gohlke, Melissa; University of Texas at San AntonioToo often in the past, records of gay, lesbian, and transgender persons have been discarded or destroyed sending important filaments of history into the trash bin of time. Fortunately, queer publications that survive provide vital glimpses into the evolution of the communities that produced them and are an important source of ascertaining how gay, lesbian, and transgender organizations and individuals perceived and reacted to the world around them, built communities, and captured the pulse of their evolving culture. As interest in queer history and culture grows, efforts to collect, preserve, and digitize LGBTQ materials have intensified. The long-term benefits of preserving queer records such as LGBTQ serials through the digitization process cannot be understated. As more materials are digitally preserved and made available, opportunities for access and conservancy are greatly expanded. This presentation will cover one such opportunity at the UTSA Libraries Special Collections. In 2012, UTSA Libraries Special Collections began a collaborative project with the Happy Foundation, a San Antonio non-profit GLBT archives. The project entailed digitization of several decades of queer periodicals housed at the foundation. This effort coincided with the purchase of a Zeutschel overheard scanner by the UTSA Libraries. The process included pickup, transport, digitization, and return of loaned periodicals and finally, ingest of digital objects and metadata into CONTENTdm. Two challenges came to light during the project: 1) tracking down publication creators to secure permission to digitize items and make them available on the internet 2) handling content that might be perceived as extremely provocative, pornographic, or possibly offensive. At present, the UTSA Libraries Special Collections staff has digitized the bulk of local queer serials held at the Happy Foundation. These represent the basis of UTSA Special Collections Digital GLBTQ Publications collection which includes the Calendar, the Marquise, River City Empty Closet, Out in San Antonio, and San Antonio Community News. WomanSpace and Rainbow Garden Club newsletter, also included in the digital collection, are physical records held at UTSA Special Collections. While the Digital GLBTQ Publications collection features primarily San Antonio periodicals, issues of queer serials from elsewhere are also represented. Several issues of One magazine, the nation’s first homosexual publication, are housed at the Happy Foundation and are available digitally through UTSA. Records donated by local and regional LGBTQ organizations and individuals, such as Lollie Johnson, San Antonio Lesbian Gay Assembly, the Texas Lesbian Conference, and San Antonio activist Michael McGowan augment UTSA Libraries Special Collections digital holdings of queer publications and provide research opportunities for scholars, students, and members of the community.Item Digitizing the Fred Fehl Dance Collection(2014-03-25) Weathers, Chelsea; Mitchell, Jordan; Roehl, Emily; Harry Ransom Center; University of Texas at AustinThe Harry Ransom Center’s performing arts department holds two vast collections of photographs by Fred Fehl—a prolific mid-twentieth century photographer of theater and dance based mainly in New York City. The Fred Fehl Theater Collection and the Fred Fehl Dance Collection each contain tens of thousands of 5 x 7 prints of various productions by multiple companies. For the past six months, a team of employees, interns, and volunteers has been working to digitize and catalog 5,000 of the 30,000 photographs in the Fred Fehl Dance Collection. Once digitized, the images and their metadata are uploaded onto the Ransom Center’s new digital collections website, which uses the platform CONTENTdm. Providing access to Fehl’s photos of dance productions, which run the gamut from the classical offerings of the American Ballet Theatre to Martha Graham’s groundbreaking modern dance, is a significant contribution to the fields of dance history, art history, cultural studies, and costume design. No other online library or archive currently provides images of Fehl’s photos in such breadth or depth, and the Ransom Center is in a unique position to do so because it holds the copyright to all of its Fehl photographs. To execute the complex task of preparing the photographs for digitization, the performing arts curator Helen Baer, her associate Chelsea Weathers, and graduate interns Jordan Mitchell and Emily Roehl developed a workflow that entails two main streams. One focuses on the creation of consistent metadata, and the other focuses on the digitization of the photographs. After the institution of the workflow, undergraduate work study students and volunteers also began to contribute to the project. To date, nearly 1500 photographs from three different dance companies have been uploaded via CONTENTdm to the Ransom Center’s digital collections website. Access to this enormous collection of visual materials will be an invaluable resource for dance scholars, enthusiasts, historians, and the general public.Item A Geospatially Oriented Humanities Exhibit(2016-05-25) Peters, Todd C.; Dede-Bamfo, Nathaniel; Long, Jason R.; Texas State UniversityOn January 1, 1987 Texas Monthly writer Dick Reavis set out on a year-long journey to drive every road on the official map of Texas, and report his experiences in a series of articles. The Dick Reavis Papers at The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University holds a large collection of postcards, color slides, a travel log book, and several hundred pages of typewritten notes from the journey. The Digital and Web Services Department and The Wittliff Collections are building an innovative web exhibit using Reavis’ own shaded highway map to navigate digitized items from the collection by using ArcGIS, Google Maps and web scripting. This presentation will discuss the overall development of the project, digitization of materials, the use of ArcGIS to create shapefiles, and the creation and integration of the website with Google Maps.Item Held Captive by Copyright: Two Case Studies for Open Access(2015-04-27) Gushee, Elizabeth; Rushing, Amy; Harry Ransom Center; University of Texas at San Antonio; University of Texas at AustinThe Harry Ransom Center is among the nation’s finest research libraries; its extensive holdings of manuscript, text, and visual materials provide a unique record of the creative processes of thousands of writers and artists. In 2014, with the goal of promoting the use of its collections, the Center’s Digital Initiatives Working Group (DIAG) was tasked with developing an open access policy for its corpus of materials believed to be in the public domain. As part of their work, DIWG surveyed open access strategies across peer institutions, struggled to determine where to place the Center on the open access continuum, debated the effects of open access on the Center’s human and financial resources, and, ultimately, found the process of identifying archival materials as “public domain” far more slippery than originally expected. In the fall of 2014, UTSA Libraries Special Collections held a department retreat to define strategic priorities for the year, and to discuss one of the thorniest issues facing repositories today: the permission to publish. Following a lawsuit against the University of Arkansas Special Collections and the subsequent urging of intellectual property guru Peter Hirtle that “it is time for repositories to get out of the "permission to publish" game and leave permissions to the copyright owner,” UTSA Special Collections decided to do just that. What we thought would remove barriers to our collections, however, has caused unanticipated issues regarding privacy, copyright, orphan works, and maintaining good donor relations. Learn how two libraries within The University of Texas system has grappled with issues of open access, copyright, and restrictions related to the use of their materials.Item Looking Through the Eyes of Texas(2013-03-26) Brassie, Tanya; Serrano, Ann; University of Texas at Austin; Briscoe Center for American HistoryThis poster will describe the creation and advertisement of a virtual historic walking tour for the University of Texas at Austin using HistoryPin, a publicly available interactive website based on linking or “pinning” historic images to an interactive map. The project demonstrates how HistoryPin can be a powerful tool for creating meaningful, accessible exhibits; anyone with the Internet can explore the University’s rich heritage while learning more about its present. Since its founding, The University of Texas has witnessed 130 years of dramatic change. With the virtual tour, this change can be re-experienced through the juxtaposition of historic images of student life and campus architecture with corresponding contemporary images. Historic materials were provided by The University of Texas at Austin's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which serves as the University's archive, housing thousands of historic images, books, ephemera, and manuscripts. The curation process for the tour included selecting materials from the Briscoe Center’s vast holdings for digitizaton, assigning metadata to newly digitized items, uploading photos to HistoryPin. After creating the exhibit using HistoryPin’s tour function, it will then be promoted and presented for use during Explore UT, the University’s open house event.Item The making of …and the earth did not swallow him, a film by Severo Perez(2016-05-26) Peters, Todd C.; Texas State UniversitySevero Perez’s 1995 film, …and the earth did not swallow him, is adapted from Tomás Rivera’s classic 1971 Chicano novel, …y no se lo tragó la tierra. It beautifully evokes the substance and spirit of Rivera’s work, and has won international critical acclaim, including top honors at film festivals worldwide. An online exhibit built on the Omeka platform was created from clips of the director discussing the making of the film and materials from the production archive for the film housed in The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.Item Not Just Research Papers: Collection Development at Southern New Hampshire University(2011-06-08) Platt, Alice; Southern New Hampshire UniversityItem Preserving the Image of Fandom: The Sandy Hereld Digitized Media Fanzine Collection at Texas A&M University(2013-06-28) Brett, Jeremy; Texas A&M UniversityMedia fandom - the cultural practice of active interest in various movies or television shows - is a widespread and vibrant part of American popular culture. Fans create all sorts of artifacts related to the objects of their affection, including fanzines. Media fanzines are amateur publications usually (though not always) containing works of fan fiction. Fanzines have been important aspects of fandom for decades - many were created as ephemeral, impermanent print objects, while others were born digital. In either case, whole generations of media fanzines are disappearing and with them, the creative record of this colorful phenomenon. Texas A&M University is involved in creating a unique digital repository consisting of thousands of scanned and archived fanzines dating from the 1960s to the present. Preserving and providing access to fannish materials presents several unique challenges beyond the merely technical. There is the issue of copyright and appropriate permission: most fanzines were copyrighted by their creator and therefore require permission in order to make them accessible. Older fans have often drifted away from their informal creations and many good-faith efforts to locate them are necessary. In addition, many media fanzines are actually anthologies with multiple authors and artists, requiring an untangling of rights and permissions from a single product. Efforts at graceful diplomacy are often necessary, because fans are often very protective of their fannish identities and activities, and reluctant to have those "exposed" to the outside world. We are obliged to explain our motives and our belief in the strong research potential of fans' creations. Metadata creation raises the issue of fannish anonymity. Some fans - those who used pseudonyms or entirely separate cultural identities as fans - do not want their legal names revealed or used, and the desire for continued anonymity requires metadata decisions that reflect this motivation. Media fanzines can be classified under many different subjects and genres - in constructing the metadata structure for the repository we have this ongoing issue of limiting vocabulary to deal with as well. Finally, we were faced with the issue of how to provide access. Online access would, of course, vastly increase potential audiences, but secured onsite access would assuage privacy concerns of many fannish donors. The Hereld DMFC operates now under secured onsite access, but as progress on the collection is made this decision may change. The construction of the Sandy Hereld DMFC provides a number of interesting questions (and some answers) relating to digital archiving and how institutions can successfully build and maintain repositories of digital material, material with incredible potential for institutional and collection promotion and outreach.Item Providing a Spatial Context for Library and Archival Collections: Mapping Historic Aggieland(2014-03-13) Weimer, Kathy; Olivares, Miriam; Rice University; Texas A&M UniversityLibraries and archives have large collections of historic maps and photos. Creative digital exhibits allow users a unique framework to these collections, with mapping platforms providing a spatial context to collections and serving as a visually appealing browse mechanism. Librarians and staff from the Map & GIS Library at Texas A&M University used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to present “Mapping Historic Aggieland,” a digital collection of historic maps, aerial photos, and photos of significant sites and buildings on campus. These materials, which span a century, are gathered to tell the story of the growth of the university over 100 years. GIS is used to display the digitized copies of the maps in georeferenced form, and photos in their correct geographic location on campus. Users, from alumni to current students make use of the digital collection and gain understanding of the expansion of the campus and styles of architecture over the years. Archival photos of campus buildings include the dates that they were built which allow the user to browse the collection over time period using a time slider. Esri’s ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Viewer for Flex were used to create this web service, and will be described. Other lightweight mapping tools will also be reviewed for those wanting to create a similar exhibit for their library or archival collection.Item REVEAL: Read and View English and American Literature(2015-04-28) Law, Kristin; University of Texas at Austin; Harry Ransom CenterWhile the Harry Ransom Center holds a vast collection of manuscripts, rare books, photographs, and works of art, our digital collections website displays only a fraction of these treasures. This past year we launched a one-year initiative designed to expand access to our archival collections by dramatically increasing the number of items available for online viewing. The REVEAL project (REad and View English and American Literature) entails digitizing entire manuscript collections, reusing descriptive metadata from finding aids, and delivering this content online through CONTENTdm. When the project is completed in the spring of 2015, we expect to have created over 20,000 images from 25 literary manuscript collections, which will nearly double the number of images available to our online researchers. The collections were drawn from our extensive British and American literature holdings, and include work from authors such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Joseph Conrad, Zane Grey, Violet Hunt, Washington Irving, Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Oscar Wilde. Materials range from loose manuscripts to correspondence, bound volumes, photographs, scrapbooks, galley proofs, and even a few unusual items. In the past, our digital collections were often created by carefully selecting items and manually producing descriptive metadata. The REVEAL project instead developed a workflow for large-scale digitization of complete collections, building upon previous cataloging work. In this presentation we will discuss our process for re-formatting finding aids into metadata and we will describe our workflows for mass digitization and processing of image files. By sharing the outcomes of challenges we encountered and lessons learned along the way, we hope to provide ideas for other institutions who may be considering undertaking similar initiatives.Item Session 2H | How Many Archivists Does it Take to Change a Website?: Lessons Learned while Reimagining a Statewide Archival Consortium(Texas Digital Library, 2021-05-25) Weaver, Robert; Dodd, Samantha; Romanchuk, RebeccaTexas Archival Resources Online (TARO) is a consortium of over 60 archives, museums, and cultural heritage centers throughout Texas. Its website has served for 20 years as a resource visited by thousands of researcher per year, but by 2016 it was long overdue for holistic redesign. Funded by multiple NEH grants, such a redesign is nearing completion in 2021. This presentation documents collaboration between stakeholders, volunteers, and participating repositories, from early challenges and successes to ongoing efforts to overcome late-project obstacles; lessons that may be of value to other institutions, both large and small, seeking to implement similar projects.Item Session 2H | The Keeper App: Creating a Participatory Digital Archive(Texas Digital Library, 2021-05-26) Zipperer, RachaelThis presentation explores the opportunities and challenges that have arisen in implementing the University of North Texas University Archive’s web application for donating digital materials: Keeper. By discussing the design of the application, the promotion of its use both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the outcomes of community use of the app, this presentations hopes to provide a model for other institutions creating and managing their own participatory digital archives.