Browsing by Subject "digital repositories"
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Item Audiovisual Accessibility Builds a Bridge to Diverse User Communities(2022-06-07) Morrow, Melissa; Mumma, Courtney; Park, KristiA cross-institutional team from the Texas Digital Library consortium has developed a webinar series to address the need for awareness of accessibility for audio/video digital collections and to offer solutions for repository managers. The series presents the basics of improving the accessibility of digital audio and video (AV) collection materials hosted in the digital repositories of libraries and archives within the TDL membership. Supplemented by a birds-of-a-feather session at the Texas Conference on Digital Libraries (TCDL) 2022, the webinars provide a deeper understanding of the many benefits—aside from simply satisfying legal requirements—of providing alternative media such as captions/transcripts and other accessibility remediations. Additionally, they aim to demystify key concepts and share common approaches and practical first steps to adapting the accessibility of digital (digitized and born-digital) AV holdings, as well as discussing strategies for making the business case for accessibility. This poster is intended to report on our model for collaborative learning around accessibility issues for A/V collections and share outcomes of the series.Item Baylor University and the Texas Digital Library(2010-05-17) Orr, Pattie; Baylor UniversityBaylor University was one of the first institutions to join the Texas Digital Library and it has been integral to the development of the consortium as a collaborative enterprise. The presentation will discuss Baylor’s decision to join TDL during its first year, its role as a collaborative participant in the consortium, the advantages to Baylor of statewide collaboration, and its views on the benefits to library operations, the university itself, and the state of TexasItem Beyond Web-based Scholarly Works Repositories: The effect of institutional mandates on the faculty attitudes towards Institutional Repositories(2014-03-25) Tmava, Ahmet Meti; Alemneh, Daniel; University of North TexasIn the last decade there has been a push from academic institutions to encourage faculty to deposit their work in web-based scholarly work repositories, commonly known as institutional repositories (IR). IRs are responsible for collecting and preserving the intellectual works of faculty and students and making them widely available. In light of the ever-evolving landscape of higher education, IRs seek to move beyond the custodial role and actively contribute to the advancement of scholarly communication. Understanding and addressing the issues faced by IRs requires a multidimensional approach that involves all stakeholders including: individual scholars and researchers, academic institutions and librarians, scholarly and scientific society publishers, commercial publishers, and government institutions. However, most researcher (Kim, 2010) agree that the main players are faculty members that can make-or-break an IR. In spite of the fact that IRs are an innovation in scholarly communication they have been met with a resistance from faculty members. Academics have been slow to embrace the concept of IRs, according to recent studies by Primary Research Group (2014), only 5% of journal articles published by the faculty members of the organizations have been archived in the IR. While a range of factors seem to influence use of repositories by researchers there is still no agreement how to resolve the challenge of getting authors to deposit content. The most recent survey by Nicholas et al (2014) suggested that while the size and use of repositories has been relatively modest, almost half of all institutions either have, or are planning, a repository mandate requiring deposit. However, Crow (2002) warned that faculty submission will have to be voluntary or risk encountering resistance from faculty members who might otherwise prove supportive. The current situation of IRs is rather bleak and calls to question the effectiveness of the current ways of recruiting content, including institutional mandates. Nicholas et al argue that mandates vary based on the research community and/or institution. Their findings reveal that none of the participating institutions reported any attempt to force researchers to comply with the mandate and describe the current mandates as more educational rather than binding. The same study concludes that 22 percent of the researchers were directly influenced by mandate to deposit their work, and this varied based on the age. Thus, the hope remains that with the mandates in place the new generation of researchers will get used to the idea of depositing their work. This poster will revisit the content recruitment issues in general. Although there is an extensive body of relevant knowledge, discussions about IRs transformations, they are often based on opinion, and isolated experience of commentators, leaving out the main issue (i.e. institutional policies) and the main players (i.e. faculty). This paper will attempt to assess the effect of institutional mandates on the faculty attitudes towards IRs. We believe that analyzing and spotlighting the possible correlations between and among various factors are pertinent for understanding and shaping the ongoing transformation of IRs.Item The Browning Letters Online(Texas Digital Library, 2012-05-25) Stuhr, Darryl; Baylor UniversityThe Baylor University Electronic Library Digitization Group partnered with the special collection Armstrong Browning Library in summer 2011 to digitize, and place online, 2,800 letters written to and from Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Wellesley College also joined the partnership and offered to share 573 of their digitized letters with Baylor to help develop the virtual collection of Browning Letters. Baylor was excited to partner with Wellesley because they own the original love letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. The presentation will share the Digitization Group’s experience and will cover the collaborative component of the project, in-house and outsourced digitization, project workflow including data migration between systems, batch loading metadata and objects into The Baylor Library digital collection access system CONTENTdm, and the handling of full-text transcripts to the digital objects. The target audience is libraries interested in mounting digital letter collections and those interested in collaborative digital projects.Item Collections as Data in Texas Digital Library Repositories: Practical Recommendations for Use(Texas Digital Library, 2020-11-23) Roig Blay, Karla M.; Tuck, Katy; Morgan, AnneItem Digital Collaboration: Effective Partnerships & Repository Management(Texas Digital Library, 2012-05-25) Tarver, Hannah; Moore, Jeremy; University of North TexasThe UNT Libraries Digital Projects Unit regularly collaborates with other departments, campus entities, and external institutions. We currently have over two hundred partners of various kinds contributing to the more than 260,000 digital objects in our system. Our presentation will discuss procedures and techniques that can help to streamline collaborative projects, and outline some of the concerns that institutions may want to keep in mind when starting similar projects. We will focus on providing suggestions to help others have more successful collaborative digital projects including: considerations at the initial point of contact, managing the practical aspects of the process to make digitization run smoothly, and the benefits of collaborative projects for participants and the users that access their digital items.Item Digital Collections Inventory Project(Texas Digital Library, 2019-05-08) Zipperer, RachaelItem Digital Repository 2.0: Lessons Learned and Applied(2009-05-27) Nordstrom, Kurt; Fredericks, Brandon; University of North TexasThe Portal to Texas History at The University of North Texas Libraries is a comprehensive system for storing and providing access to a very large number of digital objects of historical significance to the state of Texas. The Portal is currently in its second iteration of development, and in this presentation we hope to examine some of the lessons learned from our initial efforts and how they shaped the decisions made in the current system and the future. We will briefly overview the first system that was put in place, and goals that we had in mind for it. We will cover some of the ways that it was successful, and some of the limitations that we encountered. The things that we will highlight about the former system include: Data Model Overview of the old format and limitations encountered. Technologies Utilized Issues with products that have a small user and developer base. Our XSLT experience. Architecture A look at the single-machine model and how it relates to scalability and redundancy. Development and Workflow The “learning project management as we go” adventures. Next, we will cover the goals behind the current version of the Portal. As there are several aspects of the system, we’ll be looking at different areas of importance that drove our decisions. The topic areas will parallel those covered in the previous system. Data Model The improvements made to our current data format, based on the limitations of the old format. Technologies Utilized Technologies we used to build our new system. Reasons for selecting these specific technologies. A brief overview of the potential of web frameworks, focusing on Django. Architecture Explanation of and benefits of the “shared-nothing” approach. Scalable and Deployable. Development and Workflow Moving from one developer to several. Content management and workflow tools and procedures. Division of tasks and collaboration. The motivation behind “rolling our own”. Our goal in this presentation is not so much to present a “this is how everybody should be doing it” argument, but rather to highlight some of the issues that we encountered and our approaches to resolving them. It is our hope that other groups can learn from our mistakes and successes as they seek to implement their own Digital Repository systems.Item Digital Repository for Beach Management Data(2014-03-25) McElfresh, Laura; Baca, David; Texas A&M University at GalvestonThe Galveston Island Park Board of Trustees, a governmental entity created in 1962 by the Texas Legislature, is responsible for preserving and promoting the Island's natural resources, including its beaches. The Park Board produces data and documents -- studies, reports, policy advisories, and other information -- which may not necessarily fall under the purview of government document depository mandates, but should still be openly accessible to citizens. Texas A&M University at Galveston, as an institute dedicated to higher education and scholarship in the marine sciences, marine engineering, and maritime professions, is a natural home for this kind of scientific and economic information. In January 2014, the Jack K. Williams Library at Texas A&M - Galveston and the Galveston Island Park Board of Trustees formed a partnership to create a repository for preservation and open sharing of these documents. This brief presentation will outline our progress to date.Item Embedding A Digital Repository within the Texas A&M University Library Web Services(2008-06-09) Leggett, John; Tarpley, Jeremy; Ponsford, Bennett; Phillips, Scott; Mikeal, Adam; Maslov, Alexey; Messinger, Tina; Armstrong, Tommy; Creel, James; Texas A&M University; Texas Digital LibraryThe development and deployment of the Manakin theme for the digital repository at Texas A&M University provides an informative case study in embedding DSpace repositories within an institutional web presence. Last year, the Texas A&M University Libraries began a redesign of the existing web interface in accordance with a new institution-wide branding initiative. A collaborative effort between administrators, designers, and developers has yielded a look and feel for the institutional repository that integrates seamlessly with the library's and university's other web services while providing the unique functionalities required by various and diverse collections. The use of Manakin themes ensured that the development process was modular and employed well-established web development techniques and technologies. The design of the digital repository theme began with consultations between library designers and TAMU branding authorities. The designers used Photoshop to produce mock-up pages for primary use cases with colors, fonts, and graphics that adhered to the institutional branding mandates while satisfying usability heuristics. These designs underwent iterative refinement with comments from administrators and developers. When all parties were satisfied, the design team translated the images into HTML and CSS mock-ups for web browser rendering. Designers handed off the HTML code to the Manakin theme developers, who coded XSL to produce such HTML from XML DRI data generated from the repository. Developers coded additional Javascript to implement the UI vision of the designers. Developers produced two Manakin themes of different specificity - A theme for the repository in general, and one that specifically applied to the Geologic Atlas of the United States map collection. That theme, known as "Geofolios," employs the Yahoo! Maps API and Google Earth overlays to allow patrons to browse the collection in the context of manipulable maps indicating the geographic context of the folios. In summary, embedding the digital repository in the institutional web presence required no more effort than other XML-based content would have. The pre-development design process and use of XSL transforms are standard practices in institutional web development. Manakin's ability to apply themes to specific content enabled a neat separation of development between the Geofolios theme and the general theme. THe augmentation of additional collections with customized interfaces in the future would be a similarly modular activity. Importantly, the use of Manakin themes provides a seamless integration between the repository and the library's existing web presence, reducing patrons' cognitive overhead in navigating between the repository and other services.Item Energy Systems Laboratory:Building a Repository Collection and Planning for the Future(2008-06-09) Koenig, Jay; Haberl, Jeff S.; Gilman, Don; Hughes, Sherrie; Texas A&M University; Energy Systems LaboratoryThe Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) is a division of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and part of the Texas A&M University System. First established in 1939, the ESL maintains a testing laboratory on the Riverside Campus in Bryan, Texas, and offices on the main campus of Texas A&M. The group consists of five faculty members from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as well as three faculty members from the Departments of Architecture and Construction Science. The lab currently employs approximately 120 staff members, including mechanical engineers, computer science graduates, lab technicians, support staff, and graduate and undergraduate students. The Lab focuses on energy-related research, energy efficiency, and emissions reduction, and has a total annual income for external research and testing exceeding $4.5 million. With energy research and policy at the forefront of public discussion, both academic and political, the urgency of making this research publicly available is very high. The Energy Systems Laboratory collection in the Texas A&M Digital Repository is unique in a number of ways. After first contacting the library in March 2005, the ESL became one of Texas A&M's earliest adopters of the repository. The collection is very diverse, and contains conference proceedings, published articles, technical reports, and electronic theses and dissertations produced by students affiliated with the ESL. The ESL is also the first repository client to take the initiative of assigning staff members to learn the batch loading process for themselves, both relieving library staff of the burden and allowing the collection to expand even more rapidly. The collection has also successfully made the transition, despite some challenges, from the original DSpace interface to the Manakin-themed repository now in place. After three years, the collection remains one of the largest collections in the system, continues to grow as more of the group's research and publications are added to the collection, and is held forth as a model collection to prospective repository clients in the Texas A&M community. This is a testament to the Energy Systems Laboratory's dedication to the building of their repository collection, and their clear understanding of the advantages of open access. This presentation will discuss the excellent working relationship built between the Energy System Laboratory and the library, and how much relationships can be fostered with other collections as the repository expands. It will also recount the events leading up to the ESL's original adoption of the repository, and will chronicle the evolution of the repository collection, the addition of new content, the transition and adaptation to new technology, the copyright and other challenges faced, and the group's future needs for additional tools and services.Item Enhancing Educational Access to Art(2012-05-25) Higgins, Jessica; Karadkar, Unmil P.; Pavelka, Karen; Zinser, Catherine; University of Texas at AustinArt museums are an important unit on several university campuses. These museums bring value to the university community by serving as custodians of paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. These museums serve as a resource of unparalleled importance in education related to art, architecture, language, and culture by providing instructors with access to rare artifacts of cultural significance. While the museum staff is committed to helping faculty locate items of interest, they are hard pressed for time and do not always possess the domain-specific vocabulary used by instructors in diverse disciplines. Artifacts in the museums are organized and described by museum professionals, while they are used by academics. The resulting disconnect between the expectations of both groups affects the use of these artifacts. We aim to address this issue by enhancing a collection of prints and drawings at the Blanton Museum of Art with a rich, domain-specific description that meets the expectations of a multi-disciplinary faculty. Instructors in several departments at UT Austin use the Prints and Drawings Collection as a teaching tool. This collection includes over 13,000 artifacts, which were executed over four centuries. This is a closed collection and the collection manager provides access to specific prints and drawings upon request. The metadata related to the prints can be accessed only through computers situated in the museum, further limiting access to it. Thus, instructors are unable to browse the collection at their convenience and rely heavily on the Blanton staff to provide suggestions for relevant works. This practice results in a small pool of items being viewed repeatedly, while other prints of interest go unnoticed. We take a used-centered design approach to create a prototype of a richly described repository of artifacts from this collection. We started by conducting interviews of faculty in the areas of Art, Art History, French, and Architecture to gain an understanding of their challenges in accessing the collection and their needs for effectively locating items of interest. Based on the responses from these instructors, we have made two modifications to the infrastructure: firstly, we populated a repository using CollectiveAccess, an open source repository software, with representative samples of prints used by these instructors to enable long-distance, internet-based access. We also augmented the metadata contained in the museum’s proprietary cataloging software to include fields and content desired by the instructors using the Getty Institute’s CDWA Lite schema. The resulting repository is thus based on open standards, improving the potential for its use by various demographics on campus, as well as, improving its visibility for remote users and repositories through interoperability protocols. We are currently evaluating this prototype repository. In the first stage, we are evaluating our design with the help of the instructors who set the expectations for this repository. This evaluation will help us fine tune the interface features, repository architecture, as well as our use of the CDWA Lite schema.Item Intermediate DSpace: Metadata Imports and Exports(2017-03-22) McElfresh, LauraItem Introduction to DSpace(2016-12-08) Lindsey, Nerissa S.; McElfresh, Laura KaneItem Latin American Digital Initiatives: Building a Post-Custodial Digital Repository in Islandora(2016-05-25) Polk, Theresa E.; Cofield, Melanie; Cornell, Brandon; Gibson, Jon; Gonzalez-Roa, Jose; University of Texas at AustinThis panel will discuss the development of the Latin American Digital Initiatives (LADI - http://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/home) repository within the Islandora/Fedora repository framework. LADI is the result of a grant-funded pilot project to develop a post-custodial approach to international archival collaboration at LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at the University of Texas. Under the auspices of the grant, LLILAS Benson partnered with three archival institutions in Central America to digitally preserve and provide broad online access to collections that document human rights in the region. Rather than physically taking custody of the collections, we provided the archival training and equipment necessary to preserve, arrange, describe, and digitize them locally onsite, while our partner institutions conducted the digitization work, and created the descriptive metadata. This approach, informed by post-custodial archival theory, sought to maximize local control and build trust towards the shared stewardship of these unique archival collections. The collections have been made freely available online in collaboration with the University of Texas Libraries. Project staff worked closely with UT Libraries’ Metadata Coordinator and the Technology Innovation & Strategy unit to create the LADI platform utilizing the open source Islandora/Fedora repository framework. For UT Libraries, the project served as a test case for in-house development with Islandora, helping to identify resource, staffing, and workflow requirements. In this panel, the core project team will share how -- through thoughtful design, Drupal theming, scripts to facilitate ingest, and careful control of metadata and indexing -- we were able to bring the collections online without modifying core Islandora assets. At the same time, we will also discuss some of the distinctive challenges and lessons learned from instantiating a post-custodial digital archive in the Islandora repository framework. The presentation will conclude by demonstrating how the LADI repository is enabling new insights into scholarship on human rights in the region. Uniting these three distinct collections within the same repository framework provides a new perspective into how both repression and resistance were internationalized at the height of the Central American conflicts. It is also providing the foundation for a new graduate history seminar at UT that integrates traditional modes of research along with digital scholarship methodologies in critically interacting with, interpreting, and contextualizing these unique collections.Item Launching ShoreNet(2016-05-25) McElfresh, Laura; Mitchell, Alexandra J.; Baca, David R.; Texas A&M University at GalvestonTwo years ago at TCDL, the Jack K. Williams Library announced the creation of "A Clearinghouse for Beach Management Data". At the 2015 ASPBA Coastal Conference this past October, we finally launched the fully functional site with an EduBlogs (WordPress) overlay and browsable ESRI map. Come learn how we got from there to here.Item Low Cost Metadata Management: Tools and tips for catalogers(2017-05-23) Furubotten, Lisa; Olivarez, Joseph; Pennington, Eric; Dabrowski, Anna J.; Texas A&M UniversityMany libraries need efficient and low-cost mechanisms to create, refine, modify, or crosswalk bibliographic data for use in digital repositories. Catalogers have the skills to serve this need. In this tutorial, we identify existing software tools for catalogers working on metadata management tasks. We also present examples of effectively using and combining these tools into workflows. In particular, we cover: OCLC Connection, MARCEdit, Excel, Access, Open Refine, Oxygen, etc. These tools permit catalogers to efficiently create and modify metadata for the institution’s needs, from Dublin Core for an institutional repository to MARCXML for HathiTrust.Item Manakin Architecture: Understanding Modularity in Manakin(2007-05-30) Phillips, Scott; Green, Cody; Maslov, Alexey; Mikeal, Adam; Leggett, John; Texas A&M UniversityManakin is the second release of the DSpace XML UI project. Manakin introduces a modular interface layer, enabling an institution to easily customize DSpace according to the specific needs of a particular repository, community, or collection. Manakin’s modular architecture enables developers to add new features to the system without affecting existing functionality. This presentation will introduce Manakin’s modular architecture from a technical perspective, with an emphasis on extending Manakin’s feature set to meet local needs. First the project’s goals will be introduced, followed by a discussion of Manakin’s relationship with DSpace. Next an architectural overview of the primary components will be given: • DRI: The Digital Repository Interface (DRI) is an XML schema defining a language that allows aspects and themes to communicate. Manakin uses DRI as the abstraction layer between the repository’s business logic and presentation. The schema is adapted for digital repositories through the use of embedded METS-based metadata packages. • Aspects: Manakin aspects are components that provide features for the digital repository. These modular components can be added, removed, or replaced through simple configuration changes, enabling Manakin’s features to be extended to meet the needs of specific repositories. Aspects are linked together forming an “aspect chain”. This chain defines the set of features of a particular repository. • Themes: Manakin themes stylize the look-and-feel of the repository, community, or collection. The modular characteristics of themes enable them to encapsulate all the resources necessary to create a unique look-and-feel into one package. Themes may be configured to apply to a range of objects, from an entire repository down to a single page. Finally the presentation will close with a walkthrough of the Manakin architecture detailing how these components work together to form the Manakin framework.Item March 2018 Texas Digital Library Forum(Texas Digital Lirary, 2018-03-21) Park, Kristi; Mumma, Courtney; DeForest, LeaPresentation for the March 2018 Texas Digital Library (TDL) Forum. This TDL Forum featured Kristi Park providing an update on TDL staffing as well as a services update on OJS, Vireo and the Hyku pilot project. Laura McElfresh gave an update on the DSpace Education Working Group. Courtney Mumma discussed upcoming conferences and events where TDL will be the keynote. Lea DeForest spoke about upcoming TDL events including TCDL, a TLA meet-up and the March Metadata Mixer.Item Open Access Engagement: A Look Inside University Repositories(Texas Digital Library, 2021-05-28) Vernon, Emily