2013 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2249.1/64289

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 46

Curation and Preservation Services: Adapting Frameworks and Tools to Enable Sustainable Programs
(2013-04-30) McGovern, Nancy; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Since 1996, the digital preservation community has been developing and refining standards and practice. For more than a decade, organizations responsible for managing digital content over time have been adapting and adopting the results of those community efforts. This paper looks at organizational examples of using community documents such as Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities, Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model, and Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC), and other community documents as frameworks for developing and sustaining digital curation and preservation programs. The backdrop for this work is the organizational developmental model developed by Kenney and McGovern for the Digital Preservation Management workshop series that has been running since 2003.
ETD Embargoes: A Comparison of Institutional Policies and Practices
(2013-05-09) Larrison, Stephanie; Hammons, Laura; Henry, Geneva; Texas State University; Texas A&M University; Rice University
ETD embargoes policies and practices vary widely among institutions. Although institutional websites often make embargo policies quite clear, the practices that support those policies is less so. Even more interesting, but less obvious, are the history and rational surrounding the development of embargo policies, as well as how exceptional cases and appeals for extensions, redactions, and permanent holds are handled. The Vireo ETD Submission and Management System is a flexible tool that can accommodate variations in ETD embargo policies and practices to support the needs of the institution. In this birds of a feather session, you will have an opportunity to learn the what, why, and how of embargo policy and management (both inside and outside of Vireo) from three different institutions.
The Monster MeSH!—Taming Medical Subject Headings for an ETD Collection
(2013-03-26) Perkins, Heather; Kainerstorfer, Cameron; DeWeese, Misou; UT Southwestern Medical Center
In 2012, the repository administrator and metadata manager developed a semester-long project to review and modify subject headings for the electronic theses and dissertations collection within the UT Southwestern institutional repository. This also served as a test case and springboard for future intern projects. The focus of this poster will be the challenges encountered during the project, how those challenges were met for this project, and other options for future consideration. Poster highlights: Schedule coordination with larger intern program (rounding, departmental visits, etc.) DSpace training program for intern Issues with access for a non-institutional account Remote work and file transfers Project documentation: methods and motivations Medical institutions and special needs (MeSH, HIPAA, and more)
@InstitutionalRepository How Do I Preserve Internet Ephemera? #Twitter #Wordpress
(2013-03-26) Gaede, Franny; University of Texas at Austin
University repositories are tasked with collecting and preserving the intellectual output of their institutions. Colleges and departments are adopting social media to connect with alumni, participate in disciplinary conversations, and encourage community engagement. These ephemeral communications must be captured and preserved to ensure a comprehensive record of the university’s scholarly output. Developing a standard for ingesting and describing these materials poses a novel challenge. This poster will present, as a case study, the specific challenges faced by the University of Texas Digital Repository when preserving the Department of American Studies’ Twitter feed (@AmStudies) and Wordpress blog (AMS::ATX). It will recommend best practices for preservation and access, including content capture, file formats, and metadata standards.
Metadata Quality in Texas Woman's University's Digital Collection
(2013-03-26) Bookman, Amber; Texas Woman's University
Accessibility to information despite physical proximity is now an expectation of many students and professionals. However, few appreciate what it takes to translate physical media and archival items into digital representations that can be stored, searched and retrieved virtually. A collection developed around a well-formed structure and metadata schema is necessary to address the complexities of this representation issue. However, the actual content and how it is entered will ultimately determine the usability of a digital collection. The Woman’s Digital Collection curated by Texas Woman's University Libraries is one case that exemplifies some of the challenges of creating quality metadata records for a rapidly expanding collection. Inconsistencies within this one collection are typical of those that are likely to occur elsewhere as the demand for digital content increases. In identifying the issues that adversely affect the completeness, accuracy and consistency of the information populating these records, solutions for avoiding these problems emerge that can be applied to future projects.
Resource Description & Access -- Now or later?
(2013-03-26) Marchock, Ann; Melanson, David; University of Texas at Austin
When Too Many Cooks Do NOT Spoil the Broth: Selecting and Implementing a New Web Scale Discovery Tool for a Large University Library.
(2013-04-29) Fleming, Jane; Kessler, April; Diaz, Jade; Lyon, Colleen; Snow, Sara; University of Texas at Austin
In early spring of 2011, the University of Texas at Austin Libraries convened a working group to recommend a discovery tool to be implemented on the Library’s Web site. The group's broad membership of user services staff, technical services staff, librarians and classified staff and branch and main library staff, reflected the desire that this search function provide patrons the "Google-like" single point access to the entirety of the University's collections and databases that our patrons now expect. A second working group was convened to implement the tool chosen. The second group included a few core members of the first and was extended to include staff qualified to consider the implementation's information architecture, the user (patron) experience and its integration with the Libraries’ existing technology and bibliographic processes. The new search tool, dubbed "scoUT", was fully launched in August 2012, and has been the most successful rollout of any new service at the Libraries. The poster presentation will cover the process to the present day. Both teams began with research into best and recommended practices for their tasks, and an evaluation of peer institutions' experiences and implementations. Both formally sought the input of library staff and of users. The first working group developed an extensive evaluation tool for discovery tool products, evaluated the tools and made a recommendation from among the final candidate tools, and contributed to the development of an RFP and to negotiation of the final contract for the tool. The second working group guided the customization of the discovery tool's capabilities to the library's needs, devised a continuing process for updating bibliographic metadata on the libraries' holdings and subscription services, and designed the incorporation of the discovery tool into the Libraries' Web site. The group also coordinated the marketing of the tool and the development of training in its use for library staff and the Libraries' user community. Concurrently to other work, group members created and carried out a usability assessment plan. Heuristic evaluation and usability testing of other libraries’ implementations of the same product, an analysis of analytics and search logs for the existing UT interface, and an assessment of technology constraints informed the information architecture and design. The prototype of the scoUT search interface and the final scoUT search interface were tested and assessed between May and August 2012 in an iterative design process leading to the version in full release. Months of staff training preceded the full launch. Feedback on staff training prompted subsequent tutorials in customizing scoUT training for different user groups. We continue to collect feedback on scoUT to enable us improve service to our users. The University of Texas Libraries' rollout of scoUT exemplifies what can be accomplished when groups of individuals who collectively have broad knowledge from across the library structure work together. (Presenters from both working groups will be at the poster reception to field questions.)
On the Road Again: Mapping a Texana Collection
(2013-03-26) Serrano, Ann; Lapka, Stefanie; University of Texas at Austin; Briscoe Center for American History
Digital mapping and charting holds great potential for repositories. Mapping print collections provides visualization for digital exhibits and context for remote users. This poster presentation will showcase a prototype digital map of the Frank Caldwell Collection, 1778-1941, which contains approximately 3,000 rare books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and other printed ephemera about Texas, collected by Austin-based traveling salesman Frank Caldwell. Maintained by the Briscoe Center for American History, the Caldwell Collection represents a comprehensive scope of items published in and about Texas between the early 18th and the mid-20th centuries. The Caldwell Collection is a geographically cohesive collection of significant size with extensive bibliographic records, which makes it an ideal selection for this prototype. Using the online application Topo.ly, the map is populated with metadata extracted from the bibliographic records which were created using AACR2R, LCC, and LCSH descriptive standards.
Google-izing Projects: Managing Large-Scale Digitization Projects via the Cloud
(2013-03-26) Stuhr, Darryl; Logan, Timothy; Baylor University
The Riley Digitization Center at Baylor University manages many projects throughout the year, digitizing thousands of items and hundreds of thousands of pages. To handle high-volume throughput, track project status, manage source materials, and ensure a high level of quality, the Digital Projects Group develops and maintains a distributed project infrastructure that supports extensive and complex workflows. Managing many projects down to the item-level through an infrastructure built to handle quality control, data flow, multi-format processing and preservation, with a wide variety of staff including interns, graduate and undergraduate students, project-specific temps, and a few full-time staff, requires the use of robust project management tools available for reporting and data entry at all digitization and processing workstations. Unable to find a single tool that met all of our needs, we began to utilize a collection of tools, many of them free, such as Google Docs (Spreadsheets and Documents), Linux utilities, Evernote, and DropBox. This presentation will address Baylor's implementation of the variety of tools used to manage digitization projects at the Riley Digitization Center - lessons learned and opportunities for growth. We hope that the tools and procedures will help others build a framework of inexpensive tools to organize and manage digitization projects large and small.
Looking Through the Eyes of Texas
(2013-03-26) Brassie, Tanya; Serrano, Ann; University of Texas at Austin; Briscoe Center for American History
This 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.
Mapping the Southwest Project: Putting the Region’s Maps Online
(2013-03-26) Alemneh, Daniel; Jones, Jerrell; Hartman, Cathy; Phillips, Mark; Hodges, Ann; Husman, Ben; University of North Texas; University of Texas at Arlington
The University of North Texas Libraries and its partner, the University of Texas at Arlington’s Special Collections, are working on a 3-year (2010 to 2013) collaborative “Mapping the Southwest” project, sponsored by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) We the People grant. For this project we are digitizing 5,000 historically-significant maps and more than 80% are already processed and available online for free public access through The Portal to Texas History: http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/UTAM/browse/ All of the maps digitized for this grant meet the UNT metadata requirements, which means that all are Open Archive Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) harvestable, and are interoperable or compliant with widely adopted standards (such as Dublin Core, MARC, MODS, and PREMIS). On the Portal, users can find materials using a basic search, an advanced search, or through multiple browse interfaces. Digital object display on the Portal has been optimized for indexing by Google and other search engines. Overall, 44% of all traffic to the Portal is referred from search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. To attract lay people to the good quality resources in our collections, we have also added extensive external links into our digital materials from Wikipedia, which has resulted in significant increases in usage of the collections. Among other digital libraries functionalities, when users find maps in the Portal, the maps manifest within a zoom feature that does not require any special downloads or software. The zooming software works with Flash Player, which is ubiquitous, reaching 99% of Internet users. The zooming feature allows users to see every detail of the map; grab and move the map with a click and pull mouse motion; or move the area of selection by dropping and dragging the selection area on the object icon. As we approach the project completion phase, this poster describes the lessons learned, and project impact not only in terms of showcasing the cartography of the region, but also in promoting best practices and advancing the capacity of academic libraries to reliably curate, preserve, and provide seamless access to such wide-format items to the diverse global user community.
Collection Development for an Institutional Repository through Collaborations between Departments
(2013-03-26) Randtke, Wilhelmina; Detweiler, Brian; St. Mary's University
Poster presentation: St. Mary’s University School of Law’s Sarita Kenedy East Law Library recently launched an institutional repository. The School of Law and law library had no preexisting digital collections. In order to quickly acquire appropriate content, the law library focused on locating born digital materials, such as School of Law publications, which had not previously been formally archived. The law library also attempted to identify digitization performed as part of routine library operations, and to assess digitized material for long term archiving. The law library was able to quickly and efficiently build an online collection for the repository by collecting preexisting born digital material, and assessing for inclusion material provided digitally to professors after conversion from legacy formats such as microfilm, and audiotape. This poster presents on how interdepartmental collaborations provided the framework to populate a digital collection in the absence of resources or equipment dedicated specifically to digitization.
Scanning TRAIL Project Technical Reports: A Workflow for a Large-Scale Collaborative Digitization Effort
(2013-03-26) Tarver, Hannah; University of North Texas
As part of the Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL) project, the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries Digital Projects Unit (DPU) has been working with the University of Arizona (UA) during the last three years to digitize technical reports that have oversized fold-outs and which are of non-consistent. Project managers in the DPU have developed a straightforward workflow for handling the large volume of technical reports for this collaborative effort. The poster would illustrate the process we use to digitize the reports including inventory, scanning, processing, metadata, and upload. The same workflow could be used by other institutions to manage similar large-scale digitization of text objects.
Implementation of a New Date/Time Standard in Digital Library Metadata
(2013-03-26) Tarver, Hannah; University of North Texas
Three years ago, the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries Digital Projects Unit (DPU) chose to switch from the International Standards Organization (ISO) date standard to the Library of Congress' Extended Date Time Format (EDTF) as the authorized format for metadata in The Portal to Texas History and the UNT Digital Library. Since the standard was still being drafted at the time, complete and appropriate use of the EDTF in the digital library system has been inconsistent. Now that the EDTF is somewhat finalized (though still in draft state), the DPU has started implementing the date format in a more organized fashion, including the preliminary use of a validation program to flag dates that do not match the specifications. The EDTF is a date standard specifically intended to be machine-readable rather than formatted for usability by people, which means that there is occasionally a disconnect between the valid representation of dates according to standards and the ways in which partner institutions have previously expressed complex dates. This presentation would discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing the EDTF, such as: the pros/cons of choosing EDTF over ISO standards; difficulties in reconciling machine-readable date strings into dates that are understandable for users; challenges of fitting library-centric date paradigms (such as the use of square brackets) into a different standard; and making local cataloging decisions about how to implement the standard and at what level.
The Denton Declaration: An Open Data Manifesto
(2013-03-26) Keralis, Spencer; Stark, Shannon; University of North Texas
On May 22, 2012 at the University of North Texas, a group of technologists and librarians, scholars and researchers, university administrators, and other stakeholders gathered to discuss and articulate best practices and emerging trends in research data management. The resulting document, The Denton Declaration, bridges the converging interests of these interest groups and promotes collaboration, transparency, and accountability across organizational and disciplinary boundaries. This poster presentation will describe the process of developing the Declaration, crediting collaborators and participating institutions; will discuss why we chose the genre of the Manifesto (rather than a more traditional report), reproduce key principles of open data from the Declaration, illustrate the international network of cosigners that have championed the Declaration, and invite the TCDL community to join us in advocating these principles throughout the academy.
The Development and Implementation of an Interdepartmental Digitization Workflow
(2013-04-19) Westbrook, R. Niccole; Prilop, Valerie; University of Houston
The science of creating workflows that involve multiple departments within a large organization can be challenging, especially when the projects handled by the workflow are complex and involve a number of stakeholders. Such a project to revise a workflow dealing with the digitization of unique library materials in a university library was undertaken by the presenters. Libraries and similar institutions are increasingly embarking on digitization projects that involve a number of participants and stakeholders, but creation of workflows to complete these projects is not a topic that has been widely discussed or reported on. This poster will use the project as a case study for developing and implementing a digitization workflow. Among the topics to be addressed are the interdepartmental nature of the workflow, the move toward and impact of more written documentation about digitization projects, and the challenges associated with shepherding the workflow through a subsequent major departmental transition.
“This is totally going on our blog.” Using WordPress and Edublogs to Enhance Access to Digital Collections
(2013-03-26) Ames, Eric; Baylor University
From its first post on November 9, 2011 to the present, the Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections Blog has been access 10,630 times by users around the world. Increasingly, the blog serves as a major entry point into the collection, with users’ Google searches leading them to its posts detailing everything from in-depth looks at a particular digital collection to professional musings and analysis of the processes behind the creation of digital collections. This poster presentation will provide an in-depth look at how the Digital Projects Group uses the blog to achieve a number of goals, such as: Providing context for collections Establishing a resource for small museums and archives to receive information on digitization trends and processes Presenting unique stories and items from the Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections Serving as a central clearinghouse for information related to the DPG The poster presentation will be of interest to institutions that are considering starting a blog in conjunction with their digital collections; institutions that are currently using a blog but are looking for new ways to utilize them; and anyone interested in how to mine existing digital collections for stories to present via a blog.
Digital Curation Micro-Applications: Digital Lifecycle Management with AutoHotkey
(2013-03-26) Weidner, Andrew; Wilson, Robert John III; Alemneh, Daniel; University of North Texas
Maintaining usable and sustainable digital collections requires a complex set of actions that address the many challenges at various stages of the digital object lifecycle. Digital curation activities enhance access and retrieval, maintain quality, add value, and facilitate use and re-use over time. Accordingly, the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries develop and adopt tools, workflows, and quality control mechanisms that streamline production and quality assurance activities. This poster demonstrates open source software tools coded with AutoHotkey that the UNT digital libraries group has developed for use during the pre-ingest and post-ingest stages of the digital resource lifecycle. AutoHotkey is free and open source software for the Windows operating system which helps digital curators to create customized micro-applications for digital lifecycle management. Developers write scripts that embed multiple keystrokes and system commands in a single key combination, or hotkey. In addition to a portable version for script developers who frequently change workstations, AutoHotkey allows users to create executable files from source scripts for use on computers that do not have AutoHotkey installed. The AutoHotkey scripting language supports programming constructs (e.g., variables, loops, conditionals) and dynamic graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Simple AutoHotkey scripts are particularly useful for large projects that require repetitive file management actions. For ongoing batch processing activities, more complex scripts improve efficiency for those who are unfamiliar with command line equivalents. These scripts allow digital curators to perform automated file management and data entry tasks within the operating system’s GUI. The Digital Libraries Division at the UNT Libraries has constructed a set of tools that bundle complex AutoHotkey scripts together in a convenient GUI. This poster demonstrates how AutoHotkey micro-applications streamline workflows for the creation and maintenance of digital objects and their associated metadata.
CONTENTdm to DSpace- Why?
(2013-03-26) Perrin, Joy; Texas Tech University
This poster outlines TTU’s decision to move all our digital library content from CONTENTdm to DSpace. The poster will include statistics and results from some of our tests that showed that for us CONTENTdm was not serving our users’ needs or our stated goal of making our collections as accessible as possible. This poster will discuss why DSpace looks like it will serve our needs better.
Uncovering the Mysteries of Metadata Harvesting: Optimizing Digital Library Content for Summon Discovery Tool Access
(2013-03-26) Brett, Kelsey Renee; Thompson, Santi; University of Houston
One of the most valuable attributes of a discovery system is its ability to harvest locally owned digital materials and make them discoverable through a single search box along with the rest of the library’s collection. At the University of Houston Libraries, we sought to make local digital content more findable in our discovery system, Serials Solutions Summon. In order to do this, we had to better understand the way digital library content in CONTENTdm mapped to Summon and work within the constraints of each commercial product to achieve our desired outcome. While investigating the ways Summon harvested our digital content, we discovered that a majority our digital material was being described by a catch-all content type called “Archival Material” and the extensive efforts made by our metadata librarians and staff to describe digital items were being lost in the harvesting process. We also discovered that there was no way to limit a search to exclusively digital library materials. This motivated us to explore the details of the Summon harvesting process and develop solutions to enhance the discoverability and description of digital materials within Summon. Our poster will outline our efforts to increase the findability of digital materials, including our research of the OAI mapping process that was happening behind-the-scenes at Serials Solutions, our discussions with them about the possibilities of modifying the default mapping that was currently in place, and the strategies we developed achieve our desired outcomes. We will discuss the challenges and successes that we had throughout the process, and how we modified our local content to work well with our discovery product.

Browse

Recent Submissions