2017 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2249.1/82126

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    An Update on Development of the Vireo 4.x ETD Submission and Management System
    (2017-05-23) Creel, James; Huff, Jeremy; Savell, Jason; Welling, William; Laddusaw, Ryan; Hahn, Douglas; Bolton, Michael; Steans, Ryan; Larrison, Stephanie
    The Vireo ETD (Electronic Thesis and Dissertation) submission and management system, an open source project managed by the Texas Digital Library (TDL) has seen years of real-world use processing thousands of ETDs at dozens of institutions. In Fall of 2015, the Texas Digital Library and Texas A&M University began development on the 4.x release of Vireo. The biggest deliverables of the new version are to bring the application into a modern Web application stack, enable controlled vocabularies for metadata fields, and, most ambitiously, to allow a completely customizable workflow for every institution or degree program. The release of the latest version has faced delays on two fronts. First, the enormous complexity of designing a completely customizable workflow was not made manifest in initial planning. Second, the project staffing was disrupted when the lead developer left to pursue other career opportunities. Nevertheless, the project is nearing an initial release and is undergoing initial testing at several institutions. The feature set of Vireo 3 represents many years of experience and development. The Vireo 4.x effort to bring this enormous feature set into a modern Web application stack and introduce customizability in the workflow has entailed not only a comprehensive re-write of the code, but also significant design innovations. This presentation gives a preview of the 4.0 release demonstrating the impressive new capabilities of Vireo with customizable workflows and controlled vocabularies. It also discusses the software development process and how interested institutions can contribute.
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    UNT Libraries ETD Citation Analysis Project
    (2017-05-24) Andrews, Pamela; Klein, Janette; Harker, Karen; Alemneh, Daniel; University of North Texas
    This presentation will explore the project plan for an upcoming citation analysis of University of North Texas Libraries' Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Collection. The goal of this project is to create and implement a method for conducting citation analysis on ETDs for collection development purposes. The first stage of our project will be an analysis of ETDs for citations using items from the digital library. As the Portal to Texas History was launched in 2002, this will define our corpus sample from 2002 to present, providing over 6,000 ETDs for analysis. This pilot will allow us to test our method on a specific URL string target before expanding to collect broader citation data for analysis. In this presentation, I will briefly outline our goals, pilot study, and preliminary methodology.
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    Mulling Over Multilingual Metadata: Making the Case for Ethical Compromise
    (2017-05-24) Ballou, Jullianne Hughes; Polk, Theresa; Cofield, Melanie; Kung, Susan Smythe; Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, University of Texas at Austin; University of Texas at Austin
    Descriptive metadata provides an initial filter through which users discover, select, and access information resources, often facilitated by use of standardized language and controlled vocabularies. However, multilingual and international collections can provide a particular challenge, as they do not always fit neatly within broadly accepted English and/or North American standards and schemas. Rather, blanket adoption of these tools can serve to embed bias, misrepresent cultural heritage materials, and marginalize the communities represented by them. A panel of library professionals from different libraries and archives at UT, who work with multilingual metadata and international collections, will discuss ways to promote cultural competencies and inclusivity in metadata decision-making. Topics to be discussed include cultural bias in controlled vocabularies, international name authorities, content management system limitations to building multilingual collections, and system-agnostic best practices. We will discuss roadblocks we’ve come up against and workable solutions. Panelists represent different perspectives and experiences with multilingual metadata. Jullianne Ballou, a project archivist at the Harry Ransom Center, will talk about building the Gabriel García Márquez digital archive in CONTENTdm with Spanish and English language metadata. Melanie Cofield, Metadata Coordinator at UT Libraries, will summarize challenges encountered working with metadata in two multilingual digital repositories (The Archive for Indigenous Languages of Latin America and Latin American Digital Initiatives), and share pragmatic, generalizable approaches grounded in best practice. Theresa Polk, Post-Custodial Archivist at LLILAS Benson, will discuss metadata decision-making in a post-custodial context, and implementation challenges with Islandora in the Latin American Digital Initiatives (LADI) project. Susan Smythe Kung, AILLA project manager and linguist, will examine AILLA's attempt to represent indigenous voices in the digital repository by including metadata that is both in hundreds of different indigenous languages as well as about those languages.
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    Performing Arts Research and Linked Digital Artifacts
    (2017-05-24) Egenes, John; University of Otago
    Using the production of a record album by New Zealand artist Donna Dean as a case study, I am working to create a digital archive that will allow researchers in the Performing Arts to collect and archive data from their performances, exhibitions, compositions, recordings, films, and other "one-off" events that currently are not able to be directly referenced by other researchers. This project will involve collaboration between Otago University's Library, Information Science, Computer Science, and Music Department, in order to create the database archive and user interface. The project is in its initial stages, and I am seeking input or ideas from others -- especially those in fields of data collection and management.
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    Scholars@TAMU, an Integrated Research Information Management System, as Sociotechnical System: Contextualized Use Cases for Different Disciplinary Communities
    (2017-05-24) Herbert, Bruce; Budzise-Weaver, Tina; Green, Sheila; Meador, Arwen; Texas A&M University
    Scholars@TAMU is a new research information management system (RIM) at Texas A&M that compiles scholarly expertise profiles for faculty and other research investigators to improve the discoverability of scholarly expertise, enhance the scholarly identity of researchers and facilitating new research collaborations. Scholars@TAMU serves as system of record for academic reputation at Texas A&M by harvesting publicly available research data (e.g., grants and publications), and restricted/proprietary data from disparate sources into compiled expertise profiles for faculty, investigators, scholars, clinicians, community partners, and facilities. We have used the concept of sociotechnical systems to guide the development of library services that use Scholars@TAMU for different disciplinary communities. Describing Scholars@TAMU as a socio-technical system highlights the interaction between people and the RIM, especially in the context of Texas A&M organizations and work places. The Office of Scholarly Communications is collaborating with subject liaisons librarians serving the College of Medicine, the Performance Studies Department, and the School of Public Health. While all three departments are broadly interested in scholarly impact and reputations, the varied norms of the disciplines as well as the specific goals of the faculty and organizations required us to develop different services as well as adapt Scholars@TAMU and the data contained in the faculty profiles for each organization. This presentation will describe the use cases identified in three disciplinary communities at Texas A&M broadly focused on scholarly and societal impact, as well as the contextualize programs that were developed to meet these needs.
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    The Board of Regents Reports and Minutes digitization case study: how we did it faster, cheaper, and better
    (2017-05-24) Moore, Jeremy; North, Megan; Peters, Todd C.; Mazzei, Erin; Texas State University
    Alkek Library's Digital & Web Services Department at Texas State University is digitizing the University Archives' Board of Regents Reports and Minutes collection. The collection is comprised of an estimated 45,000 pages including bound books, most of which can be unbound for rapid sheet-feed scanning, and loose-leaf onion skin pages. This presentation will describe the project lifecycle starting with why it was prioritized for digitization, the development, testing, and validation of scanning workflows using FADGI standards, and the creation of custom software to automate processes. We will also explain why our student technicians were more than happy to rescan over 700 images and why it was the best decision to make for consistency, speed, and quality.
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    Best Practices for Driving Adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER)
    (2017-05-24) Morrison, Ashley J.; University of Texas at Austin
    Over the course of a semester, I identified instructors at the University of Texas at Austin currently building or utilizing open educational resources (OER) as course materials. I interviewed those instructors to learn more about their use of OER and identified and documented best practices, which were distributed to subject librarians, to share with instructors in their departments. Outside of the interview process, I conducted research on the role that librarians in other higher education institutions have in driving adoption of OER. The ultimate objective of this initiative is to help drive adoption of OER and other open access materials at UT in the long term. In my poster session, I will share with attendees the strategy I used to get useful interviews from faculty members, key insights and recommendations from my conversations and research, and a link to a completed LibGuide aimed at instructors linking to available OER and tips. I expect that my presentation will be relevant to any academic librarian interested in digital scholarship, scholarly communications, or open access.
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    Beyond the Classroom: The Advantages of Open Educational Resources and Digital Collections in University Instruction and Research
    (2017-05-24) Neal, Jessica C.; Trinity University
    Digital access platforms to special collections and archived materials paired with the increase in open educational resources (OER) has caused significant change in the tools scholars and instructors use to access, retrieve, and share knowledge. The usage of digital collections and OERs in instruction and research has cultivated a new tier in academic collaboration and analysis that provides quality visual context that extends beyond the classroom. OERs also promote a more interactive hybrid method of teaching and learning that creates space for library resources, specifically digital collections to be integrated into the curriculum and instructional aims of institutions. Together, digital collections and OERs work congruently to support the platform of Open Education, which is to link teaching, learning, and collaborative culture. This poster presents on the economic, social, and academic advantages of including OERs and digital collections in university teaching and learning.
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    Designing and implementing a digitization workflow for post-custodial initiatives at the Benson Latin American Collection, UT Austin
    (2017-05-24) Bliss, David A.; University of Texas at Austin
    This poster will detail the book digitization workflow developed at the University of Texas at Austin's Benson Latin American Collection in Fall 2016, implemented as part of a British Library Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) grant project in Michoacan, Mexico. The project will digitize 192 books containing roughly 150,000 pages of valuable but vulnerable historical material over the course of two years. This grant project dovetails with the Benson's commitment to post-custodial archival partnerships with organizations in Latin America and worldwide. Through these partnerships, Benson archivists provide equipment, training, and digital hosting to often under-resourced repositories to make their materials available to researchers -- without physically removing those materials from their original cultural contexts. For this grant project, a team of historians from Michoacan, trained by the Benson team, is responsible for digitizing and describing materials. Beginning in July 2016, the Benson team worked to develop set of workflows to be implemented by the local project team. After reviewing various digitization methods and equipment set-ups, the Benson settled on a digitization workflow that uses standard DSLR camera, copystand and lights, and Adobe Lightroom to produce high-quality scans quickly and cost-effectively. My poster will outline the Benson's EAP project and commitment to post-custodial archiving, the digitization workflow that was developed, and the lessons we learned during the build-up to (and following) its live implementation in November 2016. The poster will present the workflow developed as the Benson as an effective method of digitization at small and medium-sized institutions. The poster will also offer insight into the process and challenges of a post-custodial approach to archives, which may be new to many conference attendees.
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    Approaches developed to ensure accuracy and consistency of metadata for TRAIL reports
    (2017-05-24) Rosenbeck, Craig; University of North Texas
    The TRAIL collection is a compilation of technical reports funded by government research and published primarily ranging from 1920’s to 1980’s about a variety of topics. The TRAIL consist of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and Non-NACA objects and TRAIL stands for Technical Report Archive and Image Library. The collection consists of approximately twenty thousand objects spanning thirteen decades, covering fifty states and forty-seven countries. The University of North Texas (UNT) libraries harvested records NACA reports from the NASA website with existing metadata. There were some reports harvested from other TRAIL initiatives. The scanning of the Non-NACA reports were mostly done at the UNT libraries. In the early phases of the project, which was approximately around 2010, partial records were done, with intention of completing them at a later date. After the initial phase of the project, metadata is based on MARC records and editing was done at the UNT libraries in order to meet UNT libraries’ standards. Metadata came from different sources and had different levels of remediation. We needed a way to evaluate which records are most in need of editing and to identify problems we specifically wanted to target, instead of editing every record. There are special aspects for quality control implemented to safeguard accuracy and consistency in the digital library. The UNT libraries chose two primary issues pertaining to the TRAIL project, which could be identified and quantitatively measured. The first issue relates to incomplete records, records not having all eight required fields. The UNT libraries metadata guidelines define a minimally-viable record as having values for each of the eight required fields include: (main title, language, content description, subject, collection, institution, resource type, and format). Since, field values can be measured by the system, we can easily find records that are not “complete” based on that criteria and keep track of the number of records completed. The second primary issue refers to records that have creation dates at the first of month. This criterion is crucial because UNT libraries discovered there were discrepancies in the frequency of dates falling at the beginning of the month, mostly records harvested from NACA. The possible reason is due to a requirement or an issue entering dates into the database. An identifiable/measurable action can be implemented making minor changes to increase overall accuracy of these specific records. The priority is given to completing and fixing records of scanned objects. The graphs will display measured progress improving consistency and completeness of metadata in collection. An explanation will be given on why UNT libraries chose the criteria and other problems occurred that are not measurable. A description will be given on how improvement of findability and user experience. This poster may assist other institutions in identifying measurable problems in their metadata related to accuracy, consistency, or completeness. The implications presented in this poster, shows UNT libraries designed a plan, justified the plan, and able to show measureable results; which allows other institutions to begin implementing consistent steps to improve records.
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    Measuring Repository Use at Texas A&M University
    (2017-05-24) Dabrowski, Anna J.; Texas A&M University
    This poster concerns usage statistics for Texas A&M University's DSpace repository, OAKTrust. It will describe current data being gathered and reported, the scope and limitations of data types and sources, and undertakings to improve the accuracy and credibility of reported usage.
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    SHARE: A free, open, data set about research and scholarly activities across their life cycle
    (2017-05-24) Polk, Theresa; Adair, Ashley; University of Texas at Austin
    SHARE is a higher education initiative whose mission is to maximize research impact by making research widely accessible, discoverable, and reusable. To fulfill this mission SHARE is developing services to gather and freely share information about research and scholarly activities across their life cycle. SHARE is building its free, open, data set by gathering, cleaning, linking, and enhancing metadata that describes research activities and outputs—from data management plans and grant proposals to preprints, presentations, journal articles, and research data. This poster, presented by two members of SHARE’s pilot Curation Associates program, will present SHARE’s mission and work, as well as key technical features of SHARE 2.0, which launched in 2016.
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    Developing a long-term and large scale project to digitize photographic negatives
    (Texas Digital Library, 2017-05-25) Moore, Jeremy; North, Megan; Peters, Todd C.; Texas State University
    Texas State University received a 2017 TSLAC TexTreasures Grant, funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, to digitize at-risk photographic negatives in the University Archives. For the initial stages of our long-term project we are focusing on the photographic negatives donated by the San Marcos Daily Record to the University Archives in January 2016. The SMDR negative collection includes an estimated 800,000 images and spans approximately 70 years, from the mid-1930s to the 2000s. When combined with the negatives already housed in the University Archives, the number of negatives is estimated at 1.5 million. This presentation will describe the first stages of the project including the on-going development of two custom-built film negative capture stations that are used to digitize negatives and special considerations in the process due to the large scale and long timeline.
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    Creating Value of Digital Services: Helping Others Share Their Stories
    (Texas Digital Library, 2017-05-25) Helmke, Jonathan Michael; Stephen F. Austin State University
    How do you show value of various digital projects to administrators or to other key constituencies? How do you connect these services and projects to the strategic planning process? This presentation will share ideas on how to move your digital services from just mainly creating and developing a repository but to help the library help various constituencies tell their story. By providing this type of service, there is increased usage of the digital objects, engagements with the constituents, and create opportunities for partnerships withing and outside the library.
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    Siloed No More: Collaborations Between Digital and Special Collections
    (Texas Digital Library, 2017-05-25) Long, Kara; McCormack, Allison M.; Baylor University
    Baylor University is home to several special libraries, each with distinct missions and collecting focuses. This presentation explores a series of collaborations between a rare books cataloger and a metadata librarian in their efforts to raise the visibility of and increase access to special collections materials. We will discuss challenges to collaboration, including boundaries between cataloging and metadata management, dealing with diverse material types, and the institutional boundaries between discrete collections.To achieve our shared goals we established several “working solutions,” including the creation of MARC records and Dublin Core metadata, selective digitization, and allowing access to materials at both the collection and item levels. Rather than implementing a new software or designing a new program, these simple solutions are the direct results of reaching across institutional and departmental boundaries and finding commonalities in the work we previously did separately. In this presentation, we will highlight four digitization and cataloging projects from four different libraries as examples of successful collaborations and collaborations in progress. The oldest project involves the Historic Waco Newspapers collection at the Texas Collection, which was difficult for patrons to access due to the confusing holdings statements in the bibliographic records. The Keston Center for Religion, Politics and Society has a similar issue regarding access to their historic photo archive. The Armstrong Browning Library had digitized their extensive collection of Browning correspondence, but patrons were unable to discover the holdings in the library catalog. Finally, Central Libraries Special Collections is home to a growing collection of artists’ books. These contemporary but unique materials also present challenges in access and visibility across campus, and the nature of the materials makes casual browsing impossible. Working collaboratively, we were able to increase patron access to these materials and reduce duplication of effort. Integrating links, photos, and other digital objects into print material records has increased the visibility of both the print and digital collections in tandem. This presentation will interest catalogers, metadata librarians, and those who work with rare and special collections materials.
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    Managing Digital Assets from Curation to Exhibition
    (2017-05-25) Welling, William; Creel, James; Huff, Jeremy; Savell, Jason; Frazier, Simon; Hahn, Douglas; Bolton, Michael
    As the Libraries at Texas A&M University continue to accumulate digital assets and cultivate a Digital Asset Management Ecosystem (DAME), an urgent need is developing for metadata annotation workflows and the marshalling of documents from digitization to exhibition. Last year the Libraries presented an alpha version of MAGPIE (Metadata Assignment GUI Providing Ingest and Export) and demonstrated the curation of a scanned dissertation and its export to a DSpace repository. Since then we have built upon MAGPIE to integrate it into the DAME more broadly. MAGPIE is positioned to serve multiple projects including scanned legacy dissertations, historic and modern agricultural serials, and special image collections destined for Spotlight exhibits. The original use case of MAGPIE was to shepherd previously cataloged historic dissertations from scanning and OCR through additional curation and finally into the OAKTrust institutional repository (IR). However, as additional digitization and curation projects have manifested, MAGPIE has been a natural fit to accommodate the varying types of IR, metadata authorities, suggestion providers, and exporters. The application includes a repository interface enabling publishing metadata and assets into an IR as a single item or batch. Current implementations include Fedora and DSpace, both via their REST APIs. The interface for consuming authoritative metadata has been implemented for Voyager (again, over a REST API) and CSV spreadsheets on disk. The application also has an implementation interfacing with a metadata suggestion service using the National Agriculture Library Thesaurus. Implementations of the exporter interface provide CSV metadata spreadsheets for download and Archivematica metadata spreadsheets and DSpace Simple Archive Format (SAF) direct to the server filesystem. As applied to the scanned legacy dissertation project, MAGPIE prepopulates document MARC metadata from a Voyager authority, enables enhancement of the metadata by curators who can read the PDF or extracted text, and facilitates publication into a DSpace Repository. Batch publications can be done with an exported SAF or on an item-by-item basis in the UI with a RESTful push. The Agricultural Research Bulletins have their metadata prepopulated by a provided CSV and further enhanced by providing suggestions via semi-automatic indexing. This project also has the same ability to publish into DSpace. The Spotlight exhibit project is accommodated with the following workflow: MAGPIE prepopulates image metadata via a CSV authority, RESTfully pushes items in batch to Fedora, and allows export CSV for ingest into Spotlight. In this talk, we will examine how MAGPIE is accommodating rapid growth of our architecture, provide some background on continuing software development and improvements, demonstrate the functionality with multiple repositories and the Spotlight exhibit software, and conclude with the future direction.
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    Developing the DPLA Texas Service Hub, v.2. Collaboration to build the next generation aggregator for Texas
    (2017-05-25) Steans, Ryan; Park, Kristi; Woodward, Nicholas; Tarver, Hannah; Hiott, Judith; Halbert, Martin; Texas Digital Library; University of North Texas; Houston Public Library
    In 2016, the Texas Digital Library received an LSTA grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to develop a prototype of a new Service Hub for Texas which will provide metadata from collections across the state to the Digital Public Library America. Teaming with the University of North Texas, home to the Portal to Texas History and the Houston Public Library, TDL has undertaken the challenge to collect and share the metadata of the incredibly diverse landscape of repositories and databases from across Texas. This presentation will share the goals and mission of the pilot and the community of libraries and archives supporting the effort. We will discuss how TDL evaluated existing and potential technologies by interviewing existing Service Hubs across the country, and how we eventually settled on our choice of technology, a description of the pilot and partners, and discuss how we believe our service will be deployed. In addition, we’ll discuss plans for a Texas-centric discovery layer, intended to promote the riches of Texas in a spectrum of repositories.
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    Three Problems in Digital Libraries We Can Fix Now
    (2017-05-25) Perrin, Joy Marie; Texas Tech University
    As Texas Tech’s Digital Library has passed phase 2 of their Digital Library Initiative, phase 3 requires a broadening of our scope and looking at problems at the national level. There are three national level problems that have clear tasks and initiatives that can be tackled at the local level. Those problems are linked data, a new digital age for archival collections, and representing under-represented groups. This presentation will discuss the practical steps Texas Tech is making toward solving the problems and practical steps others can take to work toward solutions.
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    Building It Small: Accessible Approaches to AV Digitization
    (2017-05-25) Vinson, Emily; University of Houston
    Institutions large and small face the challenge of preserving and creating access to audio and moving image collection materials. This presentation will explore approaches the AV preservation community have taken to building modest AV digitization labs, with a focus on the University of Houston's effort to build a small lab to that can handle some of UH Special Collections most plentiful AV formats.
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    The Government Documents Digitization Initiative: Shepherding Resources from Shelf to Server
    (2017-05-25) Laddusaw, Ryan; Sare, Laura; Buckner, Sean; Texas A&M University
    In Fall 2016, the Texas A&M University Libraries embarked on a project to digitize a collection of Flood Insurance Studies, published by the Federal Insurance & Mitigation Administration and to submit them to HathiTrust. To enable long-term access and discoverability, we have decided to assign each item an Archival Resource Key (ARK) as both a persistent identifier and a uniform resource locator. We are using the EZID service to maintain our identifiers and their N2T (name-to-thing) resolver to persist and provide metadata for our items. We then create metadata for each report and process each one into a submission information packet according to HathiTrust’s guidelines and submit them for ingestion. A Flood Insurance Study (FIS) is a compilation and presentation of flood risk data for specific watercourses, lakes, and coastal flood hazard areas within a community. When a flood study is completed for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the information and maps are assembled into an FIS. For a few years, these studies were distributed to federal depository libraries. Many depository libraries are digitizing their collections for inclusion into HathiTrust. We noticed that some FIS digitized in HathiTrust were missing some of the foldout data tables, so we decided to digitize our collection and focus on making sure the maps and data tables were viewable in an online format. To ensure continued access to this collection, we have created an Archival Resource Key (ARK) for each item. ARKs are a type of persistent identifier that also function as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). This allows a user to enter the ARK and the N2T resolver’s hostname into a web browser and arrive at a page containing metadata that will enable them to easily identify and locate the desired resource. This allows researchers to embed the ARK in their work, and anyone can use this URL property to quickly locate and access the referenced material. By digitizing this collection, we are able to increase accessibility and discoverability of these resources. This project will produce a digital version of this collection, and will allow us to reduce the size of the physical collection and save space, without sacrificing access to any of these items. In this presentation, we will review the origins of the project, present the workflow involved from scanning to HathiTrust submission, and talk about the future of the project.