Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Matching Made In Heaven: Collections And Metadata Collaboration For Print Preservation, Alie Visser, Erin Johnson, Christina Zoricic

Western Libraries Publications

Following the trend of repurposing library space to meet modern user needs, Western University is undergoing a planned revitalization and renovation of its largest library on campus. As a result, 500,000 items will need to be shifted to other locations or off-site storage. In this session we will outline the impact of metadata work in shifting this large collection of material to a shared print preservation storage facility, in coordination with Western University’s Keep@Downsview partnership (https://downsviewkeep.org/). Keep@Downsview is a partnership of five universities to preserve the scholarly record in Ontario in a shared, high-density storage and preservation facility. We will …

Here Come The Bots: Six Tips When Designing Your Ir's Metadata For Improved Discoverability, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Rachel Evans draws from her experience as a web developer and a recent webinar on discoverability to compose a list of six tips for creating and maintaining strong metadata in digital repositories with SEO in mind. Each tip includes a personalized summary for why it is important, especially when Google bots crawl your site. The tips include a mix of best practices and common sense advice for rising to the top of search results.

TechScans is a blog to share the latest trends and technology tools for technical services law librarians. The official blog of the TS-SIS and OBS-SIS AALL …

“Who’S Driving The Bus?” Or How Digitization Is Influencing Archival Collections, Kathelene Mccarty Smith, David Gwynn, Beth Ann Koelsch, Jennifer Motszko

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archivists who work directly with unique collections, as well as librarians and other professionals who coordinate digitization, generally agree that access should be prioritized. However, each group has its own goals, standards, and timelines that may conflict with those of their colleagues. The push to maximize access to collections may, in some cases, go so far as to influence collecting policies. Is the lure of rapid digitization affecting best practices of arrangement and description? If online access to the collections is the ultimate goal, and if each stakeholder has a different perspective on how best to accomplish this, who decides …

Gla Conference Review: Workshop On Digitization For Small Institutions, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Rachel Evans summarizes the recent Georgia Library Association (GLA) conference held in Macon, GA in October 2019. Specifically Evans reviews in detail a workshop on digitization for small institutions. The workshop and by extension the blog post review share valuable resources for project managers working on digitization in their libraries and within their digital repositories as well as information about metadata standards and best practices.

TechScans is a blog to share the latest trends and technology tools for technical services law librarians. The official blog of the TS-SIS and OBS-SIS AALL groups.

The Espy Project: From Paper Archives To Digital Scholarship, Mark Wolfe, Melissa Mcmullen, Amanda Partridge

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives has digitized the most complete existing collection of execution records and is making them available for digital scholarship. M. Watt Espy spent his life documenting the death penalty in the United States. He created over 24,000 index cards and over 100,000 pages of reference material to document each case. The project connects this source material to a problematic 1980s-era execution dataset. We implemented Samvera’s open source digital repository software, Hyrax, which provides online access to all of the digitized materials. Hyrax allows users to query digital collections for online viewing or …

Review Of Putting Descriptive Standards To Work, Katy Sternberger

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

For a thorough understanding of current descriptive best practices, consult Putting Descriptive Standards to Work, edited by Kris Kiesling and Christopher J. Prom, with modules written by Cory L. Nimer, Kelcy Shepherd, Katherine M. Wisser, and Aaron Rubinstein. This volume covers modules seventeen through twenty of the Trends in Archives Practice series from the Society of American Archivists. The book provides readers with the context and the applied examples needed to explore the possibilities of descriptive standards.

Breaking Out Of The Box: Transforming Archival Collections And Workflows Through Collaborative Description Projects, Cindy Cline, Libby Hertenstein, Lindy Smith, Rachel Howard, Rebecca Pattillo, Ruth E. Bryan

Library Presentations

Archivists and archival collections can often be siloed into the “special” corner of their parent library: under described, underutilized, and often even unknown. Finding a path out of isolation may require taking a new look at collection management needs and considering new partners in the work. Collaboration with colleagues can result in positive ripple effects that extend beyond the initial project goals. This session will highlight three innovative description projects where archivists partnered with non-archivists to improve access to targeted collections and will detail how their collaborations transformed their archival collections, work structures and relationships, and, ultimately, their users. After …

Palm Leaf Manuscripts In South Asia, Emera Bridger Wilson, Jessica M. Rice

School of Information Studies - Post-doc and Student Scholarship

Many thousands of palm leaf manuscripts, in South Asia and elsewhere, are currently in danger of being lost due to physical deterioration. These manuscripts contain irreplaceable cultural, religious, scientific, and artistic works. Palm leaf manuscripts, which can be centuries old, are found in numerous private collections, temples, monasteries, libraries and museums. The sheer number and wide dispersal of palm leaf manuscripts provide significant challenges to conservation and preservation, including both ethical and technical considerations. A literature search and examination of palm leaf manuscripts shed light on the urgent need to proceed worldwide along two fronts simultaneously: rapid digitization of critical …

Toward Inclusive Description: Reparations Through Community-Driven Metadata, Jillian M. Ewalt

Marian Library Faculty Publications

This case study covers the process and policies involved in creating accurate and inclusive metadata for a historically marginalized community. The Japanese American Digitization Project was a consortial, collaborative digitization project with the goal of unifying and providing online access to tens of thousands of archival materials documenting the Japanese American experience. Traditionally, the Japanese American experience, particularly the internment during World War II, has been laden with euphemistic language. This article outlines community-driven metadata development, implementing an inclusive controlled vocabulary, and thinking about archival metadata as a process that can contribute to reparations.

Microfilm, Manuscripts, And Photographs: A Case Study Comparing Three Large-Scale Digitization Projects, Emily Lapworth, Sarah Jones, Marina Georgieva

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article is a case study comparing three large-scale digitization projects at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries: the Culinary Union Workers Local 226 Photographs, the Nevada Digital Newspaper Project, and the Entertainment Project. The authors compare the project management, workflows, and decision-making related to the many aspects of digitizing special collections and archives materials. The projects used both outsourced vendors and in-house labor and equipment to digitize microfilmed newspapers, mixed-materials manuscript collections, and photographic prints and negatives. Roles and responsibilities; grant funding; copyright, privacy, and confidentiality; arrangement; formats; and metadata are all discussed in relation to large-scale …