Adventures in Migrating Massive Archival Collections to Digital Commons

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-123
Author(s):  
Michelle Emanuel

Abstract Giant collections of compound objects, with messy metadata, led to migration in batches and lessons learned. When the University of Mississippi Libraries implemented a campus-wide institutional repository, it also became necessary to use the same platform for nearly 100 digital collections, requiring migration from a locally hosted instance of CONTENTdm to the cloud-based Digital Commons. Because the collections were primarily comprised of compound objects, it was difficult to use harvesting protocol to populate the new repository, requiring new access copies to be reconfigured and uploaded as batches from the local servers after extensive metadata remediation.

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Rose Sliger Krause ◽  
Andrea Langhurst Eickholt ◽  
Justin L. Otto

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the music performance collection preserved in Eastern Washington University’s institutional repository (IR). This collection of recordings of student music performances is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the university?s library and music department, which serves to provide discoverability, preservation and access to a collection of student creative works, which had heretofore been a hidden collection. Design/methodology/approach This collection of student creative work was identified as a suitable project for the Eastern Washington University’s IR while it was still in the planning stages because it was identified as an existing need that the new IR could address. Much of the groundwork for the collaboration between the library and music department was completed prior to IR implementation. Thus, the library was ready to begin work on this collection once the IR was operational. Findings The student music performance collection has been a successful project for the IR, which benefits the music department by making student performances discoverable and accessible, and benefits the library by providing the opportunity to demonstrate that the then-new IR could support the university’s student-centered focus on teaching and learning. Originality/value While there is a growing body of literature on IRs emphasizing student work, there is little literature on music or other creative works’ collections in IRs, much less on creative works by students. This paper adds to the limited body of literature on student creative works in the IR by describing the development, implementation and lessons learned from the successful music performances collection.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Phillips ◽  
Mary Burke ◽  
Hannah Tarver ◽  
Oksana Zavalina

Building a digital language archive requires a number of steps to ensure collecting, describing, preserving, and providing access to language data in effective and efficient ways. The Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) group has partnered with the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Library to build a series of interconnected digital collections that leverage existing UNT technical and metadata infrastructure to provide access to data from and for various language communities. This article introduces the reader to the background of this project and discusses some of the important for representing language materials areas where UNT metadata has needed flexibility to better fit the needs of intended audiences. These areas include a workflow for standardized language representation (the Language field), defining roles for persons related to the item (Creator and Contributor fields), and representing interconnections between related items (the Relation field). Although further work is needed to improve language data representation in the CoRSAL digital language archive, we believe the model adopted by our team and lessons learned could benefit others in the language archiving community.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
Laura Uglean Jackson ◽  
Matthew McKinley

In October 2014, the University of California Irvine (UCI) Special Collections and Archives acquired a born digital collection of 2.5 terabytes – the largest born digital collection acquired by the department to date. This case study describes the challenges we encountered when applying existing archival procedures to appraise, store, and provide access to a large born digital collection. It discusses solutions when they could be found and ideas for solutions when they could not, lessons learned from the experience, and the impact on born-digital policy and procedure at UCI Libraries. Working with a team of archivists, librarians, IT, and California Digital Library (CDL) staff, we discovered issues and determined solutions that will guide our procedures for future acquisitions of large and unwieldy born digital collections. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-414
Author(s):  
Anna L. Neatrour ◽  
Jeremy Myntti ◽  
Rachel J. Wittmann

Purpose When faced with events, such as the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), libraries have a unique opportunity to develop a community facing response through born-digital collections. These collections provide challenges for metadata creation, collection development policies, workflows, and digital preservation. This paper aims to provide an overview of the Utah COVID-19 digital collection, with a discussion of impact and lessons learned. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a case study of a born-digital collection initiative undertaken at the University of Utah in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project prompted engagement with the University of Utah communities and people across the state. Workflows, metadata management and partnerships are discussed, to provide a model for institutions developing similar projects during a time of crisis. Findings While the project was launched with open-ended and flexible goals, the response from the community has been both surprising and gratifying. Statistics and examples demonstrating reuse of collection materials are provided to highlight the impact and potential of community engagement. Originality/value Digital collecting projects during a historical event are not new, however the restrictions placed upon people worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic created interesting circumstances for building this collection. Several lessons were learned throughout the project which will be useful for other institutions embarking upon related projects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Laura M. Gentry

This case study explores how one team tasked with the creation of digital collections at The University of Alabama Libraries succeeded at telework to carry on its essential functions despite not being able to digitize new content from March through July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Managers of similar units will gain strategies to create similar telework projects at their institution and lessons learned while working and supervising employees remotely.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise A. Brush ◽  
Jonathan Jiras

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to share the knowledge and lessons learned about the process of developing an institutional repository (IR) using a hosted solution, Digital Commons from bepress, and to make the case that Digital Commons is still the best IR solution for smaller university libraries.Design/methodology/approachThis is a case study based on Rowan University Libraries developing an IR using the Digital Commons platform.FindingsTo implement a hosted solution successfully, key actions include defining the repository’s scope and mission early in the process, including a variety of stakeholders in promoting the repository, integrating the repository with a faculty profile system and being able to effectively work collaboratively with both internal and external professionals in developing the system.Originality/valueThis paper will be valuable to academic librarians considering implementing an IR on, or migrating an existing repository to, the Digital Commons platform.


2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold I. Modell

In selecting a Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecturer, the Teaching Section looks for an individual who has made major contributions to physiology education. Dr. Harold Modell has certainly earned this honor. Harold has an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, a Masters in biomedical engineering from Iowa State, and, continuing the southern migration, a Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. After four years in Buffalo, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as an assistant professor, Harold made the long trek to Seattle, WA, where he has been ever since. Harold Modell’s contributions to physiology education are many and varied. He was certainly one of the early developers of teaching software aimed at helping students learn physiology. His programs are widely used, but more importantly, he has been instrumental in bringing others into the field of computer-based education. The existence of the Teaching Section is in no small measure the result of Harold’s efforts to persuade APS that teaching was important to a great many of its members, and to the Society. Similarly, this journal, Advances in Physiology Education, came to life after a long campaign spearheaded by Harold. As the journal’s founding editor, he set the stage for the growing success that it is enjoying today. Finally, Harold is an educational researcher of note whose every project is aimed at helping the learner to learn. As a leading advocate of this attitude, Harold has helped physiology teachers at all levels adopt this approach to teaching.


Publications ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Mark E. Phillips ◽  
Pamela Andrews ◽  
Ana Krahmer

The University of North Texas Libraries’ Digital Collections are situated as a unified whole within their preservation infrastructure, with three separate user interfaces serving the content to different audiences. These separate interfaces are: The UNT Digital Library (DL), The Portal to Texas History, and The Gateway to Oklahoma History. Situated within each interface are collections, and hosted within these collections are digital objects. One collection, the UNT Scholarly Works Repository, specifically serves UNT’s research and creative contributions and functions as the Institutional repository (IR) for the University of North Texas. Because UNT Scholarly works is seated as a collection amongst other collections, users can access faculty research, not just out of an interest in research from specific faculty members, but also as it ties into the user’s broader understanding of a given topic. With flexible infrastructure and metadata schema that connect collections beneath the umbrella of the wider preservation infrastructure, the UNT DL employs full-text searching and interlinked metadata to strengthen and make visible the connections between objects in different collections. This paper examined how users navigated between other collections within the UNT IR, as well as within the UNT DL. Through this examination, we observed patterns between how users navigated between objects, understood which collections may have related to one another, examined why some unique items were used more than others, and viewed the average number of items used within a session.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
Donglin Ge

As public assembly occupancies, academic libraries in China have been implementing effective strategies in response to the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020, in order to meet the teaching, learning, and researching needs of the faculties and students due to the closure of libraries. The library at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST) is one of the typical cases with significantly increased user access during the pandemic. In this article, a reflection is made on the emergency measures and endeavours by the library in USST to adapt various services, including digital resources guarantee while working remotely, moving from an offline reference service to online ones, extending circulation from an in-door service to an out-door service, the use of social media, and so on, in order to discuss the emerging problems and to analyze the lessons learned. On this basis, this article proposes suggestions for university libraries to realign their development directions and measures to digital collections and online services as well as to improve the vocational skills of librarians in the post-epidemic period, so as to provide more professional, active, and considerate services in the future.


Collections ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 155019062097821
Author(s):  
Alan Munshower ◽  
Leigh McWhite ◽  
Lauren Rogers ◽  
Greg Johnson ◽  
Jennifer Ford

Over the last several decades, Archives & Special Collections at the University of Mississippi has worked on exhibitions with several regional and on-campus partners. These types of collaborations between libraries, archives, museums, and others provide important insight into the need for such joint projects, especially in an era of tighter budgets, smaller staff sizes, technological advancements, and evolving user expectations. This article describes a selection of these endeavors and a compilation of benefits as well as lessons learned that are derived from the department’s experience and a more formal solicitation of assessment from partners.


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