Welcome to a new issue of Stew of the Month, a monthly blog from Digital Systems and Stewardship (DSS) at the University of Maryland Libraries. This blog provides news and updates from the DSS Division. We welcome comments, feedback and ideas for improving our products and services.
Digitization Activities
Historic Maryland Newspapers Project
Chronicling America hit a major milestone in May reaching 15 million pages of historic newspapers. Maryland has contributed over 300,000 pages to ChronAm and will share another 110,000 pages by the end of this grant round. To celebrate the milestone we participated along with other states in the monthly #ChronAmParty on Twitter with mentions of “15 million” in the papers (here’s an example from Maryland).
For this round, we’re still in the process of completing rework on our sample batch, but will be submitting it to the Library of Congress in early June. Once the sample has been approved, we’ll begin submitting full batches of 10,000 pages monthly to LC. We should be receiving additional titles next month for collation to continue as well. We have had two vacancies come up on the HMNP Advisory Board this month – one in Southern Maryland and one on the Eastern Shore, and we’ll be looking to fill those positions by the Fall. Additionally, Pam has been working with the Maryland State Archives to coordinate a data transfer of the previous HMNP historic newspaper files for MSA to act as a backup for that data.
Pam will be working on outreach over the summer to be ready for promoting the project in the Fall including the website, social media, and presentations. Jane and Sydney continued the family history research projects they began last month, which will be used for outreach presentations and “how-to” guides for using Chronicling America for genealogical research.
Other Digitization Activities
Bria Parker, head of Discovery and Metadata Services, has once again teamed up with Rebecca Wack to streamline the workflows responsible for getting digitized audio-visual material online and accessible to our patrons in as painless a fashion as possible. Using new project management tools, and with a bit of tweaking, AV content digitized in the Hornbake Digitization Lab will be uploaded into Digital Collections on a monthly basis, creating a predictable model that should better serve both curators and users alike.
Robin Pike has received deliverables back from the vendors for the Spiro Agnew project, funded by a CLIR grant; the third shipment of MMC Serials; the Brooke family papers; and the Diamondback digitization project, the latter three funded through the Digitization Initiatives Committee. Student Christie Scully began to review files before her departure.
Robin also began having conversations about video digitization standards with collections areas in the Libraries. In an effort to not overload digital preservation and create an extended bottleneck, we will be switching from 10-bit uncompressed files to 8-bit uncompressed files for most videotape media, unless specified by the collection area. Most collection managers are on-board with this change for their collections as the change does not degrade content past the point of usefulness and it will allow us to digitize more content for the same digital preservation storage.
Digital Programs and Initiatives
Research Data Services
DPI is currently piloting Dataverse, a digital repository solution for access to research data, and will assess the current and future abilities for research data stewardship within the Libraries. Participating in the pilot for course credit is archives field study intern Margaret Rose Hunt, a current graduate student in UMD’s iSchool and graduate assistant in User Services and Resource Sharing. Margaret Rose will take the lead in assessing the capabilities of Dataverse, populating the system with test datasets, and will gain hands-on experience with digital curation for research datasets. The pilot will run until the end of August and will culminate in a report documenting the results of the pilot including recommendations for future efforts in research data curation.
Software Development
Releases
Released the new President’s Commission on Disability Issues website in collaboration with the School of Public Health Center for Health Equity. The website is maintained by Nedelina Tchangalova, Public Health Librarian.
Released a new Archelon version with several usability improvements, including reorganized filters which feature the Collection filter, and improved Fedora resource navigation.
Under Development
Bento Search – Switch to a CMS based frontend integrated with the Libraries’ Website. Final preparations for an Alpha release in June.
Libi – implementing navigation improvements, based on mockups and usability testing
Treasury of World’s Fair Art and Architecture – continue implementation of a new exhibit theme based website to replace the existing interface
Digital Collections Common Search – begin implementation of a new interface with the new theme and Solr backend to replace the current theme for Digital Collections (backed by Fedora 2)
AdminTools – implementing several enhancements to AdminTools to remove some of its annoying behaviors
USMAI (University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions) Library Consortium
The CLAS team responded to 61 Aleph Rx submissions and 14 e-resource requests from across the consortium’s libraries in May.
In addition to keeping up with day-to-day service requests, our not insignificant haul of complex, high priority projects continued:
- Data Warehouse Phase-1: The users are coming! We had the pleasure of introducing the data warehouse reporting environment to our first cohort of beta users. Their insights and feedback have been helpful as we prepare for a wider release in July. Right now, the reporting environment contains a one-time snapshot of Aleph data. We’ll be refreshing that in early June. In parallel, development of the ETL program to process incremental changes continues. That program now has its own Github repository!
- Web Platform Migration: Configuration of our development environment continued in May. We installed several Confluence add-ons that are expected to enhance collaboration in USMAI, including add-ons for discussion forums, enhanced user profiles, and events. We’ve also been combing through existing website content as part of a content audit to help inform the structure of the new site.
- Aleph-ILLiad NCIP Integration: Testing by the pilot libraries is underway and plans to move the integration into production are emerging. College Park plans to implement the integration in mid-July with the other beta libraries following shortly thereafter. Once all three libraries are up and running, implementation will be opened up to other interested libraries.
May was an event-full month with a USMAI event happening seemingly every week. It’s always a great opportunity for CLAS team members to network with staff at USMAI libraries. Special recognition goes to Katia Fowler who handled the logistics for the barrage of events adeptly, allowing planners and participants to focus on the content and goals of the events. Well done!
Staffing
DPI said “peace out” to new MLIS graduates Carlos Alvarado and Annie Hendrick in May. They’ll be missed, but their contributions to services and projects like ArchivesSpace, Archelon, DRUM, Open Journals Systems, Avalon, and much more will continue to have impact in DSS and the Libraries. Congratulations and best of luck to both!
Christie Scully, Digitization Projects Assistant in DCMR, left her position for a full-time internship.
Conferences, workshops and professional development
David Durden attended the Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) summit on May 15-16 in Coral Gables, Fl. This year’s summit included talks from data practitioners including librarians, archivists, researchers, and community activists.
Kate Dohe attended CNI and the Duraspace Summit in St. Louis in April, but completely forgot for last month’s update. She’s sure this is pressing news for everyone.
Pam McClanahan served as a judge at Maryland History Day held at UMBC on May 11 for the junior exhibit division.
Robin and Pam provided an overview of DCMR and a tour of HDC for Carolyn Sheffield, the new Associate Director of Library Technology & Digital Strategies at UMBC.
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