Welcome to a new issue of Stew of the Month, a monthly blog from the Digital Services and Technologies (DST) division at the University of Maryland Libraries. This blog provides news and updates from DST. We welcome comments, feedback, and ideas for improving our products and services.
Digital Collections
Historic Maryland Newspapers Project
HMNP continues metadata collation of three newspaper titles from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. TIFFs were loaned from Salisbury University for these titles. Thank you to the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at SU for partnering with us on this project!
Hornbake Digitization Center
HDC digitized four microfilm reels for the AFL Labor collection. We are currently in the process of making PDFs and creating metadata. We still have one reel left to digitize. Once the metadata is complete this collection will be loaded into the Internet Archive.
Digital Programs and Initiatives
Web Services
We have several major updates related to the ongoing Digital Collections Public Interface migration:
Digital Collections Website Migration Project
- Published in August: redesigned homepage, a New Repository Search for items in Archelon, and a Combined Search bento page.
- New landing pages for Labor and Social Justice Collections, , The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography, Plant Patents Image Database, and United States Government Posters Collection
- Published in September – New landing pages: Advancing Workers’ Rights in the American South (a new collection), National Trust Library Historic Postcards Collection
- The Open Educational Resources and Minority Health and Health Equity Archive websites are now on UMD-branded Google Sites.
- A website graphics request form now facilitates web content creators from the Libraries requesting assistance with images for the website from the Strategic Communications and Outreach Team
- Top Textbooks now have Bento callout functionality
So far this semester, Top Textbooks has been the 7th most popular page on the Libraries site. About 14% (c. 550) of the visits to the page came from the new Bento results callout.
IT & Facilities Operations
The DST and Facilities Helpdesk receive quite a few requests each month. Below are the number of opened and closed service requests our group received during September 2023.
- Helpdesk: 528 opened, 531 closed
- Facilities: 106 opened, 92 closed
Software Systems and Development
Completed
Systems – Completed upgrade of the Kubernetes Cluster to version 1.27; Migrated Open Educational Resources (OER) and Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA) Hippo Websites to Google Sites.
Digital Collections – Completed supporting batch ingest of Advancing Workers’ Rights content into Archelon.
In Progress
Libraries’ Website and all Drupal Websites – Continued work on the upgrade to Drupal version 10.
Digital Collections – Continued development of a new OAI-PMH server implementation for metadata harvesting for Avalon.
Digital Collections – Continued development of the Scutes web application for WHCA Pool Reports curation and processing; alpha testing is underway.
Digital Collections – Begin final review and preparations to begin content migration from Admin Tools (Fedora 2) to Archelon.
MD-SOAR – Continued the upgrade to DSpace version 7; promoted to the QA environment for acceptance testing.
USMAI (University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions) Library Consortium
ILS Migration activities continue to dominate our work. During September, we completed our consortial migration forms to build our new environment. We also relied on our campus colleagues to provide a first draft of our configuration forms. These highly complicated forms brought in expertise from our project’s Subject Matter Teams, as well as, our local experts across the consortium.
We began our weekly vendor meetings, covering a wide variety of topics. Local campus team members have been attending these in their areas of expertise and interest. If you would like more information about the vendor calls, we have agendas, slide decks, and recordings on the USMAI Member Portal.
We also began outreach with Campus IT departments about campus authentication integrations. These integrations will begin in late November.
Personnel News
We’re Hiring!
Recruitment has opened for a Consortial Systems Librarian. This position will be focused on Consortial Access Services and Resource Sharing. Come help us create better access to library resources across the State of Maryland! Best consideration date is Monday, October 23, 2023.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Chamisa (Cece) Carson on her promotion to Manager of IT & Facilities Operations! Cece has been serving in this role in an acting capacity since the beginning of this year, and we’re lucky to now have her continued leadership in this critical area!
Welcome!
Welcome to John Hunter who has joined the Digital Collections unit as a student assistant helping with vendor digitization projects. John started his first year in the MLIS program this fall.
HDC also welcomed three new student digitization assistants this fall. Welcome to Jess Roshon, Jessica Simpson, and Naomi Karzai. All three are enrolled in the MLIS program.
Conferences and Presentations
Pam McClanahan presented on the Historic Maryland Newspapers Project as a part of the “Panel: Title Selection & Advisory Boards” at the annual National Digital Newspaper Program Conference at the Library of Congress on September 20, 2023.
Additionally at the NDNP Conference, Pam and Mark Coulbourne gave a lightning talk titled “Preparing Fragile Print Newspapers for Digitization” about the work UMD Libraries’ Preservation Department did on the Jedność-Polonia for HMNP prior to digitization for Chronicling America.
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