Building a Shared Grassroots and Administrative Vision for Holistic Digital Curation
Lindsey Memory
Digital Content Manager, Digital Initiatives Department Head
Brigham Young University
Andy Spackman
Associate University Librarian, Collections Services
Brigham Young University
Digital content creation, curation, and preservation work often spans multiple library units, leading to inconsistent resource and personnel allocation and a lack of strategic vision. At Brigham Young University Library, an ad hoc grassroots team volunteered to perform a holistic review of extant digital collections, workflows, personnel, and systems, to foster a deeper understanding of digital challenges and strategies across all units. The administration commissioned this project, requesting an investigation and recommendations from the task force. After three phases across two years, the team completed the project, resulting in twenty-one recommendations, to which the administration is responding. Today the library has a clearer understanding of its digital content ecosystems and is prepared to move forward with greater intentionality and strategic focus. This presentation summarizes the project’s methodology and findings and the effectiveness of the collaborative process between staff and administrators.
Reconstructing a Digital Ecosystem: University at Buffalo Libraries’ First Year
Reed Jones
Digital Asset Librarian
University at Buffalo
Over the past year, the University at Buffalo Libraries established a new department dedicated to reimagining the digital ecosystem for its diverse collections. The objective is to design a comprehensive digital collections infrastructure that not only leverages the advantages of open-source community initiatives but also facilitates reciprocal contributions to these communities. Through strategic recruitment, redefined staff roles, rigorous research, and collaboration with peer institutions, the department has embarked on this significant endeavor. The presentation delineates the inaugural year and the accomplished projects, including the implementation of a metadata standards working group, the creation of digital asset management evaluation rubrics, the assessment and testing of digital asset management solutions, data cleanup, and accessibility remediation.
Rethinking the Institutional Repository (Again)
Adam Strohm
Director of Distinctive Collections and Digital Strategy, Paul V. Galvin Library
Illinois Institute of Technology
In the fall of 2019, Paul V. Galvin Library at Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) in Chicago launched a new iteration of the university’s institutional repository (IR). This single instance of Islandora serves as both the traditional IR and a digital collections portal for Illinois Tech’s University Archives and Special Collections. Now, six years later, Galvin Library is on the verge of another major update to a newer version of Islandora, and this is an opportunity for further reflection and reenvisioning of what this IR can be. This session will detail the unexpected wins, lessons learned, and recurring challenges that have arisen in the life of this double-duty repository, as well as a look to the future and the ways that Galvin Library hopes to enhance and modify the IR to better meet the needs of the university community and external users. The session will also move beyond one specific IR to ponder the place of an IR in the contemporary lifecycle of scholarship and hopefully inspire conversation about the ways that a library-led repository can provide new and unorthodox solutions in the face of a lack of institutional buy-in or adequate resourcing.
