Program

Keynote

Digital Library Service Innovations in an Age of Skepticism.

Karen Estlund, associate dean for Technology and Digital Strategies for Penn State Libraries.

Day 1. 4:00-5:00pm, Auditorium.

Digital Library Services have evolved over the last decade to interact more with networked and web environments, as well as to center user experience and context for collections. At the same time, in the United States particularly, as well as much of the world, trust of traditional institutions of information has been challenged. We have entered a new age of skepticism.

This presentation will review innovative and emerging practices in digital libraries in the context of this skepticism. Implications on the relationship with notions of linked data, bias in description, block-chain, and universal design will be discussed. The role of community, membership organizations, and partnerships may both support and challenge our structural information systems, in terms of collections, metadata, systems, and standards for interoperability. In this, digital library services have the power to address the gap in trust and to foster dialogue.

Estlund is the associate dean for Technology and Digital Strategies for Penn State Libraries where she provides leadership and advocacy for information technology, digital initiatives, cataloging and metadata services, publishing and curation services. Prior to Penn State, Karen served as the head of the Digital Scholarship Center at the University of Oregon, where she supported the publication of digital editions the Oregon Petrarch Open Book project, Archaeology and Landscape in the Mongolian Altai, and We Are the Face of Oaxaca integrated with library digital collections and implemented linked open data with Oregon Digital. She also served as interim head of Digital Technologies and technology instruction librarian at the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, where she also taught Web design as an adjunct professor in the Communication Department.

Karen received her MLIS in 2005 from the University of Washington. Karen has served as the program director for National Digital Newspaper Programs in Utah and Oregon. She contributed to the Portland Common Data Model (PCDM) and serves on the coordinating committee for IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework), Fedora leaders, the Rightsstatements.org technical committee, and is a former member of Samvera (Hydra) Steering.

Sessions

• CONTENTdm Update. Day 1. 1:40-2:20pm, Auditorium. #1 Plenary.Taylor Surface, OCLC, Ohio.
• Affirming Communities of Color: Inclusivity in Metadata and Digital Collections. Day 1. 2:30-3:30pm, Auditorium. #2 Plenary. Meaghan Fukunaga, Indianapolis Public Library, Indiana; Jennifer Ho, The Chicago Community Trust, Illinois; Jacqueline Johnson, Miami University, Ohio; Angela White, IUPUI, Indiana. This panel explores some concrete examples of institutions working to make their digital archives more inclusive and welcoming to all. Representation matters: digital collections and metadata are important tools to deconstruct stereotypes and illuminate the stories of people of color ignored in traditional narratives. Johnson will discuss the Mississippi Freedom Summer Digital Collection and the Training For Freedom Documentary Project; the Indianapolis Public Library has created collections on topics ranging from Native American art to the Burmese American community in Indianapolis, and will be holding scan-a-thons in African American communities; The Chicago Community Trust has implemented a metadata schema to make photographs discoverable by racial/ethnic community and neighborhood; and IUPUI created a photograph collection for OBAT Helpers' work in the Rohingya refugee camps to amplify their work.
• Before Using CONTENTdm... Care and Handling During Image Capture. Day 2. 8:45-9:45am, Rm 1A. #5B Concurrent. Representing the Ohio Preservation Council are Miriam Nelson, Ohio University Libraries and Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio. [Slides] [Handouts] [Scanner Video 1] [Scanner Video 2] Presented from a preventative conservation perspective, this mini-workshop will provide guidelines and tips to protect special collections during the digitization capture process, resulting in higher quality images as well as protecting the originals. Preservation topics will include transportation, environment and workflow considerations for rare materials. A brief overview on identifying book parts and common condition issues for a variety of media will be followed by a discussion on handling and supporting fragile materials, which will be illustrated with objects and examples of archival supports. Tricks to safely remove damaging fasteners will also be demonstrated.
• Customizing Your Responsive Site: Beyond the Website Config Tool. Day 2. 8:45-9:45am, Rm 3A. #5C Concurrent. Jie Chen, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries [Slides]; Jennifer Howard, Frontier Nursing University, Kentucky [Slides]; Jennifer Randles, Tennessee State Library & Archives [Slides]. CONTENTdm’s Website Configuration Tool allows you to change fonts, colors, headers, and add custom text, but much more is possible with the ability to include CSS files, scripts, and custom pages. Panelists will demonstrate how they have customized their responsive sites in order to satisfy user requirements and to maintain institutional branding. Strategies include using CSS, Javascript, and PHP, as well as integrations with WordPress, Kaltura Mediaspace, and OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer). Topics will include how to maintain integrations when switching to responsive and customizing your site even if you don’t have dedicated IT staff. Panelists will also share the challenges they faced during migration and how they tackled them.
• Using Wikibase to Manage Linked Data for Digital Collections. Day 2. 8:45-9:45am, Auditorium. #5A Concurrent. Jean Godby & Bruce Washburn, OCLC Jeff Mixter, OCLC. [Slides] OCLC is working with several member institutions on an experimental project to evaluate Wikibase as part of a new linked data ecosystem. The findings from the project have relevance for those managing digital collections, as the system may offer new and highly interoperable services for digital materials and their descriptive and technical metadata.This presentation will summarize the work in progress, provide demonstrations of a pilot system, and offer a discussion of the implications with those managing digital collections.
• Crowdsourced Transcription and CONTENTdm. Day 2. 10:00-11:00am, Auditorium. #6A Concurrent. Ben Brumfield, Brumfield Labs, LLC, Texas; Meredith McDonough, Alabama Department of Archives and History; Kristen Newby & Phil Sager, Ohio History Connection. This session will introduce two successful crowdsourcing projects based on CONTENTdm including perspectives from community managers working with volunteers and technical staffers integrating crowdsourcing platforms with digital library systems. Both projects focus on material describing their state’s involvement in World War I, and have been launched in 2018 to coincide with the centennial of the Armistice. Community managers will describe their approaches to recruiting, training, and managing volunteers. Technical staff will explain their crowdsourcing platforms and describe the integration steps to expose images and metadata within those platforms and to integrate user contributions back into CONTENTdm. As part of its efforts to commemorate the World War I Centennial, the Ohio History Connection is digitizing World War I collections from its own holdings, as well as those from fourteen other Ohio institutions, as part of the Little Stories of the Great War: Ohioans in World War I project. Funded by a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this project’s main goal is to make the story of Ohio’s role in World War I more accessible and more easily discoverable. The Alabama Department of Archives and History has also added new World War I material to its digital collections, including 110,000 index-card service records for Alabamians. Now that the cards are online, the ADAH has launched a transcription project to collect additional details and create a richer resource. ADAH funded IIIF-based integration of CONTENTdm with the open-source FromThePage crowdsourcing platform, including OCR correction and field-based transcription.
• Revving Up a CONTENTdm Site. Day 2. 10:00-11:00am, Rm 3A. #6B Concurrent. Mark Vargas & Jessica Bright, The Revs Institute, Florida. In 2017, The Revs Institute, a world-class automotive museum in Naples, Florida, decided to move its digital library of historic automotive racing images from a university platform to CONTENTdm. The Revs Digital Library, consisting of 500,000 images and 6,000,000 pieces of metadata, was successfully migrated after much careful planning and an interruption by Hurricane Irma. Revs continues to add regularly to the site, with around 6,000 images added monthly. Revs pushed the limits of CDM and added many features to enhance searching and functionality. Key features are options for list or grid view of the results page for up to 100 items per page, a facet for sorting on a range of years, a facet for viewing the newly added images for the last three months, dynamic customized facets, bi-directional synonym searching, and more. In addition, Revs introduced an integrated e-commerce platform on CDM, as the RDL is striving to become self-sustaining through image sales. The e-commerce platform makes purchasing images for commercial and non-commercial use incredibly quick and simple. Mark Vargas and Jessica Bright from The Revs Institute will discuss the rationale for the change to CDM, the unique search capabilities resulting from the customizations, and e-commerce. They will share how Revs, in collaboration with Big Sea, a web development company, and OCLC, has created one of the most unique CDM sites anywhere.
• Digital Preservation: Case Studies in Preserving Master Files. Day 2. 11:10am-12:00pm, Auditorium. #7A Concurrent. Deanna Ulvestad, Greene County Public Library; Alia Levar Wegner, Miami University; Amia Wheatley, Cleveland Public Library, Ohio. Panelists will describe their workflows and successes with digital preservation of their institutions' master files. Ulvestad will share successes with MetaArchive from the perspective of a small institution; Wegner will share the process of choosing and migrating to Preservica, and Wheatley will share a project linking to master files in DuraCloud from CDM item records.
• Spinning the Tires on the Revs Digital Library. Day 2. 11:10am-12:00pm, Rm 3A. #7C Concurrent. Jessica Bright & Mark Vargas, The Revs Institute, Florida; Geoff Ellerby, Big Sea, Florida; Shane Huddleston, OCLC, Oregon. Revving Up a CONTENTdm Site provided the context of why and how The Revs Institute of Naples, Florida, built one of the most unique CDM sites anywhere. In Spinning the Tires, Geoff Ellerby of Big Sea, a web development firm, and Mark Vargas and Jessica Bright of The Revs Institute will explain the technical evolution of the site, how Revs pushed the envelope with CDM, and the give-and-take of the development process. Revs, Big Sea, and OCLC worked closely on how to make the customizations Revs envisioned a reality. Geoff Ellerby will cover how Big Sea custom coded and implemented the key features discussed in the first session, including the e-commerce feature. Brief comments from Shane Huddleston of OCLC will be incorporated covering how OCLC supports these customizations with the use of various APIs. Through this partnership of Revs, Big Sea, and OCLC, the site was customized to best suit the end user of the RDL.
• Down the Rabbit Hole of Image Storage and Retrieval in CONTENTdm. Day 2. 1:00-2:00pm, Rm 1A. #8B Concurrent. Jill Ellern, Western Carolina University, North Carolina. Do you know the difference between a display image and a thumbnail image in CONTENTdm? How and why do you pick between a jpg, jpg 2000, pdf, or tif image formats as you scan an image for loading into the Project Client? Are you confused about the difference between a dpi, a ppi or megapixels? Why does one image that you scan fill the screen while another displays so small you can barely see it? This presentation explores these questions and more. Using this map of rabbit hole (a workflow diagram of CONTENTdm) will help you to better understand the software as you process and upload images.
• No More Blank Canvases: Using Canva to Customize Collection Landing Pages. Day 2. 1:00-2:00pm, Rm 3A. #8C Concurrent. Colleen Hoelscher, Trinity University, Texas. Customized landing pages can align CONTENTdm collections with institutional branding, set a tone for a digital collection, and convey a message to visitors about the materials and the institution. However, customizing collection landing pages in CONTENTdm can be daunting for users who lack web design skills or training. Canva is a free online tool to create professional-quality graphic designs when you don’t have the skills of a professional graphic designer. These designs can be used within the Website Configuration Tool to customize CONTENTdm collection landing pages with eye catching headers, buttons, and other images, without needing to create custom HTML landing pages. In this mini-workshop, the presenter will lead attendees through the process of creating custom images using the Canva tool and adding them to collection landing pages. Topics covered will include: opening an account, creating graphics, inserting images using the website configuration tool, and formatting images using simple HTML.
• Preparing Metadata for DPLA with CONTENTdm. Day 2. 1:00-2:00pm, Auditorium. #8A Concurrent. Lily Birkhimer, Ohio History Connection; Stephanie Bricking, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio; Aaron O'Donovan, Columbus Metropolitan Library, Ohio; Penelope Shumaker, State Library of Ohio; Adam Wanter, MidPointe Library System, Ohio. [Slides] Panelists will discuss the process, successes and challenges of preparing CONTENTdm collections for inclusion in the Digital Public Library of America through the Ohio Digital Network. DPLA is an online portal and platform where users can discover resources from across America. Objects from small historical museums can be found alongside items from the Smithsonian, the Getty, and more. DPLA’s website provides a metadata catalog of these items, but does not host the original items on their website. Part of DPLA’s success is that the website redirects users back to digital items on the original provider’s websites, which increases traffic for these institutions. DPLA collects the metadata published on their website from hundreds of institutions across America through a network of content hubs and service hubs. The Ohio Digital Network is a service hub for DPLA, which means it harvests metadata records from cultural heritage institutions across Ohio to be sent to DPLA. The Ohio Digital Network has contributed more than 100,000 items from institutions across Ohio to DPLA.
• Creating a Digital Hub with CONTENTdm. Day 2. 2:10-3:15pm, Auditorium. #9 Plenary. John Dewees, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library; Rachel Senese, Cleveland Public Library; Missy Lodge, State Library of Ohio; Katrina Marshall, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; Angela O'Neal, Columbus Metro Library, Ohio. This session presents four different models for using CONTENTdm in collaborative projects. Moderator Missy Lodge will provide background on the Ohio Digital Hubs project and lead the discussion. Panelists will discuss the use of CONTENTdm to develop Digital Hubs at their respective libraries. The Ohio Digital Hubs project began in 2013 with an LSTA grant from the State Library of Ohio and matching funds from OPLIN. The project awarded funds to create "Digital Hubs" or regional digitization centers in Toledo, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. While the Digital Hubs worked together on standards and best practices, each Hub developed its own process for digitization, community collections, metadata and digital collections management. All of the Digital Hubs use CONTENTdm but use different models for working with partner organizations and community collections. Participants will learn about these different approaches to collaboration at the regional and state level.