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Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries

While many research libraries have begun to digitize their collections and share best practices around the steps required to create digital content, much less is known about what happens post-launch. Building on previous research by Ithaka S+R that defined key aspects of sustainable digital content, Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries offers a first look at the practices, attitudes, costs, and revenues associated with caring for digitized special collections. The report shares results from a survey conducted on the sustainability of digitized special collections at ARL member institutions.

pdf digitizing-special-collections-report-21feb13.pdf

 
 

ARL and Ithaka S+R Release Findings on Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections

jack-kerouac-manuscript-photo-by-thomas-hawkPhoto of Jack Kerouac manuscript, image © Thomas HawkARL and Ithaka S+R today released Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries, a report on findings from an ARL-Ithaka S+R survey of ARL libraries on the range of activities and expenses that libraries undertake to support their digitized special collections.

 
 

SPEC Kit 333: Art & Artifact Management (December 2012)

SPEC Kit 333 explores the scale and scope of art and artifact materials held by ARL member libraries, which tools and techniques they currently use to manage these collections, including those used by library staff only and those used to make information about these collections available to the public, and if there is evidence of a convergence of library, archive, and museum practices in the management of these collections. It includes collection development policies, guidelines for arranging materials, and examples of how art and artifact collections are described.

This publication is available for purchase in both online and print versions. Download the spec-kit-purchase-options-2013.pdf  for complete pricing and purchase options information.

Link to the online SPEC Kit 333 on the ARL Digital Publications website.

 
 

Scanning Maps: Quantifying Errors to Inform Future Image Capture Efforts

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. In 2009, Stanford began an effort to scan its maps. Scanning large format items such as maps create a multitude of challenges. One of these challenges is to capture the map with specifications that meet all known repurposing needs. A prominent repurposing need is to ensure that the map can be consumed in a Geographic Information System (GIS). A team of Stanford University Library staff consisting of Patricia Carbajales, G. Salim Mohammed, Matt Pearson and Renzo Sanchez-Silva (noted here in alpha order) along with student assistants, conducted a detailed study of a Russian Topographic scanned map where details were visually inspected and checked for scanning errors.

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-g-salim-mohammed.pdf

 
 

Home Videos, Herd Books, Math Journals, & Parliamentary Papers How Historians of Science and Technology Find Primary Sources: Preliminary Results from a Semi-Structured Interview Study

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. The decisions that academic libraries and special collections make today, in a context of rapid technologicaland other change, will shape the research of historians of the future. Certain types of primary sources of special interest to historians of science and technology—including scientific texts, journal literature, archival documents of research institutions, and manuscript papers of scientists and engineers—are often stewarded by academic libraries, with particular responsibility assumed by science- and technology-focused institutions. Recent trends in collection development and management will have major implications for tomorrow's scholars. What does it mean for both current and future historians of science and technology that more and more sources are full-text searchable online, and that more and more print sources are stored off-site? Will scholars be affected by libraries licensing rather than owning digital content? Will today's born-digital counterparts to yesterday's paper publications, documents, and images be accessible? Are research libraries and special collections currently capturing and preserving the same kinds of primary sources that historians of science and technology have relied on, and are there other kinds of sources we should be preserving?

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-baildon-michelle.pdf

 
   

African American Student Experience Retold in Library Collections

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. How have research libraries chronicled the lives of African American students on campus? What are the subject headings and finding aids for student organizations, dissertations, sororities and fraternities, or oral histories? What factors (procedure, personnel, Alumni groups) have impacted the inclusion of materials in library collections?

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-maxey-harris-charlene.pdf

 
 

How Do Music Faculty Look For Library Materials?

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. How do university faculty members in the music department use the library's online catalog (OPAC) to find music materials for themselves or for their students? Interviews, done in February 2012, of four performance faculty members from the University of Maryland School of Music reveal the wide range of materials they search for, and the limitations of the system in being able to find like items in different formats. Faculty members' assumptions of the capabilities of a search provide insight into possibilities for how OPACs can be re-designed or re-configured for more accurate hits and better discovery of similar items.

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-shiota-lisa.pdf

 
 

The Rapid Growth of Electronic Resources in East Asian Library Collections

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. Like many other academic libraries, East Asian libraries face tough financial decisions on how they allocate their resources in this time of financial restraints, while fulfilling the library's ultimate mission of supporting teaching and researching. This study was conducted in light of escalating cost of electronic resources in East Asian languages. By analyzing 5-year (2007–2011) statistical data obtained from 32 East Asian libraries in North America, this study explores what portion of a library's total materials expenditures are dedicated to eresources and how fast its e-resources expenditures have been growing over the past five years.

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-sung-yunah.pdf

 
 

Cataloging in Transformation: New Trends and Future Outlook

Poster presented at the LCDP Luminary Class, June 2012. With rapidly changing technology, more and more libraries are building digital collections and shifting focus to online discovery environment. More and more resources are published in electronic format, which leaves libraries with less and less physical material to catalog and process. Cataloging practice is experiencing big changes as we respond to the new trends of digitization, multiple metadata standards, outsourcing, batch processing, next-generation catalogs, and new standards and concepts for information organization. This research intends to explore new trends and future outlooks and plans in the cataloging practice of libraries of all kinds.

pdf lcdp-2012-poster-wu-annie.pdf

 
 

SPEC Kit 329: Managing Born-Digital Special Collections and Archival Materials (August 2012)

SPEC Kit 329 explores the tools, workflow, and policies special collections and archives staff use to process, manage, and provide access to born-digital materials they collect. It also looks at which staff process and manage born-digital materials and how they acquire the skills they need for these activities, and how libraries have responded to the challenges that managing born-digital materials present. It includes documentation from respondents that describe digital specialists’ job responsibilities, collection policies, gift/purchase agreements, format policies, and workflows.

This publication is available for purchase in both online and print versions. Download the spec-kit-purchase-options-2013.pdf  for complete pricing and purchase options information.

Link to the online SPEC Kit 329 on the ARL Digital Publications website.

 
 

Research Library Issues, no. 279 (June 2012)

RLI issue 279 includes:

  • Digitization of Special Collections and Archives: Legal and Contractual Issues
  • Model Deed of Gift
  • Model Deed of Gift, including Mixed IP Rights
  • Model Digitization Agreement
  • Copyright Risk Management: Principles and Strategies for Large-Scale Digitization Projects in Special Collections
 
 

21st-Century Collections: Calibration of Investment and Collaborative Action

Deliberations over library collections will have no end. Balancing serial and monograph investments, assessing the latest digital format, anticipating new directions in teaching and research—this large undertaking resists all formulas. The Task Force on 21st-Century Research Library Collections defers for detail to the expertise that is spread so impressively across ARL libraries, seeking here to give a big picture of collections: to describe not everything on the map, but the general landscape we face today.

pdf issue-brief-21st-century-collections-2012.pdf

 
                               

SPEC Kit 325: Digital Preservation (October 2011)

SPEC Kit 325 explores the strategies that ARL member institutions use to protect evolving research collections and the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders. The survey asked ARL libraries about their digital content, their strategies for preserving that content, and the staff, time, and funding they currently devote to digital preservation. It also asked each responding library to compare its digital preservation activities of three years ago to current activities and project three years into the future. In addition, to better understand the roles of research libraries in the emergent field of digital curation, the survey sought to identify issues that are and are not being addressed through current practices and policies. This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents that describes policies, procedures, and guidelines for digital preservation, cooperative agreements, job descriptions, and data management services.

This publication is available for purchase in both online and print versions. Download the spec-kit-purchase-options-2013.pdf  for complete pricing and purchase options information.

Link to the online SPEC Kit 325 on the ARL Digital Publications website.

 
 

Research Library Issues, no. 276 (Sept. 2011)

RLI issue 276 includes:

  • Ahead of the Storm: Research Libraries and the Future of the Research University
  • Collecting Small Data
  • Copyfraud and Classroom Performance Rights: Two Common Bogus Copyright Claims
 
 
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