TCDL 2022

Join TCDL attendees for an informal morning session. Committee members will be present to help you find your way around Sched or use a breakout room to catch up with colleagues.

Please join us using this Zoom link: https://utexas.zoom.us/j/99437231022

Watch poster presentations on YouTube! Poster videos will also be screened in a break out room during our morning coffees on Tuesday and Wednesday if you would like to watch and discuss them with other TCDL attendees.

View poster PDFs here.

"What is Digital Librarianship?": A Texas Digital Library Interview Series
By: Ali Gunnells, MA/MSIS Candidate in English and Information Studies; Assistant Instructor, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin

Many academic libraries across Texas now maintain significant digital collections of resources. These collections may consist of digitized and/or born digital materials and are considered a part of the academic library’s holdings. However, despite the ever-increasing prevalence of digital collections, the tasks of librarians working with these collections remain elusive. Digital librarianship, particularly in the context of an academic institution, encompasses a vast array of roles and responsibilities. Ultimately, the question of what digital librarians do remains unclear for both the general public and for MLIS/MSIS students. This uncertainty creates a disconnect between the libraries themselves and the communities that these libraries serve.

The goal of this project is to provide an understanding of digital library work to both the general public and LIS/MSIS students through an interview series format. We focus on exploring what tasks make up the day-to-day job of a digital librarian, as well as the larger challenges of working with digital collections. Furthermore, this project aims to highlight members of the BIPOC community and other marginalized communities who are currently working in the field of digital librarianship. As of February 2022, we have conducted a series of seven interviews with Texas Digital Library-affiliated professionals working in the field of digital librarianship, with the possibility to conduct additional interviews in the future.

Out of the Woods: Charting Metadata with Digital Tools
By: Laura Ramirez, Senior Library Specialist, University of Houston

In the fall of 2021, a metadata working group was created and charged to streamline the process of evaluating and refining metadata for a retrospective thesis and dissertations digitization (TDD) project at the University of Houston Libraries. The group took to their task by improving existing workflows and reworking scalability through the introduction of an updated automated tool kit created for the team by another member involved with the TDD project. Using MARC records as an existing foundation, metadata was transformed into Dublin Core formatted records with MARCEdit and OpenRefine. Group members then evaluate each Dublin Core metadata record and edit and enhance metadata as needed. As part of the workflow, copyright status is also evaluated and noted in the metadata record. The automated tool kit aids in scaling production by allowing for batch metadata verification, file sorting, and writing EXIF data to the PDF files. This poster highlights the MARC to Dublin Core metadata transformation and the use of the automation tool kit to streamline the metadata process, a necessary step in a large-scale digitization project that promotes accessibility to scholarly materials.

Exploring Tools for Improving Negative Capture     
By: Erin Mazzei, Digital Media Specialist, Texas State University

In just the past few years, the technology for digitizing slides and negatives has been evolving rapidly. Boosted in part by individual photographers seeking better quality for their own negatives, the result is a wide variety of commercial products to improve image results from both flatbed scanners and camera capture stations. How do some these options compare to each other for use at institutions? This poster proposes to test and compare the results of several types of negative holder and introduce a framework for evaluating the quality and efficiency of others.

Programming for Open Access: Using Python to Promote Open File Formats in the Texas Data Repository
By: Ian Goodale, European Studies Librarian, University of Texas at Austin

The preponderance of proprietary file formats being used for scholarly purposes poses an issue for the truly open dissemination of information. This was one of the key points identified by a working group I participated in at the University of Texas at Austin, in which working group members explored ways to improve metadata and reduce proprietary file formats in the Texas Data Repository. As a result of my work on the group, I created a group of Python scripts designed to help promote use of open file formats in the repository. These include scripts that automatically convert specified proprietary file formats to open ones, and that search through uploads to the Texas Data Repository within a specified date range and output a .xlsx or .csv with the dataverses and their files, flagging files with non-open extensions. My poster will describe and demonstrate this evolving resource, which is hosted on GitHub and freely available for others to modify and contribute to, and explain how it aims to make dataverse content more openly accessible to all.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Digital Preservation        
By: Adrian Shapiro, Manager of Digital Initiatives and Assessment, Texas Woman's University, and Kristin Clark, Manager of Digital Collections, Texas Woman's University

Digital preservation is important, but how do I get started? This poster will provide a roadmap for how Texas Woman’s University built, and is continuing to build, a cross-departmental digital preservation program with the help of TDL’s Digital Preservation Service. It will provide tips and resources for beginners looking to build a digital preservation program at their institution.

University of North Texas Open Access Publication Review (2019-2021): Workflows and Insights         
By: Megan Scott, Graduate Student Assistant, University of North Texas
 
The University of North Texas’ Scholarly Works Open Access institutional repository is home to materials from the UNT community’s research, creative, and scholarly activities. Currently, we are conducting an Open Access publication review for scholarly works generated by UNT in order to learn more about the OA publication practices of the UNT community with the goal of better serving their needs. The workflows of this project consist of a system using Scopus and Zotero to harvest, review, and sort UNT OA publication data from 2019-2021. Through this process we are able to better understand who is publishing Open Access, where they are publishing, and identify challenges and best practices for harvesting this scholarly output for inclusion in the institutional repository. This is an ongoing project which we hope to continue gathering insights from and improving the workflows to maximize its’ usefulness.

Working as a Digitization Student
By: Jarrett Crepeau, Imaging Lead, University of North Texas

I will be discussing my experience as an Imaging Lead for the Kempner Fund Project at the Digital Projects Lab at the University of North Texas. My role at the lab consists of digitizing, item organization, and doing image quality checks on items from the Kempner project before they are uploaded to the Portal of Texas History. The Kempner Project started in 2017 in partnership with the Rosenberg Library and the Kempner Fund of Galveston, Texas, to establish a digital repository for the Harris and Eliza Kempner Collection

Are you confused about the technical, legal, or logistical challenges associated with making collections of audiovisual materials available on the web? Do you get lost in the conversations about standards, formats, platforms, and jargon? Does it seem like other groups on your campus are working in a similar area but have a different set of requirements and issues? Well, you aren’t alone!

Libraries and archives around the state of Texas are working to make vast collections of digital audiovisual material available. Making these resources accessible is an important component in this process that provides a new set of challenges for collection managers and technologists to overcome. Investing in accessible content not only makes these resources available and usable to persons with different abilities, but also provides new and exciting opportunities for discovery and reuse.

This birds-of-a-feather session follows a mini-series of webinars organized by TDL members in early 2022. Focussing on digital audiovisual cultural heritage collection materials, we invite you to share your organization's experience with making collections accessible. Join us for a discussion of technical, curatorial and organizational approaches, as well as lessons learned, and let us explore opportunities for continued shared learning.

View discussion outline

(The authors are members of the steering committee for the TDL Accessible AV webinar series.)

The 5Rs of OER are not only a framework for licensing, but an opportunity to breathe life into texts that might otherwise be forgotten. The 5Rs also power the generosity that open education advocates and practitioners have been sharing with their peers who are new to online education. The speed at which open textbook creators can now adapt material for new contexts is a valuable skill as the future of higher education constantly shifts, and, coupled with the potential for OER to grow and fill new gaps, OER creators are poised to lead the shift to blended and online learning.

This discussion will feature educators who have incorporated formative and summative assessment into their OER to use the resource as a package for an online course. By using H5P interactive content, importing chapters from other texts, and/or adding a social annotation layer with Hypothesis, participants have revived OER to become the basis for online learning and an efficient way to transfer a previously in-person course to a blended or online classroom. Our participants will share their experiences with creating and incorporating H5P content, speaking about their challenges, their successes, and their surprises.

The TDL Imaging Group was founded in 2019 to address the challenges of cultural heritage imaging among regional practitioners. The groups’ goals include exchanging knowledge on topics such as equipment use, color management, workflows, project management, and other tricks of the trade in a supportive environment. Attendees of this birds-of-a-feather will be able to discuss among peers their imaging specific issues and triumphs, including, but not limited to, how the field has adapted to challenges over the past few years.

>>>>>>> BEFORE THE SESSION <<<<<<<

ATTENDEE SIGN-IN
Let's save session time for topical discussion! Please introduce yourself in advance by sharing your name, institution, title, and brief description of your interest or experience with linked data for libraries and archives.

PREPARE TO SHARE links and other resources in this collaborative document

PREPARE TO CHOOSE YOUR TOP 2 DISCUSSION TOPICS OF INTEREST:

• How to raise visibility and awareness of linked open data initiatives and experimentation in/across our institutions
• How to build buy-in and support for integration of linked open data efforts from institutional leadership
• Strategies for assessing value and determining impact of linked data in routine workflows
• Strategies for moving from stand-alone linked open data projects to integration with routine descriptive/cataloging workflows

Convened by the University of Texas Linked Data Learning Group, this birds-of-a-feather session aims to start a Texas-based cross-institutional discussion around sustainability, visibility and assessment of local linked open data projects. The past few years have seen a proliferation of initiatives by GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) using Linked Open Data technologies to enhance access to their collections. From nation-wide collaborative campaigns, such as the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Wikidata Pilot, to paradigm-shifting implementations, such as the transition of the Library of Congress cataloging operations to a hybrid MARC and BIBFRAME environment, the growing availability of tools, ontologies and platforms are finally allowing cultural heritage institutions to explore the promises of linked data. Yet, there are still many challenges that stop individual institutions from moving past the experimentation phase.

A monthly gathering of library and archives staff working across The University of Texas at Austin campus and beyond, the UT Linked Data Learning Group discusses strategies to evaluate the impact of their experimental projects, leverage expertise, share successes and challenges, and gain the institutional support to integrate linked data technologies into their routine metadata workflows.

By convening this session, we hope to connect with TDL colleagues that are currently involved in similar discussions and efforts. The session is intended for library and archival staff currently working with digital libraries or digital archival collections, digital humanities scholars with an interest in linked open data, practitioners and enthusiasts. 

We are interested in building a community of linked data practitioners at TDL as we explore the impact of our initiatives and consider how using linked data adds value to our internal workflows.

In this workshop, we'll talk about writing for everyone. We'll give tips for writing when you don't feel inspired. Writer's Block is often perfectionism keeping us from expressing ourselves. Participants will be given prompts and exercises to generate writing and be inspired to write.

Ursula Pike is the author of An Indian among los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir (2021) from Heyday Books. Ursula lives in Austin, Texas and teaches Creative Writing at Austin Community College. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts and a master’s degree in Economics from Western Illinois University. She is a member of the Karuk Tribe. Her work has appeared in LitHub, Yellow Medicine Review, Ligeia Magazine, World Literature Today, and O’Dark 30.

Get your glow on (session type) | Texas Digital Library and the TCDL Planning Committee opted to provide our guests with conference “swag” that was experiential, and – hopefully – beneficial, rather than physical. Our committee has curated four unique experiences for guests that are intended to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.

In this 60-minute workshop participants will experience a guided meditation followed by the opportunity to create art reflective of the imagery inspired by the subconscious during meditation. Using sounds, music, verbal ques and relaxation prompts, participants will be offered the opportunity to let go of daily stressors and experience the effects meditation and mindfulness practices can have on overall wellbeing.

The meditation theme will focus on cultivating calm, soothing imagery, and reflect on ideas of the self. Once the meditation is complete participants will be invited to create artwork reflective of their visual journey during meditation. Creativity is reflective of the meditative process. The end of the workshop will allow for several minutes to share experiences and artwork. This is optional. Sharing can help deepen the understanding of the experience for some individuals, but not all. Listening to others share is useful as well.
Participants can expect to have a felt sense of what a meditation experience might be like after attending the workshop. Additionally, during the discussion at the end, tips and suggestions will be offered as “take-aways” for simple meditation and mindfulness practices that are generally accessible.

Art Materials are not provided. Any materials on hand can be used. Suggestions: Markers, Colored Pencils, Collage and Glue Sticks, Paints, Crayons, Pastels, Pencils, office supplies like pens, sharpies even dry erase boards, etc.


Sue McCoy LCPC, LPC
Art Therapist
Yoga Informed Psychotherapist
Mindfulness Educator
Community Herbalist

Sue McCoy is a seasoned professional in the Helping Field. Her foundation is built upon a master’s degree in Art Therapy from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. It is the foundation of art that has grounded Ms. McCoy’s approach to healing in creativity, curiosity, and compassion.

In her evolving career of 20+ years as a professional, she remained dedicated to leading with creativity. Sue started out as a trauma informed therapist, rooted in attachment theory and deeply connected to a relational model. Eventually when motherhood brought the desire to attend a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, mindfulness would emerge into her work as a therapist and take her practice out of the chair, away from the art supplies to the mat. Later when life expanded in greater ways, Sue began her personal study of Buddhist philosophy. Again, the ways of creativity took hold, and the Buddhist concept of suffering became indistinguishable from her long-understood trainings in trauma. She began to sit on the cushions with her clients.

The thread that consistently weaves is always creativity. Whether combining artmaking and meditation, movement and mindfulness, self-reflection and journaling, or meal planning and empowerment, Sue believes there are a multitude of ways the human condition can heal and grow.

Sue McCoy is a clinically licensed counselor in Illinois, and professionally licensed in Texas and Georgia. Currently, she is focusing on becoming a Certified Integrative Therapist, Registered Herbalist and trained in EcoTherapy. Sue’s current scope of practice includes online individual therapy, mindfulness-based groups, and wellness support services. She lives in Atlanta Georgia with her family, 3 dogs, 9 chickens and garden full of native and medicinal plants. You can find her in June 2022 teaching at Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center during Native Plant Week.

Get your glow on (session type) | Texas Digital Library and the TCDL Planning Committee opted to provide our guests with conference “swag” that was experiential, and – hopefully – beneficial, rather than physical. Our committee has curated four unique experiences for guests that are intended to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.

Shared Experiences from Graduate Students
Speaker: Whitney Freeman, Melissa Gamez Herrera
This session is for graduate students, current or recently graduated, to come together and engage with each other on their journeys through getting their degree, navigating the job market, presenting at conferences, or whatever else they'd like to share. We hope this is especially valuable for folks who’ve struggled with making connections during the pandemic and remote classes.

Retaining Student Employees in Digital Libraries
Speaker: Christina Kellum, Max Prud'homme, Ph.D.
Holding a space for student supervisors to come together and discuss student employee retention efforts including conversations about student employees, hiring resources, sharing advice, and offering shared experiences. As a reverse workshop, we will begin with the question: “How can we retain student employees and inspire a future in libraries?” and “What tactics or information have you used to the best supervisor that you can be?” Student supervisors from across multiple parts of the library are invited to come and join in the conversation.

Curious about mapping and geographic information systems (GIS)? So are we! Hosted by the Texas Digital Library GIS Interest Group, this Birds of a Feather session is an opportunity to share and learn about geospatial software, data, maps, and the role of libraries in providing infrastructure, access, and support. This will be a great chance for attendees to engage in conversation regarding a number of different GIS related topics that are of relevance to the library community including development of geospatial research support services, sharing of geospatial data from library collections, and organization of GIS training opportunities.

The DSpace User Group (DUG) meets monthly to discuss all things DSpace/Repositories - we would like to carry on the conversation at TCDL. Our round-table discussion will consist of introductions, sharing the cool things going on/in our different repositories, ORCID activity, and so much more. We will have planned questions/topics to inspire conversation/questions/and discussions.

Sprinting While Juggling: Learning Through Immersive Community GIS Skill-Building
Speakers: Joshua Been, Kristina Claunch, Sylvia Jones, Jenifer Flaxbart, Cynthia Henry
In July 2021, the Mentoring Subcommittee of the Texas Digital Library’s GIS Interest Group (IG) planned and sponsored a GIS Learning Community Sprint. This free virtual initiative utilized an approach to learning GIS concepts modeled on the short, time-boxed “Sprint” associated with the Agile Method used by IT developers. The Sprint sourced and showcased GIS expertise from within the IG membership, comprised of library professionals at institutions across Texas, to build both familiarity with a range of GIS concepts and community through immersive co-learning.

The Sprint Planning Group was deliberate about identifying learning outcomes for each topic covered, as a way of aligning “introductory overviews” of material with hands-on exercises for individual completion. We leveraged multiple virtual platforms in working with participants, some of which continue to serve Sprint participants well for ongoing consultation and discussion. We covered a broad range of topics, including databases, cloud platforms, software and related resources. We also performed daily brief-survey assessments to iteratively improve our approach to instruction and support during the course of the Sprint based on the feedback received.

This presentation will discuss the construct, content, assessment, lessons learned and future applications of this piloted approach to GIS and geospatial skill-building. While specific to GIS tools, resources and concepts in this case, the model developed is versatile and has strong potential for application to a broad array of subject matter. The learning community created through this effort continues to benefit from the work of the GIS IG in multiple ways.

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Tg0E-1eUE5pVG8_o_wXegKaTfIpQcg8StsonRi_pIhs/edit?usp=sharing

The Lessons My Sheep have Taught Me About Working With Faculty
Speaker: Bruce Herbert
I raise a heritage breed of sheep called Gulf Coast Native. They are smart, hardy and willful. I was standing out in my back paddock and started thinking that working with my herd provides important lessons about libraries working diverse communities, including faculty.

Getting to know you: Results of the Texas Data Repository User Survey
Speakers: Christina Chan-Park, Laura Sare, Laura Waugh
The Assessment Committee of the Texas Data Repository (TDR) Steering Committee conducted a survey in Spring 2022 of TDR users. The TDR uses the Dataverse platform for publishing and archiving datasets (and other data products) created by faculty, staff, and students at Texas higher education institutions and hosted by the Texas Digital Library. There are currently nine participating member institutions. The purpose of the survey is to gauge overall user experience with the TDR in order to identify areas for improvement and/or future integrations with a focus on how the platform is used for research. The survey was administered to over 1000 registered users of the TDR including researchers from member institutions as well as any researchers that created accounts to deposit or download data. In addition to general questions about using the TDR, users were asked about their experience creating collections, depositing data, and downloading data. In this presentation, we report on the findings of this study.

Google slides:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Tn700ffvrNzaikBgLLuFWxA4Nfp-Rel_xMt92tbUIyM/edit?usp=sharing

Piloting OpenProject for Digital Projects
Speaker: Marcia McIntosh
One digitization lab continues its development of project management systems by piloting the open source software OpenProject. Come hear about the many features and how the lab has customized OpenProject to track digital projects. Their test is your gain.

Breathing New Life into Maverick Veterans’ Voices Using Oral History Metadata Synthesizer
Speaker: Yumi Ohira
University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) is the nation’s No. 1 four-year institution for veterans and their families to earn a college degree. The University serves and supports UTA veterans and their families enabling them to continue their education.

The UTA Libraries has created and published a variety of digital collections while offering worldwide access to these collections. One of these collections is Maverick Veterans’ Voices (https://library.uta.edu/mavvets/), providing access to the oral histories of veterans belonging to the UTA community. The Maverick Veterans’ Voices is a collaborative project with the UTA Libraries and the Department of History. The Department of History has long supported UTA’s rich tradition with, and connection to, the armed forces and America’s military history.

The Maverick Veterans’ Voices project was launched in 2012 to collect, share and preserve the stories of the UTA veterans. There were a total of 14 video interviews conducted between 2012 and 2015. Those video interviews were presented online, but that video content was not accessible. In 2015, the Maverick Veterans’ Voices project became an inactive project. In 2019, the UTA Libraries launched and applied the Oral History Metadata Synthesizer (OHMS) system to the Maverick Veterans’ Voices project and gave the Maverick Veterans’ Voices a new life.

This presentation will discuss the project background, reactivating processes, and project challenges.

Join TCDL attendees for an informal morning session. Committee members will host themed break out rooms and poster videos will be screened.

Watch poster presentations on YouTube! Poster videos will also be screened in a break out room during our morning coffees if you would like to watch and discuss them with other TCDL attendees.

View poster PDFs here.

"What is Digital Librarianship?": A Texas Digital Library Interview Series
By: Ali Gunnells, MA/MSIS Candidate in English and Information Studies; Assistant Instructor, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin

Many academic libraries across Texas now maintain significant digital collections of resources. These collections may consist of digitized and/or born digital materials and are considered a part of the academic library’s holdings. However, despite the ever-increasing prevalence of digital collections, the tasks of librarians working with these collections remain elusive. Digital librarianship, particularly in the context of an academic institution, encompasses a vast array of roles and responsibilities. Ultimately, the question of what digital librarians do remains unclear for both the general public and for MLIS/MSIS students. This uncertainty creates a disconnect between the libraries themselves and the communities that these libraries serve.

The goal of this project is to provide an understanding of digital library work to both the general public and LIS/MSIS students through an interview series format. We focus on exploring what tasks make up the day-to-day job of a digital librarian, as well as the larger challenges of working with digital collections. Furthermore, this project aims to highlight members of the BIPOC community and other marginalized communities who are currently working in the field of digital librarianship. As of February 2022, we have conducted a series of seven interviews with Texas Digital Library-affiliated professionals working in the field of digital librarianship, with the possibility to conduct additional interviews in the future.

Out of the Woods: Charting Metadata with Digital Tools
By: Laura Ramirez, Senior Library Specialist, University of Houston

In the fall of 2021, a metadata working group was created and charged to streamline the process of evaluating and refining metadata for a retrospective thesis and dissertations digitization (TDD) project at the University of Houston Libraries. The group took to their task by improving existing workflows and reworking scalability through the introduction of an updated automated tool kit created for the team by another member involved with the TDD project. Using MARC records as an existing foundation, metadata was transformed into Dublin Core formatted records with MARCEdit and OpenRefine. Group members then evaluate each Dublin Core metadata record and edit and enhance metadata as needed. As part of the workflow, copyright status is also evaluated and noted in the metadata record. The automated tool kit aids in scaling production by allowing for batch metadata verification, file sorting, and writing EXIF data to the PDF files. This poster highlights the MARC to Dublin Core metadata transformation and the use of the automation tool kit to streamline the metadata process, a necessary step in a large-scale digitization project that promotes accessibility to scholarly materials.

Exploring Tools for Improving Negative Capture     
By: Erin Mazzei, Digital Media Specialist, Texas State University

In just the past few years, the technology for digitizing slides and negatives has been evolving rapidly. Boosted in part by individual photographers seeking better quality for their own negatives, the result is a wide variety of commercial products to improve image results from both flatbed scanners and camera capture stations. How do some these options compare to each other for use at institutions? This poster proposes to test and compare the results of several types of negative holder and introduce a framework for evaluating the quality and efficiency of others.

Programming for Open Access: Using Python to Promote Open File Formats in the Texas Data Repository
By: Ian Goodale, European Studies Librarian, University of Texas at Austin

The preponderance of proprietary file formats being used for scholarly purposes poses an issue for the truly open dissemination of information. This was one of the key points identified by a working group I participated in at the University of Texas at Austin, in which working group members explored ways to improve metadata and reduce proprietary file formats in the Texas Data Repository. As a result of my work on the group, I created a group of Python scripts designed to help promote use of open file formats in the repository. These include scripts that automatically convert specified proprietary file formats to open ones, and that search through uploads to the Texas Data Repository within a specified date range and output a .xlsx or .csv with the dataverses and their files, flagging files with non-open extensions. My poster will describe and demonstrate this evolving resource, which is hosted on GitHub and freely available for others to modify and contribute to, and explain how it aims to make dataverse content more openly accessible to all.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Digital Preservation        
By: Adrian Shapiro, Manager of Digital Initiatives and Assessment, Texas Woman's University, and Kristin Clark, Manager of Digital Collections, Texas Woman's University

Digital preservation is important, but how do I get started? This poster will provide a roadmap for how Texas Woman’s University built, and is continuing to build, a cross-departmental digital preservation program with the help of TDL’s Digital Preservation Service. It will provide tips and resources for beginners looking to build a digital preservation program at their institution.

University of North Texas Open Access Publication Review (2019-2021): Workflows and Insights         
By: Megan Scott, Graduate Student Assistant, University of North Texas
 
The University of North Texas’ Scholarly Works Open Access institutional repository is home to materials from the UNT community’s research, creative, and scholarly activities. Currently, we are conducting an Open Access publication review for scholarly works generated by UNT in order to learn more about the OA publication practices of the UNT community with the goal of better serving their needs. The workflows of this project consist of a system using Scopus and Zotero to harvest, review, and sort UNT OA publication data from 2019-2021. Through this process we are able to better understand who is publishing Open Access, where they are publishing, and identify challenges and best practices for harvesting this scholarly output for inclusion in the institutional repository. This is an ongoing project which we hope to continue gathering insights from and improving the workflows to maximize its’ usefulness.

Working as a Digitization Student
By: Jarrett Crepeau, Imaging Lead, University of North Texas

I will be discussing my experience as an Imaging Lead for the Kempner Fund Project at the Digital Projects Lab at the University of North Texas. My role at the lab consists of digitizing, item organization, and doing image quality checks on items from the Kempner project before they are uploaded to the Portal of Texas History. The Kempner Project started in 2017 in partnership with the Rosenberg Library and the Kempner Fund of Galveston, Texas, to establish a digital repository for the Harris and Eliza Kempner Collection on the Portal. The Kempn

Opening Plenary & Keynote

• Welcome from Texas Digital Library
• TDL Awards Ceremony
• Keynote Address: Elaine L. Westbrooks

Keynote: Reckoning and Transformation: the value of being of and for equity and Inclusion
Speaker: Elaine L. Westbrooks
When Westbrooks launched a call to action to her organization, UNC Chapel Hill Libraries, to actually do something about systemic racism and the inequities that persist in academic research libraries, she had no idea what would happen. In the past two years, the Reckoning Initiative has provided a great opportunity to learn about what it takes to be anti-racist and all of the barriers that make it so elusive and difficult. Westbrooks will share what she has learned about building a strategy for equity and inclusion and the mistakes that were made along the way. Westbrooks will also talk about how the core part of the strategy has to be about understanding and addressing the inequitable components of our library systems (e.g. budget, communications, IT, development) and then coming up with sustainable new policies, practices, and procedures that help transform the organization, individuals, and how people see their work and themselves within the evolving organization.

Elaine L. Westbrooks has been Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2017. She leads a library system that includes 10 libraries; nearly 10 million volumes; 270 librarians, archivists and staff; and a budget of approximately $45 million.
Westbrooks has held library leadership positions at the University of Michigan, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the Cornell University. She began her career as a cataloger and digital research librarian at the University of Pittsburgh.

Westbrooks is a member of the Association of Research Libraries’ Scholars and Scholarship Committee and the Executive Committee and Governing Board of the Triangle Research Libraries Network. She serves on the boards of the Center for Open Science, Digital Public Library of America and the HathiTrust Digital Library.

She co-edited “Metadata in Practice” with Diane Hillmann (2004) and “Academic Library Management: Case Studies” with Tammy Nickelson Dearie and Michael Meth (2017). She is a frequent speaker on issues of open access, transforming the scholarly communications system and inclusion, diversity, equity and access in libraries and higher education. Westbrooks has a B.A in Linguistics and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Pittsburgh.

TCDL Planning Committee members will host discussion groups to reflect upon the keynote.

Get your glow on (session type) | Texas Digital Library and the TCDL Planning Committee opted to provide our guests with conference “swag” that was experiential, and – hopefully – beneficial, rather than physical. Our committee has curated four unique experiences for guests that are intended to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.

Juggling Digital Content: Developing Policies for Access and Preservation
Speakers: Julianna Barrera-Gomez, Emily Johnson, Kristin Law
In 2020, UTSA Libraries launched a new DSpace Institutional Repository called the Runner Research Press. Previously, the only existing access platform for digital content was CONTENTdm, which showcases digitized material from the UTSA Libraries Special Collections, including University Archives. The launch of the repository coincided with the creation of the Digital Stewardship Governance Group (DSGG), a group of staff from across the organization charged with developing a practical, shared vision of digital stewardship for the Libraries content from creation through preservation. In the course of the DSGG’s work, it became clear that there was overlap between records in University Archives and UTSA’s scholarly output, which caused confusion on which access platform to use (DSpace vs CONTENTdm), as well as which specific content types in the repository should be transferred to the University Archives for permanent retention. Members of the DSGG realized they had a unique opportunity to break down silos and develop policies for access and preservation of the scholarly and historical output of the university, utilizing both DSpace and CONTENTdm. A subgroup of the DSGG was formed and developed a guiding document for access and preservation to UTSA’s digital content across multiple platforms and content types. This presentation will provide an overview of the team’s work to develop this document and provide insights for other libraries interested in developing similar guidelines.

Wrangling Serial Titles and Place Names in the UNT Libraries’ Digital Collections
Speaker: Mark Phillips
The UNT Libraries’ Digital Collections has grown to include over 3 million unique digital resources including maps, newspapers, photographs, audio, and video records. These digital collections use the UNTL metadata format, that is based on Dublin Core and includes qualifiers that allow for more specificity about a field to be represented. While the UNTL metadata format works well in describing a wide range of digital resources held in our collections, one thing that has not been modeled well historically is the concept of a “Title” such as a serial title for a newspaper, like the Austin American-Statesman or a “Place” such as Denton, Texas. This past year we have taken the first steps to manage titles and place names in a more robust way in the UNT Libraries’ Digital Collections. This involved the creation of a system to model the concept of a Title and the concept of a Place that could be populated with information that provides descriptive and specificity to adequately represent these concepts. Trying not to reinvent the wheel, this approach leveraged data from the Library of Congress databases to link title records with existing LCCN and OCLC numbers. Likewise places are linked with Geonames and Wikidata to provide equivalences between systems. Finally appropriate user interface elements were integrated into the system to expose this information to the end user so that they are able to make use of this effort in identification and disambiguation of these concepts. This presentation will present the problem we were facing, explain the approach, and provide examples of next steps in this space.

Migration from Dspace to Islandora version 8
Speakers: Jason Long, Todd Peters
This presentation will discuss the recent installation of an Islandora 8 repository at Texas State University. The University Libraries has maintained a Dspace repository serving as an Institutional Repository for several years. It contains not only scholarship such as electronic theses and dissertations and faculty publications, but also digitized items from special collections. There is general satisfaction with how Dspace supports Institutional Repository scholarship workflows and documents, however, the platform has limitations for support of special collections type material, such as images, audio and video. The University Libraries recently moved special collections materials into a newly established Islandora 8 repository. This presentation will discuss exporting and cross walking Dspace Dublin Core metadata into Islandora using the external Islandora tool, Workbench. Installation and setup of the Islandora 8 software using Docker and customizing Islandora to include searching and faceting will also be discussed.

Achieving Unified Search across Digital Repository Platforms
Speakers: James Creel, Kevin Day, Elizabeth German, Jeremy Huff, Ryan Laddusaw, David Lowe, Rincy Mathew, Jason Savell, William Welling

Texas A&M University Libraries have begun going live with production exhibits in the new open-source Solr AGgregation Engine (SAGE). SAGE has been in development since 2019 and consists in two complimentary feature sets: (1) The aggregation of multiple Solr indices into a target index with arbitrary fields, and (2) Curator-configurable views of any Solr index with custom filters, facets, and display fields.

The ubiquity of Solr indices in library applications like VuFind, Blacklight/Spotlight, DSpace, Fedora, and others, juxtaposed with the tantalizing prospect of one search interface across the myriad of library holdings, led readily to the concepts behind SAGE. Once the development team implemented the aggregation functionality, it proved straightforward enough to make a configurable display of the fields of the bespoke Solr documents SAGE was writing. Soon, the development team was demonstrating rough views of synthesized collections of DSpace, Fedora, and Spotlight documents.

However, when it came time to prepare these views for curatorial management and public display, numerous issues arose for the product owners. Among other things, the views posed problems with formatting and normalization of metadata, uniquely identifying objects, and providing viewers for content like images, PDFs, and A/V. Resolving these issues to the satisfaction of product owners has yielded the first production hybrid collection in SAGE, the Apfelbaum collection of World War I Postcards. In this presentation, we will describe the means whereby this content from DSpace and Fedora repositories was brought together in a harmonious view.

In the summer of 2021, a significant section of the oldest journals in the Tom Slick Library of Southwest Research Institute fell subject to extensive mold. Using interlibrary loan data, OCLC availability, and the PAPR registry, the library staff were able to validate the cost to clean and maintain the entire affected collection. The effort highlighted not only the value but the susceptibility of the collection in full and leads to the prospect of large-scale digitization. But as a staff of 5 with two librarians, how do we approach this?

This reverse workshop is an interactive and real-time brainstorming/ideation session calling on all who've tackled or considered digitization projects and have insights, experiences, and best practices to share! With our helpful community, the aim is for attendees to walk away with:

• necessary questions to ask when approaching a digitization project
• awareness of shared concerns or known challenges
• new or refreshed information on processes, grants, and potential partnerships to help guide digitization efforts across our organizations

Topics of discussion include copyright, technical infrastructure, equipment, collaborations, and preparation of materials. All ideation ideas will be captured and available both in real-time and after the session via Jamboard: 

Jamboard Link: https://bit.ly/3MHThqz 

 

Using Wikidata to Enhance Discovery for Dissertations, Authors, and Faculty Advisors in Texas A&M University’s Mechanical Engineering Department
Speakers: Jeannette Ho, Charity Stokes, Zao Liu, Tatyana Chubaryan

As a participant in the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Wikidata Pilot, Texas A&M University (TAMU) created linked data in the Wikidata platform for a selected sample of mechanical engineering students, their doctoral dissertations and faculty advisors. This presentation will provide an overview of how an inter-departmental team of four cataloging/metadata librarians and one curator used tools such as OpenRefine and Mix’n’Match to populate Wikidata with metadata from OAKTrust, the TAMU institutional repository, as well Scholars.tamu.edu, its VIVO database of faculty member profiles. It will also describe efforts to manually enhance the items that were created and issues that were encountered, as well as experimentation with SPARQL queries to demonstrate the value of the transformed data. Finally, this presentation will cover potential implications that Wikidata may have for library workflows regarding the management and disambiguation of persons and other entities in the TAMU Libraries’ catalog and institutional repository.

Responding to Faculty Interest in Rapid Publishing During the Pandemic: The Role of interoperable Scholarly Communication Systems at Texas A&M
Speaker: David B. Lowe

In 2019 and 2020, the Office of Scholarly Communications pursued a strategy of the vertical integration of our scholarly communication systems in order to make them more useful to researchers, specifically our repository (DSpace), research information management system (VIVO) and Altmetrics from Digital Science. These systems can be used to “publish” a range of documents, represent the publications on faculty Scholars@TAMU profiles, and collect engagement metrics for the publications.

We were ready, then, when faculty requests for help with special research projects while working from alternative working locations. The faculty wanted to rapidly publish special publications that were related to the pandemic or the Black Lives Matter protests. The outcomes from this initiative were very exciting. Heidi Campbell edited a volume entitled The Distanced Church: Reflections on Doing Church Online that explored how churches worldwide were responding to the pandemic. The volume went viral on social media, was written up in a Finnish newspaper, and was cited on a Wikipedia page. Dr. Campbell was pleased with the experience enough to publish nine other publications through the repository, including a Spanish language version of The Distanced Church. Srivi Ramasubramanian published an essay entitled The promise and perils of interracial dialogue in response to the BLM protests. Again, the success of her first publication led her to curate 26 other publications in OAK Trust. Kati Stoddard, an instructional faculty member, published an exemplary teaching resource, Academic Honesty Quiz, that seeks to support other faculty moving their courses online. The resource has been downloaded almost 1000 times in the few months is has been accessible. Finally, a community of engineering education faculty published survey results of the challenges their students faced as their classes moved online. The teaching resource has generated more than 2000 views and a citation. Again, the success of the project led the faculty to curate a large number of other documents in the repository.

In this talk, we will discuss the needs and interests of faculty, the role played by the library in supporting these projects, and the nature of the scholarly communication systems at Texas A&M that allow all of this to happen.

This 90-minute session will provide a brief introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) and ArcGIS Online. It will show how ArcGIS Online can be used to manage, visualize, and share geospatial data. Participants will learn how to search ArcGIS Online for data, upload local datasets, customize dataset symbology, and carry out basic analysis. They will also learn how to create content in ArcGIS Online by publishing a hosted feature layer and by saving and sharing a web map. The workshop structure will consist of presentation slides and a hands-on interactive portion where participants will gain direct experience working with ArcGIS Online. This session is intended for all TCDL attendees who are interested in GIS and no prior experience is required.

It is preferred that attendees have a pre-existing institutional ArcGIS Online account created prior to the start of the workshop, but this is not a requirement and attendees will have the option to create a public ArcGIS Online account during the session. If you do not already have an institutional ArcGIS Online account created, we recommend checking with your institution's ArcGIS Online administrator or ArcGIS Online policies to determine how you can create one.

Participants will be given time to ask questions at the end of the workshop.

Join TCDL attendees for an informal morning session. Committee members will host themed break out rooms and poster videos will be screened.

Watch poster presentations on YouTube! Poster videos will also be screened in a break out room during our morning coffees if you would like to watch and discuss them with other TCDL attendees.

View poster PDFs here.

"What is Digital Librarianship?": A Texas Digital Library Interview Series
By: Ali Gunnells, MA/MSIS Candidate in English and Information Studies; Assistant Instructor, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin

Many academic libraries across Texas now maintain significant digital collections of resources. These collections may consist of digitized and/or born digital materials and are considered a part of the academic library’s holdings. However, despite the ever-increasing prevalence of digital collections, the tasks of librarians working with these collections remain elusive. Digital librarianship, particularly in the context of an academic institution, encompasses a vast array of roles and responsibilities. Ultimately, the question of what digital librarians do remains unclear for both the general public and for MLIS/MSIS students. This uncertainty creates a disconnect between the libraries themselves and the communities that these libraries serve.

The goal of this project is to provide an understanding of digital library work to both the general public and LIS/MSIS students through an interview series format. We focus on exploring what tasks make up the day-to-day job of a digital librarian, as well as the larger challenges of working with digital collections. Furthermore, this project aims to highlight members of the BIPOC community and other marginalized communities who are currently working in the field of digital librarianship. As of February 2022, we have conducted a series of seven interviews with Texas Digital Library-affiliated professionals working in the field of digital librarianship, with the possibility to conduct additional interviews in the future.

Out of the Woods: Charting Metadata with Digital Tools
By: Laura Ramirez, Senior Library Specialist, University of Houston

In the fall of 2021, a metadata working group was created and charged to streamline the process of evaluating and refining metadata for a retrospective thesis and dissertations digitization (TDD) project at the University of Houston Libraries. The group took to their task by improving existing workflows and reworking scalability through the introduction of an updated automated tool kit created for the team by another member involved with the TDD project. Using MARC records as an existing foundation, metadata was transformed into Dublin Core formatted records with MARCEdit and OpenRefine. Group members then evaluate each Dublin Core metadata record and edit and enhance metadata as needed. As part of the workflow, copyright status is also evaluated and noted in the metadata record. The automated tool kit aids in scaling production by allowing for batch metadata verification, file sorting, and writing EXIF data to the PDF files. This poster highlights the MARC to Dublin Core metadata transformation and the use of the automation tool kit to streamline the metadata process, a necessary step in a large-scale digitization project that promotes accessibility to scholarly materials.

Exploring Tools for Improving Negative Capture     
By: Erin Mazzei, Digital Media Specialist, Texas State University

In just the past few years, the technology for digitizing slides and negatives has been evolving rapidly. Boosted in part by individual photographers seeking better quality for their own negatives, the result is a wide variety of commercial products to improve image results from both flatbed scanners and camera capture stations. How do some these options compare to each other for use at institutions? This poster proposes to test and compare the results of several types of negative holder and introduce a framework for evaluating the quality and efficiency of others.

Programming for Open Access: Using Python to Promote Open File Formats in the Texas Data Repository
By: Ian Goodale, European Studies Librarian, University of Texas at Austin

The preponderance of proprietary file formats being used for scholarly purposes poses an issue for the truly open dissemination of information. This was one of the key points identified by a working group I participated in at the University of Texas at Austin, in which working group members explored ways to improve metadata and reduce proprietary file formats in the Texas Data Repository. As a result of my work on the group, I created a group of Python scripts designed to help promote use of open file formats in the repository. These include scripts that automatically convert specified proprietary file formats to open ones, and that search through uploads to the Texas Data Repository within a specified date range and output a .xlsx or .csv with the dataverses and their files, flagging files with non-open extensions. My poster will describe and demonstrate this evolving resource, which is hosted on GitHub and freely available for others to modify and contribute to, and explain how it aims to make dataverse content more openly accessible to all.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Digital Preservation        
By: Adrian Shapiro, Manager of Digital Initiatives and Assessment, Texas Woman's University, and Kristin Clark, Manager of Digital Collections, Texas Woman's University

Digital preservation is important, but how do I get started? This poster will provide a roadmap for how Texas Woman’s University built, and is continuing to build, a cross-departmental digital preservation program with the help of TDL’s Digital Preservation Service. It will provide tips and resources for beginners looking to build a digital preservation program at their institution.

University of North Texas Open Access Publication Review (2019-2021): Workflows and Insights         
By: Megan Scott, Graduate Student Assistant, University of North Texas
 
The University of North Texas’ Scholarly Works Open Access institutional repository is home to materials from the UNT community’s research, creative, and scholarly activities. Currently, we are conducting an Open Access publication review for scholarly works generated by UNT in order to learn more about the OA publication practices of the UNT community with the goal of better serving their needs. The workflows of this project consist of a system using Scopus and Zotero to harvest, review, and sort UNT OA publication data from 2019-2021. Through this process we are able to better understand who is publishing Open Access, where they are publishing, and identify challenges and best practices for harvesting this scholarly output for inclusion in the institutional repository. This is an ongoing project which we hope to continue gathering insights from and improving the workflows to maximize its’ usefulness.

Working as a Digitization Student
By: Jarrett Crepeau, Imaging Lead, University of North Texas

I will be discussing my experience as an Imaging Lead for the Kempner Fund Project at the Digital Projects Lab at the University of North Texas. My role at the lab consists of digitizing, item organization, and doing image quality checks on items from the Kempner project before they are uploaded to the Portal of Texas History. The Kempner Project started in 2017 in partnership with the Rosenberg Library and the Kempner Fund of Galveston, Texas, to establish a digital repository for the Harris and Eliza Kempner Collection on the Portal. The Kempn

The main issue of this one hour workshop will be biases in library digital collection catalog searches. I will begin by analyzing the Harry Ransom Center’s digital collections within the context of critical archival studies, critical Internet studies, critical race studies, and search engine studies. My aim is to identify how the "search" function of these collections operates, and determine how well it provides relevant results for searches about identity. This study is modeled on Safiya Noble’s Google searches in her book Algorithms of Oppression. I conclude that the “search feature” is limited in yielding relevant results, and furthermore, that the digital images in the database are not labeled in a manner to yield more desirable results. This research contributes to several of the efforts described in the HRC's Diversity Action Plan, and I hope will provide actionable recommendations to increase the accessibility, inclusivity, and representation of the HRC's collections and the way they are described online. To that end, I want to open the conversation to workshop participants and their experiences with searching library catalogs in an effort to brainstorm changes that can be made to these catalogs. No prior knowledge or experience is required, but attendees will be encouraged to try some searches of their own either before or during the workshop.

Show & Fail (session type) | Short talks about programs, initiatives, workflows, or strategies you lead or participated in at your library that didn’t work out as hoped. This session type is new to TCDL and will celebrate risk-taking rather than success (approx 10 – 15 minutes per talk).

An attempt at metadata enhancement through machine learning
Speakers: Jason Long, Todd Peters

This presentation will share what learned about machine learning and applicability to generate metadata to enhance discoverability during a pilot project. Object detection through neural networks is a rapidly developing field. Using machine learning large sets of images can be analyzed, objects detected and classified. We used the pretrained models COCO, Inception, ResNet, VGG19, and Xception to classify objects in images in our San Marcos Daily Record newspaper negative collection. Our initial use of these models did not yield usable metadata, however it did provide a useful first step into machine learning and knowledge to develop future research.

If you want something done right, do it yourself: Do Graduate Assistants (GAs) help or hinder in Institutional Repository (IR) projects?
Speaker: Alexa Hight

In this show and fail, Alexa Hight will discuss the various projects for the Institutional Repository (IR) at TAMU-CC where either one or multiple Graduate Assistants (GAs) were enlisted. In the almost two years since the pandemic began, GAs have been tasked to help with IR projects during library closures, downtimes (such as summer), and a GA specific to help on Scholarly Communication projects was hired. In this time, I have somewhat learned how to manage a GA, I’m learning how to be a manager, I’m learning how to teach not only how to use DSpace, but also teaching the complexities and nuances of open access and what versions of works can be added to the IR, as well as what copyright or Creative Commons license we can apply. My experiences can help others new to managing an IR, as well as managing people (or trying to). I’ve also learned how to come up with metadata and other projects with short notice. I’m still learning how to balance supervision and quality control with my other responsibilities, as well as how to mentor and empower the GAs to be better employees and humans.


When You Say Nothing at All: UX and Digital Collections
Speakers: Shelley Barba, Kimberly Vardeman

Once a digital project has been “completed” and developers have moved on—perhaps even leaving the institution—how can the new caretakers decide how to best maintain the project? The TTU Digital Resources department originally developed Streaming Audio and Visual Experience (SAVE) as a digital collection to hold recordings of the School of Music’s graduate student recitals. In 2019, we realized that SAVE had been inaccessible from the institutional repository for at least a year. To correct this mistake and others made during the creation of this digital tool, the department reached out to the library’s User Experience department. We launched a collaborative project to gather user data and opinions to understand how Music faculty and graduate students used the recordings. This exploration would guide a decision about whether the library would attempt to improve SAVE or retire SAVE and create a new workflow for accessing recital recordings. Unexpectedly, our plan for interviewing users fell flat despite our best efforts to recruit participants from the collection’s target audience. This presentation is about how very off we were in our assumptions and how we are using this ‘fail’ to still move forward.

I solemnly swear I will finish this project: Tackling a long-term digital preservation project
Speaker: Kristin Clark

In the fall of 2020, the Special Collections & University Archives at Texas Woman’s University embarked on its first ever born-digital processing and digital preservation project in an effort to collapse and preserve an over 60 cubic foot collection of born-digital University Archives photographs stored on roughly 4,500 CDs. The project began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that had many students and staff telecommuting, and over a year later the first phase of the project is coming to an end with phase two already underway and phase three on the horizon. To date, over 600 GB and 80,000 files have been extracted from the digital media in the collection.

The project is multifaceted including born-digital processing, physical processing, digitization, finding aid creation, stakeholder access point creation, and weeding. During the course of this project a number of stumbling blocks and questions were presented- Can we do this from home? What equipment do we need? These discs are not reading, what do I do? How do we create a finding aid for this collection for Special Collections staff? What do stakeholders need from this project? How do I work on this massive project when I have so many other projects to complete? Oh no, now we are out of server space!

This presentation will discuss creating remote projects, adaptability when working with different stakeholders, managing long-term projects, and digital preservation tools for processing CDs.

This Is the Way: Choosing the Right Digital Preservation Tools for Your Institution
Speaker: Kathryn Slover

In Star Wars: The Mandalorian, titular character Din Djarin learns that there is no one way to be a Mandalorian. The rules and regulations he was raised to follow are one way, but there are many others who do not adhere to this path. Similarly, in the field of digital archives, there is no singular solution to preserve digital materials. Each institution has different needs, resources, and goals, and digital preservation practitioners must recognize that there are a variety of solutions to the challenges they face. This presentation will chart the course taken by UTA Libraries through the asteroid field of early-stage digital preservation efforts that eventually led us to select Preservica as our digital preservation solution. This overview is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all path towards digital preservation enlightenment, but a guide to help any institution choose the solution that best fits their needs.

Evaluation and Adaptation: How Change Allowed Us to Thrive
Speaker: Elizabeth Speer

The last couple of years brought about a drastic change in how libraries provided services to their patrons. UNT Health Science Center took what could have been a crippling time and turned it into an opportunity for evaluation and adaptation of library policies and procedures. From changing ILS to retirements to lockdown procedures this presentation will present how library processes and technology were evaluated and adapted to meet our goals and patron needs while preserving the sanity of library staff.

Giving CRediT Taxonomy its Due
Speaker: Shelley Barba, Hannah Chapman Tripp, Natalia Kapacinskas, David Lowe, Santi Thompson

A subgroup of the TDL-sponsored Research Integrity Working Group has been meeting monthly to discuss curriculum development and planning for a patron-focused workshop themed around authority issues in research and publishing with a focus on the CRediT taxonomy. Join us as we discuss the path of our work and what we’ve learned thus far about the use, implementation, and scholarly controversy of the CRediT taxonomy, which defines 14 roles related to creating and authoring research-related works. As an academic publishing topic, the CRediT Taxonomy has implications for scholarly communication. As a tactic for managing power relationships (such as between a graduate student and tenured faculty member), it has implications for equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. As a bibliographic feature, it has implications for metadata and indexing specialists. As a crediting mechanism, it has implications stretching from evaluative processes to the integrity of academic research. We invite you to help us as we think through effective ways to introduce this seldom discussed topic with our faculty and students.

Kara Perez is the founder of Bravely Go, a feminist financial education company. Bravely focuses on bringing actionable, intersectional and accessible financial education to people via pop up events and online community. Kara has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, NPR, Glamour, ABC Nightline News, and US News and World Report as a financial expert. Additionally, for 2 years Kara co hosted the award winning podcast The Fairer Cents, which has been named the top money podcast for women by Forbes and The Balance.

Get your glow on (session type) | Texas Digital Library and the TCDL Planning Committee opted to provide our guests with conference “swag” that was experiential, and – hopefully – beneficial, rather than physical. Our committee has curated four unique experiences for guests that are intended to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.

Come learn how to juggle! Juggling is good for the mind and body. Bring 3 similar-sized objects you can safely drop (and won’t damage other things.) The best option is medium sized bean bags– but tennis balls, limes, a plastic bag of dried beans securely tied, or anything else you can find will work. We’ll look at the history, math, and benefits of juggling. Take a break and learn how to juggle and do a few tricks!

Get your glow on (session type) | Texas Digital Library and the TCDL Planning Committee opted to provide our guests with conference “swag” that was experiential, and – hopefully – beneficial, rather than physical. Our committee has curated four unique experiences for guests that are intended to nurture your mind, body, and spirit.

Assessment Toolkit: Assessing and Advancing the use of Open Education Resources
Speaker: Karina Sanchez

The OER Assessment Toolkit was created to help UT Austin's incoming OER Fellows assess their classes' use of free course materials. The Fellowship supports faculty in using OER materials in their classes. Working with the Assessment Librarian and OER Librarian, we created a toolkit that uses assessment tools to measure the impact of free course materials. In the presentation, I will go over assessment and OER methodologies used in developing the toolkit and the possible impact of using an assessment toolkit. OER and assessment further equitable learning, which needs greater development in higher education institutions like UT Austin. Therefore, creating an OER Assessment Toolkit helps instructors comprehend the impact of implementing and promoting free course materials in their classes. The goal of the presentation; is to present about OER assessment characteristics, to teach about the toolkit's role in facilitating assessment for faculty and staff, and to show staff how using free resources like toolkits furthers equitable learning.

Opening Up a Community of Practice
Speakers: Terra Gullings, Gabby Hernandez, Jessica McClean, Ashley Morrison, Tessy Torres

Digital Librarianship is an ever evolving field of cutting edge and innovative projects. These librarian positions are often limited to small groups of people who are accomplishing massive amounts of work. This is the case for many practitioners of Open Education who are running large scale programs that support the entire university with minimal personnel -- often just one person or part of one person’s workload.

The UT System Open Education Practitioners decided to break down the silos of their work to create an open community of practice. The purpose of these informal gatherings is to provide an inclusive environment where those who are responsible for open education initiatives could come and support the work we do at each of our campuses. We have been able to share information to lessen the duplication of work done between institutions and share wins, challenges, and processes with a receptive audience.

In this presentation, these open education practitioners will guide participants through the process of beginning this community, sharing feedback from participation, as well as how to sustain this model in the future.

What’s Next? UX Research for Discovery Systems Beyond the Initial Launch
Speaker: Chassidy Miles

The University of North Texas Libraries conducted user research for the redesign of the online catalog in 2020. Due to the significant changes we were able to make to the infrastructure and functionality of the interface before the initial release, we decided that regularly incorporating UX was critical for making user-centered improvements. This presentation will examine the challenges we experienced managing multiple UX projects with limited resources. I will detail the strategies we created to enhance the efficiency of our user studies and the improvements we have been able to make as a result. Finally, I will close by discussing possible next steps. This presentation is beneficial for those seeking to enhance usability and access for users of their discovery systems.

This Is Fine: Pressing On With Planned Changes Amid Ongoing Unplanned Ones!
Speakers: Samantha Dodd; Ada Negraru

Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) is a consortium of over 70 archives, museums, and cultural heritage centers throughout Texas that provides a mutually-supported website for member repositories to upload archival finding aids. For over two decades, TARO has served as a free and open resource visited by hundreds of thousands of researchers per year.

However, its twenty-year-old website was long overdue for holistic redesign and enhancement. Funded by a NEH Planning Grant (2015-2016) and a subsequent NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Implementation Grant (2019-present), the project started in the Spring of 2020 with a complete overhaul of the website from the administrative aspects of accounts, security and file uploads, to the public interface and search functionalities. Upon overcoming challenges such as the global pandemic and a week long winter storm, TARO’s Steering Committee and numerous volunteers, alongside its institutional home, the University of Texas Libraries, launched the Beta administrative site in May 2021, followed by the public facing Beta website in July 2021. After months of planning, development, testing, and continued enhancements, the final website debuted in October 2021.

This presentation is a follow-up to last year’s reports, and will document the final stages of project development and implementation, collection of stakeholder feedback, usability testing, retiring the legacy website, and project wrap up thoughts. Also included will be ongoing and potential future challenges for the TARO Consortium.

Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) are foundational elements in the overall research information infrastructure. They facilitate high quality and persistent identification and are a critical component to providing long-term access and stewardship of digital objects. PIDs require a sustainable community around standards that build assured trust and permanence. PIDs are only as persistent as the organizations that provide and support them. When choosing a PID scheme, there needs to be a defined commitment to maintain the persistence of the resolution service – either by the organization hosting the digital resource, a trusted third party, or a combination of the two. The approach will depend on a number of factors to consider and involves multiple stakeholders for implementation.

In this session, we will discuss initiatives at the University of North Texas, University of Houston, and Texas State University covering different stages in implementation of Archival Resource Keys (ARKs). The discussion will also include an update on the ARK Alliance and ongoing work in sustainability and progress with technical specifications and related tools. Finally, an opportunity for attendees to share their experiences with PID implementation or ask any questions they may have about the process will be provided.

Watch poster presentations on YouTube! Poster videos will also be screened in a break out room during our morning coffees if you would like to watch and discuss them with other TCDL attendees.

"What is Digital Librarianship?": A Texas Digital Library Interview Series
By: Ali Gunnells, MA/MSIS Candidate in English and Information Studies; Assistant Instructor, Department of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin

Many academic libraries across Texas now maintain significant digital collections of resources. These collections may consist of digitized and/or born digital materials and are considered a part of the academic library’s holdings. However, despite the ever-increasing prevalence of digital collections, the tasks of librarians working with these collections remain elusive. Digital librarianship, particularly in the context of an academic institution, encompasses a vast array of roles and responsibilities. Ultimately, the question of what digital librarians do remains unclear for both the general public and for MLIS/MSIS students. This uncertainty creates a disconnect between the libraries themselves and the communities that these libraries serve.

The goal of this project is to provide an understanding of digital library work to both the general public and LIS/MSIS students through an interview series format. We focus on exploring what tasks make up the day-to-day job of a digital librarian, as well as the larger challenges of working with digital collections. Furthermore, this project aims to highlight members of the BIPOC community and other marginalized communities who are currently working in the field of digital librarianship. As of February 2022, we have conducted a series of seven interviews with Texas Digital Library-affiliated professionals working in the field of digital librarianship, with the possibility to conduct additional interviews in the future.

Out of the Woods: Charting Metadata with Digital Tools
By: Laura Ramirez, Senior Library Specialist, University of Houston

In the fall of 2021, a metadata working group was created and charged to streamline the process of evaluating and refining metadata for a retrospective thesis and dissertations digitization (TDD) project at the University of Houston Libraries. The group took to their task by improving existing workflows and reworking scalability through the introduction of an updated automated tool kit created for the team by another member involved with the TDD project. Using MARC records as an existing foundation, metadata was transformed into Dublin Core formatted records with MARCEdit and OpenRefine. Group members then evaluate each Dublin Core metadata record and edit and enhance metadata as needed. As part of the workflow, copyright status is also evaluated and noted in the metadata record. The automated tool kit aids in scaling production by allowing for batch metadata verification, file sorting, and writing EXIF data to the PDF files. This poster highlights the MARC to Dublin Core metadata transformation and the use of the automation tool kit to streamline the metadata process, a necessary step in a large-scale digitization project that promotes accessibility to scholarly materials.

Exploring Tools for Improving Negative Capture     
By: Erin Mazzei, Digital Media Specialist, Texas State University

In just the past few years, the technology for digitizing slides and negatives has been evolving rapidly. Boosted in part by individual photographers seeking better quality for their own negatives, the result is a wide variety of commercial products to improve image results from both flatbed scanners and camera capture stations. How do some these options compare to each other for use at institutions? This poster proposes to test and compare the results of several types of negative holder and introduce a framework for evaluating the quality and efficiency of others.

Programming for Open Access: Using Python to Promote Open File Formats in the Texas Data Repository
By: Ian Goodale, European Studies Librarian, University of Texas at Austin

The preponderance of proprietary file formats being used for scholarly purposes poses an issue for the truly open dissemination of information. This was one of the key points identified by a working group I participated in at the University of Texas at Austin, in which working group members explored ways to improve metadata and reduce proprietary file formats in the Texas Data Repository. As a result of my work on the group, I created a group of Python scripts designed to help promote use of open file formats in the repository. These include scripts that automatically convert specified proprietary file formats to open ones, and that search through uploads to the Texas Data Repository within a specified date range and output a .xlsx or .csv with the dataverses and their files, flagging files with non-open extensions. My poster will describe and demonstrate this evolving resource, which is hosted on GitHub and freely available for others to modify and contribute to, and explain how it aims to make dataverse content more openly accessible to all.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Digital Preservation        
By: Adrian Shapiro, Manager of Digital Initiatives and Assessment, Texas Woman's University, and Kristin Clark, Manager of Digital Collections, Texas Woman's University

Digital preservation is important, but how do I get started? This poster will provide a roadmap for how Texas Woman’s University built, and is continuing to build, a cross-departmental digital preservation program with the help of TDL’s Digital Preservation Service. It will provide tips and resources for beginners looking to build a digital preservation program at their institution.

University of North Texas Open Access Publication Review (2019-2021): Workflows and Insights         
By: Megan Scott, Graduate Student Assistant, University of North Texas
 
The University of North Texas’ Scholarly Works Open Access institutional repository is home to materials from the UNT community’s research, creative, and scholarly activities. Currently, we are conducting an Open Access publication review for scholarly works generated by UNT in order to learn more about the OA publication practices of the UNT community with the goal of better serving their needs. The workflows of this project consist of a system using Scopus and Zotero to harvest, review, and sort UNT OA publication data from 2019-2021. Through this process we are able to better understand who is publishing Open Access, where they are publishing, and identify challenges and best practices for harvesting this scholarly output for inclusion in the institutional repository. This is an ongoing project which we hope to continue gathering insights from and improving the workflows to maximize its’ usefulness.

Working as a Digitization Student
By: Jarrett Crepeau, Imaging Lead, University of North Texas

I will be discussing my experience as an Imaging Lead for the Kempner Fund Project at the Digital Projects Lab at the University of North Texas. My role at the lab consists of digitizing, item organization, and doing image quality checks on items from the Kempner project before they are uploaded to the Portal of Texas History. The Kempner Project started in 2017 in partnership with the Rosenberg Library and the Kempner Fund of Galveston, Texas, to establish a digital repository for the Harris and Eliza Kempner Collection on the Portal. The Kempner’s built a large economic base in Galveston dating back to the 1840s, including the growth of the Imperial Sugar Company in Sugarland, Texas. I’ll explore what I have discovered whi

Purpose: This is an opportunity for Vireo users to come together to talk about their transitions and plans for Vireo 4. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions of the lead developers at TDL as well as the leaders of the Vireo User Group’s Steering Committee.
Link to agenda (open to add your comments, topics and questions!) 

Texas Digital Library’s OER Ambassadors will host an informal and informative roundtable discussion around implementing legislation such as TX SB 810 and TX HB 1027 on their campuses. Topics will include how to build your campus team and challenges and forecast barriers to implementation. A moderated open forum / airing of grievances / Q&A session will follow three brief presentations from academic librarians. This session will not be recorded but we will develop a community notes and resources document to share with attendees. 

This Birds-of-a-Feather session is a chance to share your love for all things metadata. Join Elliot Williams, TDL’s DPLA Aggregation Service Coordinator, for an open discussion about metadata and digital collections. Possible discussion topics include metadata mapping and interoperability, aggregation to DPLA, and inclusive/reparative metadata practices, but the floor will be open for any and all topics related to metadata and digital collections.
Bring your questions, quandaries, and success stories to share and learn with other metadata-minded folks.
Session padlet: https://padlet.com/elliotdwilliams/8k2rw06nnxxw9h23