ACRL Closes with Carla Hayden

ACRL Closes with Carla Hayden. Amy Carlton. American Libraries. March 27, 2017.
     Some quotes from the article about libraries, collections, and information:

• “When we seek information, we examine the privilege of the voices and sources of our information, and we learn to identify whose voices are present and whose voices are missing and how that impacts and influences our understanding of that information.” Margaret Brown-Salazar
• "Hayden said her goal is to make the Library of Congress’s  (LC) priceless collections available to everybody—for LC to live up to its nickname of America’s Library. Obama told her that he went to an exhibit there and saw Lincoln’s reading copy of the Gettysburg Address and the contents of his pockets from the night he was assassinated, but he was pretty sure this access was because of his being president. He told her he wanted someone for the job who could make sure a kid in Baltimore, a person at public library, a student at a community college, and anyone would be able to see these treasures. “And that’s when I said yes,” she said."
• “Our materials are nothing without the people and staff. That’s what makes it come alive”
• “Librarians are having a moment! Trustworthiness is our strength. We should revel in it and be confident in it. If we’re having a moment, let’s seize the moment!”

Digital Preservation Matters.

Developing Best Practices in Digital Library Assessment: Year One Update

Developing Best Practices in Digital Library Assessment: Year One Update. Joyce Chapman, Jody DeRidder, Santi Thompson. D-Lib Magazine. November 2015.
     While research and cultural institutions have increased focus on online access to special collections in the past decade, methods for assessing digital libraries have yet to be standardized. Because of limited resources and increasing demands for online access, assessment has become increasingly important. Library staff do not know how to begin to assess the costs, impact, use, and usability of digital libraries. The Digital Library Federation Assessment Interest Group is working to develop best practices and guidelines in digital library assessment. The definition of a digital library used is "the collections of digitized or digitally born items that are stored, managed, serviced, and preserved by libraries or cultural heritage institutions, excluding the digital content purchased from publishers."

They are considering two basic questions:

1.     What strategic information do we need to collect to make intelligent decisions?
2.     How can we best collect, analyze, and share that information effectively?

There are no "standardized criteria for digital library evaluation. Several efforts that are devoted to developing digital library metrics have not produced, as yet, generalizable and accepted metrics, some of which may be used for evaluation. Thus, evaluators have chosen their own evaluation criteria as they went along. As a result, criteria for digital library evaluation fluctuate widely from effort to effort." Not much has changed in the last 10 years in the area in regards to digitized primary source materials and institutional repositories. "Development of best practices and guidelines requires a concerted engagement of the community to whom the outcome matters most: those who develop and support digital libraries". The article shares "what progress we have made to date, as well as to increase awareness of this issue and solicit participation in an evolving effort to develop viable solutions."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Google is not the answer: How the digital age imperils history

Google is not the answer: How the digital age imperils history. John Palfrey. Salon.  May 30, 2015.
     We get better at storing digital content, but are not good and preserving our digital history. The problem in brief is that no one is doing enough to select and preserve the bits that really matter.
"One of the great paradoxes of the digital age is that we are producing vastly more information than ever before, but we are not very good at preserving knowledge in digital form for the long haul." Industry is good at creating storage systems but not very good at choosing and preserving the data that matters, and then being able to make it useful in the future. "We are radically underinvesting in the processes and technologies that will allow us to preserve our cultural, literary and scientific records."  We are continuously making progress in how we store our media, and trapping information in lost formats in the process. Obsolescence of unimportant information may, in fact, be a blessing, but not when the lost knowledge has historical significance.

It is possible to transfer information from one format to another; with enough effort and cost, most data can be transferred to formats that can be read today. But different problems come when we create information at such speed and scale.  Most data companies now are for-profit firms that are not in the business of long-term storage. And, unlike universities, libraries and archives, these businesses will probably not be around for hundreds of years. Plus, the amount of important information being created makes it very difficult to create scale-able solutions to curate the meaningful content.

"Today, librarians and archivists are not involved enough in selecting and preserving knowledge in born-digital formats, nor in developing the technologies that will be essential to ensuring interoperability over time. Librarians and archivists do not have the support or, in many cases, the skills they need to play the central role in preserving our culture in digital format." The Government Accountability Office even criticized the Library of Congress for its information technology practices:  “Library of Congress: Strong Leadership Needed to Address Serious Information Technology Management Weaknesses.”

"The deeper problem behind the problem of digital preservation is that we undervalue our libraries and archives." We under-invest in them in them in an important time as we move from an analog society to a digital one. "If we fail to support libraries in developing new systems, those who follow us will have ample reason to be angry at our lack of foresight."

"If we don’t address our underinvestment in libraries and archives, we will have too much information we don’t need and too little of the knowledge we do."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Advocacy and Born-Digital Archives

Advocacy and Born-Digital Archives.  Mike Shallcross.  Bentley Historical Library. August 13, 2015.
     What is it that you do, anyway? When talking to library/university administrators and outside financial donors, we need to adjust how we explain what we do with digital archives. They may not need to know all the little details, but they really need to know it is that we do and why it's important. If we can't do that then getting resources and being relevant will be an uphill battle. Advocacy is an integral archives as we seek to show the value and get support.  We have to represent our work in a way that others can really understand.

We have to make a case, and the way that we present it may be different for donors and for administrators. "Successful advocacy should involve and inspire the audience so that they understand how and why they might benefit from our work." Show the added value of the archives to the people and the organization, show the benefits in a quantitative way. The value may be:

• Helping researchers understand the collections and improve the way they use them
• Ensure that content [which are valuable assets] can still be accessed in the future
• Protecting personal information, intellectual rights, institutional policies, legal requirements, and donor agreements.
• Developing resources for researchers to use and reuse materials

We must show the benefits of this if we want others to commit resources to the archives. Highlight innovations, achievements, and recognitions.

"Our work in “digital curation” encompasses traditional archival functions—the process of selecting materials of high research or intrinsic value and making them accessible to researchers—but also involves additional steps to ensure the integrity and authenticity of content."

[It also helps to show the value in money: money earned, money saved, money that can be put elsewhere.]

Digital Preservation Matters.

Library science: The word on our archival future

Library science: The word on our archival future. Michael Lesk. Nature. 23 April 2015.
     Most libraries are facing a “perfect storm”: decreasing use, inadequate resources, and users satisfied with easy access to online information. US research libraries saw a 69% decline in the number of queries handled between 1991 and 2012. Academic library budgets are shrinking: from 3.7% of the total budget of a typical US university in the early 1980s to 1.8% in 2011. About half of an academic library budget is spent on acquisitions, which is increasingly consumed by journals. However, open-access publishers such as the Public Library of Science (PLOS) provide information with no reader fee, changing the economics entirely. School libraries, which still have a key role in teaching scholarly habits, are suffering. “The school library should be as important as the school sports team.” The increasing commercialization of information raises barriers. Digital preservation of library holdings is riskier than traditional methods.

Will governments recognize the importance of libraries and librarians?  Political will is essential, as is innovative energy among librarians. Palfrey hopes that conventional and new library technologies will sit side by side. This is not common in technological change: car-rental companies do not run livery stables. I suspect that a more likely future is that libraries (and museums) will be divided into the 'wholesalers' that have large historic collections, such as the US Library of Congress or the British Library, and the 'retailers' such as university libraries, which serve faculties.

Related posts:

• Libraries are places of knowledge creation and librarians our educators
• Forecasting the Future of Libraries 2015 
• Robert Darnton closes the book
• Falling Though the Cracks: Digital Preservation and Institutional Failures
• Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google
• Libraries could outlast the internet, head of British Library says
• Are libraries sustainable in a world of free, networked, digital information?

 

Digital Preservation Matters.

Respected US professor says libraries are places of knowledge creation and librarians our educators.

Respected US professor says libraries are places of knowledge creation and librarians our educators. CILIP . 2 July 2015.

• R. David Lankes: librarians have the power to change the world by “promoting informed democracy”.
• “Libraries are not about books, and librarians are not about collections, nor are they about waiting to serve. Our libraries are mandated, mediated spaces owned by the community, and librarians are educators dedicated to knowledge creation who exist to unleash the expertise held within their community.”
• There is a need for a skilled workforce to properly understand and manage information

A new innovation also mentioned is the Ideas Box , a durable, portable library in a box that is designed to provide access to vital information and culture in humanitarian crises. Pioneered by Bibliothèques Sans Frontières/Libraries Without Borders, it can be sent to refugee camps and other remote populations anywhere in the world and set up in under an hour."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google.

Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google. Amien Essif. AlterNet. May 23, 2015.
     This article is in response to the book BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google. Of all the public and private institutions we have, the public library is the truest democratic space. The library’s value is obvious.  A Gallup survey found that libraries are not just popular, they are extremely popular. "Over 90% of Americans feel that libraries are a vital part of their communities, compared to 53% for the police, 27% for public schools, and 7% for Congress. This is perhaps the greatest success of the public sector."

Yet, a government report showed that while the nation’s public libraries served 298 million people in 2010 (96% of the U.S. population) funding has been cut drastically. “It seems extraordinary that a public service with such reach should be, in effect, punished despite its success.” Libraries are becoming more important, not less, to our communities and our democracy.

About 90% of all existing data is less than two years old.  Much of the information could be moderated for the public good, and libraries are able to do that. However, tech companies have put themselves into this role; "the risk of a small number of technically savvy, for-profit companies determining the bulk of what we read and how we read it is enormous."

Libraries are at risk because politicians are moving away from the public good, "favoring private enterprise and making conditions ripe for a Google-Apple-Amazon-Facebook oligopoly on information."
"It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the fate of well-informed, open, free republics could hinge on the future of libraries.”

Digital Preservation Matters.

How Do Users Search and Discover?

How Do Users Search and Discover? Christine Stohn. Ex Libris. May 2015.
This paper describes the findings of a recent Ex Libris user study and discusses how the conclusions apply to library discovery systems. The challenging goal for libraries is to enable libraries to bring together users, their research intent and needs, and the wealth of available information. Intelligence about users’ behavior, intent, and expectations in the context of the tasks that the users strive to accomplish is of key importance in endeavoring to achieve this goal. User studies are not the same as usability studies. The core functionality of a discovery system is search and find, but different users have different needs.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Libraries could outlast the internet, head of British Library says

Libraries could outlast the internet, head of BritishLibrary says. Hannah Furness. The Telegraph. 25 May 2015.
Roly Keating, director of the British Library, said he was shocked at how many "smart people" still questioned whether libraries were still viable in the modern age.

Stop worrying about whether libraries will survive the digital age, that they could outlast the internet.
Libraries have countless values worth defending, including trust, that pre-dated the internet. Libraries have a vital place in communities and could prove the most "powerful and resiliant network yet". "And what we collectively believe libraries are and are for will determine what form they survive in."

 "But the time frame we think on, centuries back and centuries into the future, allows us to think about trust in its highest sense, and authentication and provenance of information, and digital information in particular.

"Those are hard-won privileges and values and they're worth defending."

"And in some ways they are the most powerful and resiliant network of all, if we continue to believe in them."

"With all our fascination of and love for the internet in the age of data, these values and the values and idea of the library predated the internet and if we get it right may yet outlast it.

Digital Preservation Matters.

A Geospatial Approach to Library Resources

A Geospatial Approach to Library Resources. Justin B. Sorensen. D-Lib Magazine. March/April 2015.
The fire insurance maps are a valuable resource. Digital versions of the original printed maps have been created and have been converted into georeferenced raster datasets, using ArcGIS software, aligning each map to its appropriate geospatial location to maintain consistent digital overlays for all of the historic maps. This allows the information to be displayed, expressed and presented in completely new ways. GIS can be one of the many tools libraries will have available to assist them in sharing their resources with others.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Forecasting the Future of Libraries 2015

Forecasting the Future of Libraries 2015. Miguel Figueroa. American Libraries. February 26, 2015. 
While it’s nearly impossible to accurately predict the future, we can identify trends that can be key in understanding what the future might bring. It is important for libraries to spot trends and integrate them into their programs and services in order to remain useful and relevant. An article “Trending Now,” lists 5 trends that are worth looking at:

1. Anonymity: it may help build community and is an increasingly important part of web interactions.
2. Collective impact: organizations are adopting common agendas to address issues in the community. Librarians could become highly valued partners in collective-impact responses
3. Fast casual: establishements incorporate customized services and products, and also inte­grate technology, with customer loyalty apps, online or mobile ordering, and mobile payments. Fast casual has advanced the growth of living-room-like flexible spaces (multiple and varied seating arrangements, easy-to-find power outlets) that accommodate social and business needs, and are tech­nologically savvy.
4. Resilience: Resilience includes preparation for and rapid recovery from physical, social, and economic di­sasters, including natural disasters, terrorist at­tacks, or economic collapse.
5. Robots: libraries have seen robots and robotics as a next wave for technology access and training, even lending robots to help users experience what might soon be a regular part of their futures. [They could also be places to learn more about technology.]

The trend library is designed to provide the library community with a centralized and regularly updated source for trends—including how they are developing; why they matter for libraries; and links to the reports, articles, and resources that can further explain their significance. As a collection, it will grow to include changes and trends across society, technology, education, the environment, politics, the economy, and demographics.  Makerspaces are playing an increasingly important role in libraries.

Another article “The Future, Today”addresses similar concepts:

• Digital downloads, ebooks, personal content, and live programming together with books, periodicals, microfilm, audio, and video in today’s libraries. The library of the future will  support and en­hance navigation and exchange of these new forms of information. Library services must be delivered in ways that are digitally based or conveniently located in public places to help users with their busy schedules
• Collections are being carefully consid­ered so as not to occupy too much square footage, leaving room for tech and social spaces, and a center for multiple activi­ties.  
• Library staff in the future will be organized on the floor to be more effec­tive ‘information guides’ to help patrons.
• There will be more flex­ible spaces for evolving services and forms of information offering.  
• Libraries are no longer single-purpose repositories of books dedicated to quiet study. They have become dynamic hubs in various ways for the community of users

Digital Preservation Matters.

Falling Though the Cracks: Digital Preservation and Institutional Failures

Falling Though the Cracks: Digital Preservation and Institutional Failures. Jerome McDonough. CNI.  December 2014. Video.
A video that explores whether libraries, archives and museums are designed in a way to really provide long-term access to cultural heritage materials. Why are we doing digital preservation, how to do it better, how do we do librarianship better.  Looks at OAIS and the complexities of preserving cultural materials. Need to train people to have broader perspectives across different fields, such as librarians, archivists, and curators.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Investing in Curation. A Shared Path to Sustainability. Final RoadMap.

Investing in Curation. A Shared Path to Sustainability. Paul Stokes. The 4C project. March 9, 2015.
Digital curation involves managing, preserving and adding value to digital assets over their entire life cycle. Actively managing digital assets maximizes their value and reduces the risk of obsolescence. The costs of curation is a concern to stakeholders. The final version of the road map is now available; it starts with a focus on the costs of digital curation, but the ultimate goal is to change the way that all organizations manage their digital assets.

The vision: Cost modeling will be a part of the planning and management activities of all digital repositories.

• Identify the value of digital assets and make choices
• Value is an indirect economic determinant on the cost of curating an asset. The perception of value will affect the methods chosen and how much investment is required.
• Content owners should have clear policies regarding the scope of their collections, the type of assets sought, the preferred file formats.
• Establish value criteria for assets as a component of curation, understanding that certain types of assets can be re-generated or re-captured relatively easily, thereby avoiding curation costs
• Demand and choose more efficient systems
• Requirements for curation services should be specified according to accepted standards and best practices.
• More knowledgeable customers demanding better specified and standard functionality means that products can mature more quickly.
• Develop scalable services and infrastructure
• Organizations should aim to work smarter and be able to demonstrate the impact of their investments.
• Design digital curation as a sustainable service
• Effective digital curation requires active management throughout the whole lifecycle of a digital object.
• Curation should be undertaken with a stated purpose.
• Making curation a service further embeds the activity into the organization's normal business function.
• Make funding dependent on costing digital assets across the whole lifecycle
• Digital curation activity requires a flow of sufficient resources for the activity to proceed.
• Some digital assets may need to be preserved in perpetuity but others will have a much more predictable and shorter life-span.
• All stakeholders involved at any point in the curation lifecycle will need to understand their fiscal responsibilities for managing and curating the asset until such time that the asset is transferred to another steward in the lifecycle chain.
• Be collaborative and transparent to drive down costs
• Each organization is looking to realize a return on their investment.
• If those who provide digital curation services can be descriptive about their products and transparent about their pricing structures, this will enhance possible comparisons, drive competitiveness and lead the market to maturity.

Digital Preservation Matters.

Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of collection

Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of collections. Roslyn Russell, Kylie Winkworth. Collections Council of Australia Ltd. 2009.
This guide is for defining an adaptable method for determining significance across all collections in Australia. The intention is that it will improve collection decision-making in areas such as, preservation, access, and funding support. Regarding significance:

• We cannot keep everything forever. It is vital we make the best use of our scarce resources for collecting, conserving, documenting and digitising our collection materials.
• Significance is not an absolute state; it can change over time.  
• Collection custodians have a responsibility to consult communities and respect other views in constructing societal memory and identity. 
• It is vital to understand, respect and document the context of collection materials that shape collection materials.

Significance’ refers to the values and meanings that items and collections have for people and communities. Significance helps unlock the potential of collections, creating opportunities for
communities to understand, access and enjoy collections. Artistic, scientific and social or
spiritual values are the criteria or key values that help to express how and why an item or collection is significant. Part of the criteria are: provenance, rarity or representativeness, condition or completeness, and interpretive capacity. Significance assessment involves five main steps:

1. analysing an item or collection
2. researching its history, provenance and context
3. comparison with similar items
4. understanding its values by reference to the criteria
5. summarising its meanings and values in a statement of significance

 A statement of significance is a concise summary of the values, meaning and importance of an item
or collection. It is an argument about how and why an item or collection is of value. This should be reviewed as circumstances change.  Significance assessment is

• a process to help with good management of items and collections; 
• it is a collaborative process and consultation is essential.
• it will substantiate justify assessments objectively rather than subjectively

The process is:

1. Collate information about the history and development of the collection
2. Research the history, scope and themes of the collection
3. Consult knowledgeable people
4. Explore the context of the collection
5. Analyse and describe the condition of the collection
6. Compare the collection with similar collections
7. Identify related places and collections
8. Assess significance against the criteria
9. Write a statement of significance
10. List recommendations and actions

Significance assessment is only the first part of the significance process. Once an item or collection has been assessed as significant, there will be a range of actions to better manage the collections.
 

Digital Preservation Matters.

Quantifying and Valuing the Wellbeing Impacts of Culture and Sport.

Quantifying and Valuing the Wellbeing Impacts of Culture and Sport. Daniel Fujiwara, et al. UK Department for Culture, Media & Sport. April 2014. PDF

A study to develop the evidence base on the well-being impacts of cultural engagement that provides new evidence of the link between our policies and the social impacts of engagement in culture.This presents the results of an analysis of the association between culture, sport and measures of subjective well-being.

When allocating scarce public resources, we would ideally like to know the costs and benefits of different allocating decisions.

A significant association was also found between frequent library use and reported well being. Using libraries frequently was valued at £1,359 per person per year for library users, or £113 per person per month, the third highest value.
  

Digital Preservation Matters.

BYU professor leads the way in digitizing Victorian era literature.

BYU professor leads the way in digitizing Victorian era literature. Aaron Butler, Jaren Wilkey. BYU News Release. November 20, 2014.
The Victorian Short Fiction Project is a research venture to get students more involved in exploring the Victorian  literature in BYU's special collections library. The project wiki has nearly 200 transcribed stories in an online repository, viewed more than 150,000 times.

• “I wanted [the students] to experience the sense of discovery that comes from archival research and to sample literature beyond their anthology,”
• “The purpose of the project is the students. We are training the next generation of digital humanists — people who are trained in the humanities but see the potential of digital technology. The students’ electronic texts reach far beyond the classroom and will reside in a public space after the semester ends. One of the most important legacies we can pass on to our students is an understanding and appreciation of the strengths of both material and electronic texts. They will need to be stewards of both.”

Digital Preservation Matters.