Digital Gateway

New Position, More Changes in DLS

Two years ago, I wrote a post on "Changes in DLS." And while I did subsequently note the addition of two para-professional staff in the meantime, I have neglected to note a larger organizational change that took place last September, when DLS changed reporting lines from Associate University Librarian for Organizational Development, Gail Oltmanns, to Associate University Librarian for Networked Information Resource, Jeff Huestis. Before moving on to the most recent changes in DLS, I need to thank Gail for her five years of encouragement, support and leadership for DLS. While it was certainly unusual for a digital center to fall under organizational development as a reporting line, there were many factors that made it the very best place for DLS to begin and develop, not the least of which being the opportunity to work for Gail, from whom we have all learned so much.

AUL Jeff Huestis has certainly had a tough act to follow in Gail, but has brought a new dimension of technological expertise and insight, and institutional knowledge to guiding DLS, and above all, graciousness in the transition.

In more recent DLS news, we said goodbye to two of our DLS colleagues earlier this summer. This past July, Digital Access & Copyright Librarian, Erika Cohn, left for St. Louis University Law School Library, where she is Assistant Professor of Legal Research. We were fortunate to have Erika for a few years, during which she made significant contributions, most notably to the IMLS-funded St. Louis Freedom Suits/Legal Encoding Project. A month prior, our DLS colleague of several years, Tim Lepzcyk, left St. Louis for Hendrix College to become a Fellow in Digital Humanities and Pedagogy there, and we certainly wish him the best in his new position as well.

The position vacated had already undergone revisions to reflect a greater focus on repositories and scholarly communications content. This has culminated in the announcement this week of the new position of Digital Publishing & Preservation Librarian. Applications for the position (24326) are now being accepted at the Washington University in St. Louis Job Opportunities site, and the summary description is provided below. This is an exciting position at an exciting time for the Washington University Libraries, recently under new management!

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POSITION SUMMARY: The Digital Publishing & Preservation Librarian is responsible for the management of archival and access digital assets for the campus-wide digital repository based in the Washington University Libraries. The successful candidate will bring both a broad knowledge of relevant metadata standards, digital repository and publishing platforms and programming to build on the technical and intellectual infrastructure in place in the Washington University Libraries.

Primary content for the access repository represents targeted services to our users and stakeholders that meet demonstrated needs: electronic theses and dissertations, undergraduate honors theses, open-access scholarly contributions from Washington University faculty, and scientific data sets; archival digital assets from select digital projects across campus and those created within the University Libraries. Support for original publication of locally created online journals, conference proceedings and similar content is an emerging priority.

Reporting to the Director of the Digital Library, the Digital Publishing & Preservation Librarian works in the team environment of the Digital Library Services, serving as a metadata resource for the unit and library and contributing to digital projects as needed.

Changes in DLS

Digital Library Services has recently undergone some changes, with a promotion and the addition of two new staff members. Tim Lepczyk was promoted to Digital Repository/Metadata Librarian in November. Also last month, Guy Gray and Andrea Johnson joined DLS as Library Assistants. We are pleased with the addition of our new members and are excited about adapating our roles as digital library professionals to meet the needs of the Library and the University.

A Winn Win Situation

I am a writer of fiction and poetry.

I am not a student of history.

A common misperception is that history is boring; history is tired.  For me, American history was a subject doled out by an uninspired high-school teacher in small paper cups, the pill-like-sentences rattling around before we dutifully washed them down.  It wasn't until I was an undergraduate at Hope College, taking a course on ancient history, that I began to realize how I'd been led astray.

Last week I had the privilege of attending Ken Winn's lecture regarding the freedom suits of slaves in Saint Louis and the role the city's founding fathers had in slavery.  It was a wonderful lecture and it reaffirmed that history is not a list of dates, people, and places.  History is about the people who came before us; it is a retelling of their stories, a preamble to our own stories.  Listening to Ken Winn speak, I felt I was in the hands of a master storyteller, as well as a renowned historian.

My work on this project involves imaging old documents, encoding the text, reducing the daring actions of men and women to data.  The strings of ones and zeroes are so many lists of people, places, and organizations that the story has been lost to me.

Now, though, the lives and struggles of the people in the texts have pressed through the primary sources.  It's hard to imagine the fear and oppression.  It's difficult to step back and view the city and system of laws that allowed slavery, but also offered a legal process, with free legal representation, for some slaves to sue for their freedom.  These documents are their stories.  They capture a time in Saint Louis that is saddening, but is a part of the city's fabric and of its residents.  The freedom suits give voice to over three hundred men and women.  They speak of their hopes, fears, and frustrations.  People like Ken Winn help us envision our past, they allow us to pause for a moment, and to be present in another person's point of view.  If you were unable to make the lecture, there's still time to hear Ken Winn speak.  We'll be announcing future lecture dates as they become available.

Raiders of the Archives

There's a post from the Chronicle of Higher Education's ProfHacker blog that showcases one graduate student's cost saving portable scanning station, which he assembled for far less than than a commercial workstation.  When working with primary materials the student is able to image all of the documents and save them for his personal use.  The only hitch is that not all archives allow cameras to be used, or in some cases, archives ban tripods or fixtures to hold cameras.  Roy Tennant writes about the blog post, but it seems that his main point is to promote an OCLC report.

Is this something that libraries should be examining, or is it more geared toward researches on a tight budget whom travel?  It seems those who would benefit the most are researchers who need to be mobile.  Turning to libraries, it would make the most sense for small libraries or historical societies.  It's amazing how fast users can image books and manuscripts with a large imaging station that uses dual cameras connected to a computer.  However, a setup like that can cost $10,000 and require support.  For libraries that have felt unable to digitize due to startup costs, it may be time to reevaluate.

Electrified Theses and Dissertations

In the last year, Washington University Libraries in conjunction with the Graduate School stopped accepting print theses and dissertations, and entered the world of electronic theses and dissertations, ETD's for short.

Part of this summer was spent revising the submission process, documenting areas in the workflow that can be improved, and developing a guide to address user's questions.  While this work was important in shaping how we will proceed, it's not the real reason to be excited.  Another part of this project was to process, index, and deliver student's work online.  Theses and dissertations from 2009 and Spring 2010 may be viewed here.  In some cases, only the bibliographic information is available due to restrictions students placed on their work.

The State of Internet Operating Systems and the iPad

If you're looking for an article or a post that lays out how the internet works and increasingly how mobile technology works, Tim O'Reilly's post on The State of the Internet Operating System is a great place to start.  What happens when the iPad is thrown into this mix?  If you've read, Cory Doctorow's post Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) it seems like the iPad could be a blockade against innovation.  Will content and data be locked up by a few key players?  Will the internet become more like a "gated community" as was mentioned by NPR in their segment, Apple's iPad: The End of the Internet as We Know It?

The question and concern may not be about how well the iPad as device does in the market.  The more profound question is what does the iPad as concept mean?  Will there be an impact on the Open Access community?  How will this effect Creative Commons Licenses and open source software?  In which ways will expectations shift for both users and content creators?  Do you want to live with an Internet that is open, messy, and free or one that is sleek, restricted, and controlled?

The Future of Publishing

Emory University Saves Rushdie's Digital Data

Fending Off Digital Decay, Bit by Bit - NY Times "Among the archival material from Salman Rushdie currently on display at Emory University in Atlanta are inked book covers, handwritten journals and four Apple computers (one ruined by a spilled Coke). The 18 gigabytes of data they contain seemed to promise future biographers and literary scholars a digital wonderland: comprehensive, organized and searchable files, quickly accessible with a few clicks."

New York Public Library Map Rectifier

The NYPL Map Rectifier is a cool new tool for historical maps.

"The NYPL Map Rectifier is a tool for digitally aligning ("rectifying") historical maps from the NYPL's collections to match today's precise maps. Visitors can browse already rectified maps or assist the NYPL by aligning a map."

You can also view historic St. Louis maps at our collection, Unreal City.

Guardian Now Searches Goverment Data on Global Scale

Over the years governments have opened the doors on data, and have been moving it online.  This means that users (scholars, enterprise, local governments, non-profits) can re-use the data in new and telling ways.  World Government Data Search, recently launched by the Guardian, draws on public data from four different countries.  Currently, users can search data from the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand.