Glen Worthey, Chair
Sarah Ames (National Library of Scotland)
Short abstract:
This talk will consider the importance of data provenance and discuss how The National Library of Scotland is seeking to contextualise its data collections as it establishes a new Digital Scholarship Service.
Long abstract:
As the collections as data movement increasingly gains momentum, and libraries seek to present collections in machine readable form, the gap between our print collections and how our digital collections represent these increases. What, then, is the role of data provenance, and how can this be conveyed?
At The National Library of Scotland, an in-house, mass-digitisation programme runs 14 hours and produces 10,000 images each day. As we produce data at scale, we need to ensure that our readers understand where the data they use has come from, what processes it has undergone, and why it exists in the first place. How to convey that information in an area that currently has few agreed standards, and how libraries can remain trusted sources of information when we are creating that information ourselves, is problematic.
This lightning talk will consider the importance of data provenance and discuss how The National Library of Scotland is seeking to contextualise its data collections as it establishes a new Digital Scholarship Service. Using METS to convey the structural, bibliographical and technical metadata, as well as rights information, for each digital object enables readers to piece together how data has been produced; in addition to this, by including further information about the reasoning behind why an item has been digitised, we are aiming for a level of transparency between library and reader which enables a clearer understanding of the library processes print items undergo when creating collections as data.
This ties in to the new responsibilities of libraries as we produce our own collections: with digitisation programmes creating not only OCRed text, but also additional data from scanners, software and digital production tools, transparency about our data creation processes become important. Enabling readers to contextualise the data creation process aligns libraries with the need for reproducible and authentic data, and ensures that we do not preclude some forms of research.
Melanie Imming (Het Landelijk Coördinatiepunt Research Data Management / Dutch National Contact Point Research Data Management)
Short abstract: The Dutch LCRDM has delivered a report: ‘Data stewardship on the map’ which provides a basis for clearer job descriptions in the different domains.
Long abstract: The Datastewardship Task Force of the The National Coordination Point Research Data Management in the Netherlands has recently delivered a report: ‘Data stewardship on the map: A study of tasks and roles in Dutch research institutes’. The outcomes of the report are based on different methods, such as a large survey amongst librarians and other RDM specialists. It provides a basis for clearer job descriptions for data steward roles, and some guidance on the implementation of datastewardship.
KEY FINDINGS Key findings of the report are:
AMBITION Datastewardship is high on the agenda. Many institutions are currently working on professionalizing data stewardship but it is under construction everywhere. Often the ambition is to increase the number of data stewards in the near future; in particular the number of data stewards with domain data specific knowledge.
RECOGNITION Everyone who takes on data stewardship tasks should get the correct recognition, including accompanying career perspectives and appropriate training and visibility. Furthermore, RDM should be embedded in the organization and it requires targeted coordination and institution-wide policy.
TASK AREAS INSTEAD OF ROLES Although the job titles are very different everywhere, there are clearly identifiable data stewardship tasks. The task areas identified in this report clearly show the main focus of roles. However, if new job profiles are drawn up, the recommendation is to keep them broad. The focus on task areas instead of well-defined job profiles can help in compiling new customized job descriptions.
POOL OF EXPERTS There is a lot of enthusiasm in the field for setting up a pool of data stewards, each with their own expertise, as a way to offer the correct (domain-specific) support.
TRAINING Investing in good basic education for data stewards and training programs for continuous training is necessary for a sustainable set-up of data stewardship
Jennifer O’Brien Roper (University of Virginia Library, United States)
Kara McClurken (University of Virginia Library, United States)
Carla Lee (University of Virginia Library, United States)
Short abstract:
The University of Virginia Library has created a framework intended to guide creation of positive partnerships with faculty for creation of innovative and sustainable projects.
Long abstract:
In order to frame collaborations with faculty for success, the University of Virginia Library has created a Collaboration Guidebook. While intended for use with all types of collaborations and partners, a particular use case that was a driver in the Guidebooks’s development is teaming with faculty on digital scholarship projects. Born of necessity based on previous projects wherein the goals and expectations of each party were not clarified, this document is framed as a forward looking guide to creating positive partnerships with faculty for creation of innovative and sustainable projects. Building on the work of the University of Texas at Arlington, the Guidebook provides in-depth guidance and advice on shaping an idea into a project proposal, identification and inclusion of stakeholders across the Library who will be integral to success, and understanding the importance of articulating achievable goals with timelines and end dates. Also included are a workflow that with a robust review cycle and templates and instructions for writing formal memoranda of understanding (MOU) to document agreements. This lightning talk will provide an overview of the document structure, highlights of the primary concepts provided as pillars for success, and a summary of the process by which it was created.
Sulema Rodríguez Roche (Universidad de La Habana, Cuba)
Short abstract:
A project for the training of Cuban Librarians for Digital Humanities research is presented. It will be developed by the HDCICuba Research Group, from the University of Havana.
Long abstract:
Se presenta un proyecto de formación de habilidades para la investigación en Humanidades Digitales en bibliotecarios cubanos que tiene como objetivo contribuir a la trasformación digital y la innovación social en Cuba. Se caracteriza el contexto profesional de las bibliotecas cubanas para la investigación en Humanidades Digitales. Se examinan las convergencias entre la Bibliotecología y las Humanidades Digitales para identificar los núcleos de contenido y definir las formas de organización de la enseñanza. Se utilizan el análisis documental y la entrevista como métodos de investigación. Se propone un plan de proyecto basado en la metodología de marco lógico. Este proyecto forma parte de una investigación doctoral en Ciencias de la Información, que propone transversalizar las Humanidades Digitales en el campo de las Ciencias de la Información en Cuba. Ambas se realizan en el marco del del Grupo de investigación académica Humanidades Digitales y Ciencias de la Información (HDCICuba), proyecto institucional de la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de La Habana.
Emma DiPasquale (Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, United States)
Short abstract:
This presentation will discuss the creation and development of Michigan Publishing’s Fulcrum, a community-based publishing platform focused on presenting the best possible representations of work in the humanities and social sciences.
Long abstract:
Michigan Publishing–the hub of scholarly publishing at the University of Michigan situated in the University Library–saw a need for a platform that addressed the needs of scholarly authors who wished to link source materials to book-length interpretations of them in an integrated way. This is an emerging need in media-rich humanistic fields such as digital humanities; from accumulating collections of film and video clips for comparison to visualizing excavation records through three-dimensional interactive models, humanists today often end their research projects with large archives of digital data. With support from the Mellon Foundation, Michigan Publishing and the University of Michigan Library developed Fulcrum, a community-based, open source digital publishing platform to help these scholars present these materials. Rather than forcing authors to strip away the richness of these materials at the point of formal publication to meet the constraints of a book or journal article format, Fulcrum facilitates rich integration of such digital objects with the narratives that reference them. They can either be published as supplemental materials, with the narrative (a book, a journal article) elsewhere, or both narrative and data can be presented together as an embedded EPUB. We have been expanding our development to include more expansive digital humanities projects, though we recognize the difficulty these projects can oftentimes present, especially in terms of preservation and accessibility. This is why we approach such projects through the lens of our values: accessibility, flexibility, durability, and discoverability. Our work with with various press and publishing partners are helping us to better understand the needs of these scholars and how to develop the platform to support these kinds of works. Several of our forthcoming projects have prompted research and development for interactive maps, geospatial mapping, interactive EPUBs, 3D modeling, and annotation tools.
Dolores Romero-López (Universidad Complutense, Spain)
José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo (Biblioteca Nacional de España, Spain)
Lucía Cotarelo Esteban (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
Short abstract:
Mnemosine is a digital library for Spanish rare and forgotten literary texts (1868-1936). Its objective is to model data to create the digital history.
Long abstract:
The objective of Mnemosyne, Digital Library for Rare and Forgotten Literary Texts (1868-1936) is to select, categorize, and make visible in digital format literary texts that belong to a forgotten repertoire in order to allow the historiographical review of the period. Mnemosyne has a repertoire of texts and authors who have remained in the shadow of the great literary figures of the first third of the 20th century. This digital library pretends to be a field of international experimentation for the creation of interoperable semantic networks through which a large group of scholars could generate innovative research and theoretical reading models for literary texts. It can be accessed through http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/.
Mnemosyne aims to be an open-access digital library allowing data modelling for specific collections (intellectual women, Madrid in the Silver Age literature, children literature, kiosk literature, science fiction literature, personal writers collections, etc.) in support of research and teaching on Silver Age Spanish literature. Through Mnemosyne it can be accessed digital edition of texts. The digitization of these works has been carried out by public and private institutions. The first version of the library is stored on the server of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Library, itself linked to the collections of the digital library HathiTrust. In a search conducted in HathiTrust in 2012, the names, surnames, and pseudonyms of selected authors were used to locate a total of 2,873 digitized texts corresponding to “odd and forgotten” writers. The Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, which serves as the access portal for the digital collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, provided 2,448 works by male authors and 1,017 works by female writers. Now have finished a new collection of interactive editions “La Edad de Plata interactive” with the support of Biblioteca Nacional de España. It can be accessed through http://www.bne.es/es/Colecciones/LibrosInteractivos/Subcolecciones/edad-plata-interactivo.html.
Behind the scenes of Mnemosyne’s public presence online, the project is developing with the aid of the tool Clavy. Clavy is an RIA (Rich Internet Application) that is able to import, preserve, and edit information from collections of digital objects so as to build bridges between digital repositories and create collections of enriched digital content. Clavy also provides a basic system of data visualization, edition, and navigation. Clavy facilitates the import, export, and edition of records in multiple formats such as MARC21, as well as their integration into Mnemosine’s predesigned model with a view to their export into other compatible formats like XLS (Excel Binary File Format) or XML (Extensible Markup Language). Using Clavy, metadata from HathiTrust and Biblioteca Digital Hispánica have already been imported into the Mnemosyne database. The data from these sources was described in MARC21, following the rules for library catalogs. An example could be accessed through http://clavy.fdi.ucm.es/Clavy/?CollectionId=13. Mnemosyne is the digital resource made with the support of three research teams (LEETHI https://www.ucm.es/leethi, LOEP https://www.ucm.es/loep, ILSA http://ilsa.fdi.ucm) affiliated with the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and funded by the public research projects (FFI2012-34666, RedR+Human: TIN2014-52010-R, y CetrO+Spec: TIN2017-88092-R ), and by the private financial aid (S2015/HUM-3426).