Digital Library Services

VII. We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.
– from “Code of Ethics of the American Library Association”

The first-annual DLS Winter Holiday Student Appreciation Celebration was enjoyed by all, as our student assistants took a break from finals to join us for pizza, cookies, and non-denominational merriment. The party also marked a successful conclusion to an experiment in supersizing our student workforce, up this semester from two members to eight. This 400% increase was initially regarded with more than a little apprehension, but it turns out we needn’t have worried. Our new assistants caught on quickly, and were soon diligently reformatting images, texts, and audio, creating metadata records, and using asset management systems to build and upload digital objects. Once trained, the main challenge was lining up enough work to keep our students busy, since they often completed projects earlier than anticipated.

Along with excellent assistance from Spencer Wilken (Business) and Pamela Olson (Center for the Book), DLS was fortunate enough this semester to employ six students from the UI’s School of Library and Information Science: Charlotte Baldwin, Si-Chi Chin, Junko Kobayashi, Sally Myers, Laura Riskedahl, and Steve Tatum. Their grasp of library science fundamentals frequently streamlined the training process, allowing them to take on complex projects and quickly produce high-quality results.

These students’ association with DLS should prove to be mutually beneficial. As a supplement to the classroom theory that will serve them throughout their careers, their work for the Libraries is providing practical experience that may help land the all-important first job. Such experience is especially valuable in today’s tight job market, with many recent grads complaining that the much-publicized “librarian shortage” hasn’t materialized in enough entry-level positions to go around. Factoring in the relative rarity of digital library experience and the ever-increasing number of institutions wishing to incorporate such services, we expect our assistants will be well positioned to conquer the profession upon graduating.

DLS is grateful for our students’ participation in our mission to support the University’s teaching, research and creative activities. We’re also proud to assist them in beginning their careers in librarianship.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian

While freshman students can often seem impossibly young to those of us on the other side of the information desk, library staff took comfort in finding that the packs of youths roaming the UI’s book stacks on Dec. 5 were in fact junior high school students from around the state, on field trips to do research for National History Day. Along with members of the Reference and Instruction department and the Iowa Women’s Archives, DLS spoke at an orientation to introduce these students to some of the Libraries’ resources on this year’s NHD theme, “Triumph & Tragedy in History.” Relevant primary source documents that we highlighted from our Iowa Digital Library and the statewide Iowa Heritage Digital Collections included the Mujeres Latinas collection, the Johnny Bright Story, and the ever-popular WW2 War Dogs collection.

The student historians’ itinerary also included a trip up the hill to visit the Old Capitol Museum’s new permanent exhibit, the Iowa Youth Diaries Project, featuring young Iowans’ diaries dating from 1860 to 1910. DLS assisted with the project by training the museum’s student assistants on digitization and by hosting the online collection, which was created from artifacts provided by the Iowa Women’s Archives and the State Historical Society of Iowa. Below are a few excerpts from our Historic Iowa Children’s Diaries digital collection; for more information about the museum’s Diaries Project, see its UI News Release and a feature from the Dec. 7 issue of The Daily Iowan.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian

Apr. 21, 1867
Pa is at court; we expected him back last night, but he has not yet returned. Ma is afraid some accident’s befallen him. Mr. L. was to come with him. We had quite a rarity for dinner: chicken. Spring is now here, and I expect we will soon have plenty of chickens.
At dinner, I spilt water over the table twice, and ma is going to whip me for it, so she says. That sounds funny, does it not? A girl, near fifteen, being whipped for soiling the table cloth, ha ha ha, I cannot refrain from laughter. Friday was Good Friday. How well I remember that day one year ago, it was the day of celebrating Lee’s surrender. But how changed was the morrow. The stores that the day before were trimmed so gay were draped in black and most were mourning for the death of Abraham Lincoln.
Today is Easter. Frankie colored some eggs. I have committed to memory my piece for the examination.
– Linnie Hagerman (1852-1934)

Nov. 5, 1872
The Election passed off very quietly here. Grant was reelected to the Presidency. His majority in Iowa was about 53,000. Father did not vote at all. It snowed considerable last night & today also. We have got about 4/5 of corn gathered at Present. Price of corn is 14 x 15 cts.
– Oliver Perry Myers (1856-1933)

Aug. 12, 1875
After dinner I practised, dressed myself & went down town to get my shoes. In the evening Nellie had a beau & May wanted to practise so I stayed up stairs & darned my stockings & began to read Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney’s “We Girls.” I like it very much although I have not got very far yet. Tomorrow Barnum’s great Hippodrome exhibit’s here, I guess we will go. The papers say that such a gang of thieves come with it that they have a car all to themselves. Willie Hervey has lent Nellie his pistol loaded & given to her caps. She is going to put in on a chair close to her bed.
Aug. 13, 1875
In spite of the pistol, no burglars came last night. This morning I walked way down to 4th St. with Linn & then went up into the town clock building. I did not get home til noon & was so tired I stayed at home all afternoon. In the evening I went with Mr. C. & Gracie to the circus. Got home at 10 P.M. It was pretty good. I am very tired.
– Belle Robinson (1862-1887)

In response to popular demand for materials in this collection, DLS has completed the digitization of a set of desk catalogs held by Special Collections. What makes these materials particularly important is that the company, The Rand & Leopold Desk Company (previously Northwestern Furniture Company) was a local office amenities manufacturing firm that operated in Burlington, some 80 miles from the University of Iowa, for over 100 years before closing in 1990.

In addition to local appeal, people from as far away as California have contacted Special Collections hoping to make use the information contained in this unique collection of catalogs and other company materials as they appraise, refinish and restore their Rand & Leopold heirlooms.

DLS is particularly interested in digitizing library collections that will allow users to access this kind of information online so that library staff need not make and send new copies to meet every request, especially for collections with high request rates such as this. Through optical character recognition (OCR), the desk catalogs can be searched by model number, name or description.

–Mark F. Anderson
Digital Initiatives Librarian