It’s almost a month into DLS’ first encounter with back-to-school season, and we’re just beginning to catch our collective breath. After hiring and training a new cadre of digital library production workers – both undergrads and library school students, as well as staff members from other library departments volunteering a portion of their work time to intern for us – we’re starting to ramp up production on the digitization projects we spent this summer developing. On the other end of our org chart, we’re conducting a national search to fill the department head position that opened when former head Paul Soderdahl was promoted to director of the newly-formed Library Information Technology division, which incorporates DLS. Since Paul will continue to be responsible for many of our departmental policy and infrastructure decisions, this will allow the new DLS head much more hands-on involvement in the day-to-day work of managing digital library projects.

In addition to internal departmental changes, our role within the Libraries and on campus is evolving as well. Collaborations with Special Collections, University Archives, Iowa Women’s Archives and the John Martin Rare Book Room have expanded as we work toward providing greater online access to the Libraries’ rare and valuable Research Collections. Along with helping these departments design digital library collections, we’ve also been advising them on standards and best practices that will enable them to use existing data more efficiently. These initiatives include repurposing the in-house collection management database for public access, and migrating collection finding aids from HTML to the Encoded Archival Description standard. Outside the Libraries, we’re coordinating a variety of projects on campus, ranging from advising the University of Iowa Museum of Art on a digital asset management system, to working with faculty on developing an obscene (yet tasteful) digital collection for the University’s 2007 Obermann Symposium.

The demand for such assistance should increase as the University continues its transition to the electronic age. We anticipate Digital Library Services to keep growing and changing to meet these needs.

— Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian