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Nurturing a sustainable program

As I prepare to go on leave for the next few months, I’ve been relieved to see how well we’ve been able to plan for my absence, thanks to the Libraries’ ongoing commitment to growing a sustainable digital initiatives program. While a leave of this length would have been detrimental to our progress back when DLS was in its infancy, investments in cross-training and position reallocation over the past couple of years have given us the flexibility to increase the distribution of metadata duties throughout the library.

Within DLS, new staff members Wendy Robertson and Anne Shelley provide specialized cataloging expertise gained from their backgrounds in serials and electronic resources management and in music librarianship. Thanks to the University’s internal internship program, Christine Tade from Central Technical Services and Ellen Jones from Circulation have received training on all aspects of digital library work, with a particular forcus in metadata. Cataloging staff from CTS have added production work on metadata projects to their other duties. And we’re even delegating assistance with metadata training and support within the Digital Library Fellowship program, with plans to capitalize on the hard-won expertise of last year’s fellows by pairing them with members of this fall’s incoming cohort.

Together, these staff and students will be taking good care of Iowa Digital Library and its users by continuing to create resources that are easy to find, manage and share.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian, Digital Library Services