University Libraries

I have been working for many years in the Libraries’ technical services division as a cataloger, and more recently as a supervisor and trainer of other catalogers. As a consequence of supervising and of being involved in an arduous, and apparently never-ending reorganization of technical services, I had begun attempting to take the long view, asking myself what my job might evolve, or devolve, into as a result of such forces as outsourced cataloging, straitened budgets, the introduction of FRBR and metadata schemes other than MARC, the shift of researchers’ attention from the library catalog to the larger and more agile world of the Internet, and the Libraries’ desire to support digitization projects, perhaps at the expense of traditional cataloging operations.

Serendipitously, as I considered my situation the University’s internship program came to my attention and I found a ready-made means to explore other venues for my experience and interests. My proposal to work part-time as in intern in the Libraries’ newly-formed Digital Library Services department was welcomed both by my cataloging supervisor and the DLS staff. Library administration was supportive as well and expedited my request. My aim was to gain some understanding of the many facets of digital library services, and in particular, to focus on the cataloging of digital objects, with the goal of eventually assisting in training and dissemination of such work to other catalogers in technical services.

What has struck me most in the course of my internship is the energy, adaptability and inventiveness of the small DLS staff. The current staff of two, Jennifer Wolfe and Mark Anderson, with support from the former director of DLS and current head of Library Information Technology, Paul Soderdahl, have educated themselves in the technology, best practices, possibilities and pitfalls of digitization projects, have reached out to potential partners within the Libraries and the University, have struggled with problematic software, and have undertaken an astonishing number of projects, given their resources.

I have been patiently introduced to scanning, preservation issues, image editing and storage, metadata principles, practice, and resources, and some of the delicate politics of negotiating with other parties for content to be digitized and published on the Internet. I have been included in departmental meetings, in which issues about collaboration, scalability of tools and projects, and future directions for DLS have been discussed. Most importantly, my work with DLS staff has helped loosen my hold on long-treasured beliefs about cataloging priorities (e.g. perfection and thoroughness of records) and the role of the library catalog in the lives of its users (as opposed to its architects).

–Christine Tade
Intern, Digital Library Services

Earlier this year, writer Kevin Kelly wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine that envisioned a future in which all books in existence will be searchable from a single source, if not totally available to everybody with an iPod. Libraries and corporations are scanning around a million books a year (the Google Book Search Project doing the lion’s share) but one real problem remains: there is no current technology for transmitting and reading these digitized books that can compete with the printed book, or as David Coursey alluded to in 2005: e-books suck.

I wouldn’t go as far as Jim Louderback in countering that “e-books rock” in his rebuttal, but his point that the problem “is a device issue and not a medium issue” is certainly the spirit that will hopefully see the achievement of Kelly’s dream.

While we wait for technology to catch up, Digital Library Services is doing its part to contribute to the amassing corpus of digitized books. Recently, DLS begun by scanning a small collection of University of Iowa Press Short Fiction Award Winners from the 1980s. These books are out of print, but are still an important piece of the writing landscape. The first 6 of these books are available now at http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/

Currently, e-books are probably most useful for exposing scientific and factual information to search engines, but the UI Press Books here are written to be read through as stories. Read on screen, digitized books often look pretty bad. For an economy of scale, books must be digitized quickly and the digital files must be touched as little as possible. But, untouched, these page images are often skewed, with uneven margins and blurry text. DLS has taken the time to correct skew and margins, to make reading the short stories on the screen as enjoyable as possible.

There will come a day when a device comes along that will make curling up with an e-book as enjoyable as it is now with your favorite yellowed, dog-eared novel. Until then, check out the UI Press Short Fiction award winners and read some of these award winning short stories.

— Mark Anderson
Digital Initiatives Librarian

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

DLS continues to receive media attention in the form of last week’s Daily Iowan article: UI Libraries working on digitizing. As evidenced by another DI article written 10 months ago: Welcome the online library (p.8A), the public’s curiosity continues to grow concerning the Google Book Search Project. Recent developments such as the University of California joining the project’s original partner libraries, the “Google 5” have prompted press releases in the mainstream news.

Public misconception that all books will be made publicly available to be read online by Google may be leading to the fear that the GBS will lead to the decrease in the importance of libraries. Rather, only books in the public domain will be made completely available, so mainly the GBS will be really what its name implies, a search tool for finding books. The retrieval of those books will still very often need to occur at libraries.

Additional impact on libraries from the GBS, as Paul Soderdahl, Director of Library Information Systems, points out in the article, will come in the form of digital library departments finding freedom to digitize the “local history, original collections, and unpublished works” that their libraries have collected, and making them a part of the broader digital, scholarly record. One of the locally significant collections mentioned in the article include Samuel Calvin’s (as in the UI’s Calvin Hall) photograph collections, which depict early Iowa City as well as the wider geology of Iowa.

DLS will indeed continue to keep one eye on the developments of this project and consider its impact, while continuing to focus on providing the campus and community with access to significant digital information in support of teaching, research and artistic creation. The article specifically mentioned the Iowa Digital Library, the portal through which this valuable digital content can be accessed. Go see for yourself.

–Mark F. Anderson
Digital Initiatives Librarian

July at the UI Libraries is Annual Report-writing time, with each department submitting a list of statistics, projects, awards, and other accomplishments for possible inclusion in the official end-of-fiscal-year publication. Although DLS has only existed half the year, with much of that time spent on department start-up, we still managed to accumulate a fair amount of bullet points in our list; see below for a full and uncut sneak-preview edition.

One major accomplishment not appearing on the list: surviving June’s professional development tour, with DLS staff attending no less than three library conferences in Knoxville, Chapel Hill and New Orleans. Luckily, as native Midwesterners, we’ve built up considerable tolerance to humidity; this allowed us to brave the climate in order to attend sessions on emerging tools, standards and best practices in digital librarianship. This newly acquired knowledge will help us to improve efficiency and design higher quality, more user-friendly digital projects as we work towards our next milestonetemp.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian

Digital Library Services 2005/06  

• Digital Library Services became fully-staffed and operational on Jan. 1, 2006. In addition to developing departmental infrastructure, plans and procedures, DLS launched the Iowa Digital Library, featuring 16 new and legacy digital initiatives comprising nearly 68,000 digital objects, created in collaboration with UI faculty, staff and community partners. Highlights include:
  — The Mujeres Latinas Digital Collection: Working with the Iowa Women’s Archives on their Year of Public Engagement grant-funded project, DLS coordinated the digitization of photographs, correspondence, newspaper clippings and audio interviews documenting the family and community history of Iowa’s Latino immigrant population.
  —The Irving Weber Digital Collection: With the support of the Iowa City Host Noon Lions Club, DLS digitized the well-known eight-volume local history Irving Weber’s Iowa City, capturing 482 stories from the city’s founding through the 1990s, for inclusion in the Iowa Heritage Digital Collections project.
  —The John P. Vander Maas Railroadiana Collection: Seeking to do less with more under tight budgetary constraints, DLS helped coordinate a cross-departmental library initiative, working with Special Collections, Preservation, and Circulation staff members to digitize over 2600 historic photographs documenting the American railroad industry’s progress in Iowa.
• DLS partnered with Preservation to provide assistance and expertise for participants in the Iowa Heritage Digital Collections, featuring 13,640 digital objects from Iowa museums, historical societies and academic and public libraries. In addition to traveling throughout the state to provide onsite training and support at individual institutions, DLS staff also taught an introductory workshop on digitization at a statewide library conference.
• Working towards the Libraries’ strategic goal to provide support for changes in scholarly communication, DLS has made progress toward developing electronic publishing initiatives, including:
  –coordinating with the University of Iowa Press to develop a digital collection of out-of-print monographs;
  –working with academic departments to develop an open-access repository for journal articles written by UI faculty and graduate students;
  –providing expertise and technical support to the Writing University Task Force on the development of the Virtual Writing University.