Category: Department

  • Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections

    Digital storage meeting at the Library of CongressStoring and preserving digital content continues to be a significant expectation of libraries and cultural centers around the country. To better understand these needs, as well to see what digital archivists around the country are doing to meet this challenge, the Library of Congress holds an annual meeting called “Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections.” The DSA meeting brings together technical and industry experts, IT and subject matter experts, government specialists with an interest in preservation, decision-makers from a wide range of organizations with digital preservation requirements, and recognized authorities and practitioners of digital preservation. The meeting is by invitation only, and for the past two years Rutgers has been invited to take part in the conversation. The most recent meeting was held on September 17 and 18.

    The first thing glaringly clear from our discussions was the increasing need for digital storage across all of our peers. From the few terabytes of data that Rutgers Libraries store in our repository, to the dozen or so petabytes stored by the Library of Congress, our digital collections continue to grow, and the demands for storage increase. This is driven by an increasing appetite for digital data from our patrons, but is also the effect of researchers and artists having greater access to digital authoring tools. We are now in the age where smartphones and tablets already in the hands of our user base can capture images, documents, and video in stunning quality—but with a cost in terms of larger file sizes.

    To meet this challenge, storage makers continue in the short term to refine the technologies we are already familiar with. Reasonably-priced tablets and laptops are now shipping with solid state drives reaching a terabyte in capacity. Fourteen-TB traditional hard drives are now hitting the market. And for long-term backups, tape continues to rule, with 30TB tape cartridges costing about $200 each. At the institutional level, libraries are beginning to cooperate and pool resources to distribute their storage needs across multiple datacenters, for redundancy and additional capacity.

    The not-too-distant future holds some different approaches, as well. In particular, research is ongoing to move beyond hard drives and tapes, and to begin storing data at the molecular level, using polymer chains. Even DNA sequencing is showing significant promise as a long-term method for archiving and preserving data.

  • Latino New Jersey History Project

    New Jersey has a remarkably diverse, though largely understudied, Latino population.  In 2016, according to the American Community Survey, people who identify as Hispanic or Latino were estimated to number over 1.7 million making them nearly 20 percent of all New Jersey residents.  Yet we know very little about their roots. Who are the Garden State’s Latinos? What is their history? This summer, seven Rutgers undergraduates and history Ph.D. student Carie Rael worked with Lilia Fernandez, Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Latino & Caribbean Studies and History, to find out as part of the Latino New Jersey History Project.  Their goal was to research, document, and record the history of New Jersey’s diverse Latino populations. Along the way, they received important assistance on digital tools and platforms from New Brunswick Libraries personnel Stacey Carton, Jan Reinhardt, and Francesca Giannetti.

    The students used a variety of sources and methods. They gathered census data, for example, to produce maps and tables enumerating Latinos throughout the state, its counties, and its main cities and towns. Some were surprised at what they learned. While we might expect Newark, Elizabeth, and Paterson to have large Latino enclaves, few realized that New Brunswick is 56 percent Hispanic and West New York is 78 percent Hispanic (both as of 2016).  The town of Bridgeton in South Jersey has one of the largest concentrations of Mexican immigrants in the state. Census data revealed unexpected trends and unlikely settlement destinations.

    Hudson county map

    With training from Francesca Giannetti, digital humanities librarian, students learned how to create thematic maps in Social Explorer and multimedia narratives integrating images, text, and multimedia embeds in ArcGIS’s Story Maps.  They learned about theories of place and space in spatial narratives, as well as elements of data and visual literacy through the strategic exploration of Social Explorer’s data sources, spatial geometries, and visualization types. Through the students’ mapmaking efforts, they were able to trace demographic changes over time, settlement patterns, and the migration stories of individuals and entire communities.

    Aguada

    Students also visited the Puerto Rican Community Archives (PRCA) at the Newark Public Library to learn about how the PRCA has collected more than one hundred oral histories over the past two decades and has gathered many archives and records of New Jersey’s Puerto Rican communities.

    Perhaps the most exciting part of the summer was completing oral histories with local residents. Shaun Illingworth and Kathryn Rizzi of the Rutgers Oral History Archives (ROHA) provided training and guidance on ethical and practical considerations in conducting oral histories.  After extensive training, background research, and preparation, students went out and recorded oral history interviews with various Latino residents and community leaders. Some were able to interview members of their own communities, while others interviewed important figures like Board of Governors member and Rutgers alum Martin Perez, or Irving Linares, the publisher of a Spanish language newspaper in Newark for the past 40 years.

    Since the group created audio or video recordings of their oral histories, they also benefited from basic video editing training at the Douglass Media Library with Stacey Carton. Students attended a workshop that focused on Adobe Premiere video editing software (available at the Fordham spaces in Douglass Library), but also covered topics relating to storytelling, project organization, and the history of editing. They later utilized the Fordham spaces to continue working on their projects.  Jan Reinhart provided support with audiovisual equipment as well.  Using their video training, two groups of students were able to produce short videos—one on the history of New Brunswick and another on the Latino populations of Union City.  These will be posted online, along with the oral histories and map projects, so they can be made available to public audiences.

    The students and Professor Fernandez learned a great deal about New Jersey’s rich history. They discovered that the state’s sizeable Latino population is relatively recent, having grown mostly since the mid-1980s through migration waves that brought Mexicans, South Americans, Central Americans, and Dominicans to the Garden State. In 1970, for example, the census counted only 135,656 people of “Spanish origin” (what today we generally refer to as “Latinos” or “Hispanics”), compared to the 1.5 million the census counted in 2010. The largest subgroups, as of that year, include Puerto Ricans (27% of all Latinos), Mexicans (14%), Dominicans (13%), Spaniards (7.7%), Colombians (6.5%), and Ecuadorians (6.5%). Today, one in five Jersey residents identifies with some type of Hispanic or Latino ancestry.

    The project team included Amy Castillo (Criminology and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Tania Mota (Journalism and Media Studies and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Aracely Ortega (Sociology and Africana Studies ’20), Aziel Rosado (Mathematics and Latino and Caribbean Studies ’20), Kevin Rosero (History and Political Science ’19), Laura Sandoval (Sociology ’20), and Luz Sandoval (History and Public Health ’19).

    Their work is beginning to be shared online. The following are links to individual projects built using the Story Maps platform.

    Mota, Tania. “Mexican Settlement in New Jersey.”

    Rael, Carie. “Latinx of Hudson County, New Jersey.”

    Rosado, Aziel. “Puerto Ricans in New Jersey: A Grandfather’s Story.”

    Rosero, Kevin. “A Grandmother’s Journey.”

    Sandoval, Laura. “Latino History of New Brunswick.”

    Professor Fernandez plans to continue the Latino New Jersey History Project in the future to keep exploring and documenting the diverse and varied origins of the state’s Hispanic communities. The maps, oral histories, and other digital humanities elements will help make this history accessible to audiences beyond the university and beyond the state.

    Lilia Fernandez, Stacey Carton, and Francesca Giannetti

  • Special Collections Librarians Take the Reins of NJSAA

    New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance logoFounded in 1992, the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance (NJSAA) is a 501c3 educational organization promoting research and teaching in the multidisciplinary field of New Jersey studies. The NJSAA’s approximately 100 members include teachers (primary school through college), historians, geographers, museum and historical organization personnel, archivists, and librarians. Membership is open to anyone interested in the study of New Jersey, and membership dues are $5 annually. (Yes, $5.)

    The NJSAA regularly meets four times a year in Alexander Library’s Pane Room to hold business meetings, present awards, and hear presentations in New Jersey studies. Meetings are open to all.

    Among its central activities, the NJSAA recognizes notable work in New Jersey studies by presenting awards in the following categories:

    Starting on September 1, 2018, three Rutgers University special collections librarians will be assuming leadership roles in NJSAA for three-year terms. The incoming chair is Bob Vietrogoski, the special collections librarian for the history of medicine at George F. Smith Library in Newark. He currently serves as chair of the NJSAA’s Roger McDonough Librarianship Award. As chair, he is succeeding Maxine Lurie, professor emerita of history at Seton Hall University. Dr. Lurie is a co-founder of NJSAA and has served as chair or co-chair since NJSAA’s founding 26 years ago. She is the author and editor of several award-winning works in New Jersey studies, including New Jersey: A History of the Garden State (2012), and the Encyclopedia of New Jersey (2004).

    The incoming secretary is Christie Lutz, New Jersey regional studies librarian and head of public services for Special Collections and University Archives at Alexander Library in New Brunswick. She has been acting secretary for the past year, and is succeeding Marc Mappen, the former executive director of the New Jersey Historical Commission and a historian whose books include There’s More to New Jersey Than the Sopranos (2009) and Prohibition Gangsters: The Rise and Fall of a Bad Generation (2013).

    The incoming membership chair is Tara Maharjan, processing archivist for Special Collections and University Archives at Alexander Library. She currently serves as the NJSAA’s webmaster. As membership chair, she is succeeding Karl Niederer, the former director, state archivist, and chief records administrator in the former state Division of Archives and Records Management, and current coordinator of outreach and strategic partnerships at the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office.

    The next NJSAA meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 in the Pane Room. The business meeting will begin at 3pm, and at 4:15pm, William Kroth, president of the Sterling Hill Mine Museum in Sussex County, will speak on the “Great Zinc Mines of Sussex County” and will have samples on hand to view.

    For more information about the NJSAA, see its website here, along with News of NJSAA’s recent activities and its Calendar of Events. The NJSAA is also on Facebook, and “likes” are strongly encouraged.

  • New Brunswick Libraries Acquire “The Big Book”

    Alcoholics Anonymous bookThe New Brunswick Libraries have acquired a first edition of “The Big Book,” the popular name for Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism, written by the A.A. founder, Bill Wilson (or Bill W).

    Since it was first published in 1939, in an edition of 4,650 copies, “The Big Book” has sold over 30 million copies, making it one of the best-selling regularly updated books of all time. The Library of Congress named it one of the 88 “Books that Shaped America.” The fellowship, Alcoholics Anonymous, took its name from the book’s title.

    The Rutgers copy of “The Big Book,” so called for the thickness of the paper in the original edition, was probably the one reviewed by E.M. Jellinek through a project, also launched in 1939, funded by a Carnegie Corporation grant that essentially birthed the field of alcohol studies. As Jellinek reflected in a piece written for AA Today,

    One day that year, I found on my desk a book with a yellow and red dust cover. Its title was Alcoholics Anonymous. With a sigh, picked it up and said to myself: “some more crank stuff.” But I hardly read a few pages when I realized that I had one of the precious gems before me.

    After the Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS) moved from Yale to Rutgers in 1962, the book became part of the McCarthy Collection, named after Raymond McCarthy, the director of education and training at CAS. The annotations are believed to be in his hand.

    An unassuming trade book bound in red cloth, “The Big Book” hardly resembles the “precious gem” it is. From across the room, it might be mistaken for a copy of Webster’s Desk Dictionary. However, due to its historical significance, copies of the first edition regularly sell for five and even six figures. For comparison,  a copy of Webster’s A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language,  a first ed. of Webster’s first dictionary (1806), is priced at $4,063, a Babylonian clay tablet from Syria, ca. 1600-1500 BC, which provides a list of fish used for teaching purposes, is valued at $1,500-$2,500 and a Coptic-Greek glossary, written on vellum in Egypt in the sixth or seventh century, likely intended for use by a professional scribe in the civil service, is estimated at between $12,000 and $18,000. Moreover, the profound emotion “The Big Book” stirs in the A.A. fellowship surpasses the admiration of even the most devoted logophile.

    William Bejarano, former senior information specialist at CAS, recalls preparing for the center’s annual Summer School of Addiction Studies, which traditionally included an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “John,” who was running the meeting, asked if the rumor that the center owned a copy of “The Big Book” was true, and if he might see it.

    “We were taken aback by his response — jaw agape, he treated the item almost as a sacred text, going so far as to kiss the cover and speak in hushed tones.”

    After being cataloged and preserved in a conservation housing, “The Big Book” will safely repose in Special Collections and University Archives, along with The King James Bible, and the editio princeps of Homer.

    Michael Joseph, Judit Ward

    Further reading:

    Bejarano, W., & Ward, J. (2015). AA and the Center of Alcohol Studies: Our story. SALIS News, 35(3), 10-12.

    Bejarano, W., 2015. CAS Archives: A First Edition of the AA “Big Book”. CAS Information Services Newsletter, 9(3) 6-10.

    Ward, J. H., Bejarano, W. & Allred, N. (2016). Reading for Recovery (R4R): Bibliotherapy for addictions. Substance Abuse Library and Information Studies, 3, 50-69.

  • Government Documents Repatriation Project

    Puerto Rican government documentAlexander Library’s collection of uncatalogued government documents from Puerto Rico has found a new home… in Puerto Rico. Along with a small amount of related material from the equivalent collection at the Library of Science & Medicine, similar groups of documents from states like Louisiana and Hawaii have also been offered to libraries in those states. I conceived of this repatriation project in response to the natural disasters that have affected libraries across the United States and its territories.

    Jane Canfield, a librarian at Puerto Rico’s Biblioteca Encarnación Valdés at Pontificia Universidad Católica, was the first name that came to mind when the project was considered. Canfield has given multiple presentations to the government documents community about the damages and conditions in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017. Her response to the initial contact about the project was enthusiastic, and she ultimately accepted all of the items that were offered. Ranging from a 1905 edition of the Register of Porto Rico to a 1990 Bibliografia fitopatologica Puertorriquena, 1878-1989, 178 individual items were sent.

    Louisiana government documentHurricane Katrina, the floods of 2016, and other storms made Louisiana the first candidate in the continental United States to be considered for the project. A list of material from Louisiana and New Orleans was shared with a librarian at the University of New Orleans (UNO), who in turn shared it with other Louisiana libraries. While not all of the documents found a new home, more than 78% of the publications were requested and subsequently sent to UNO for dissemination. The University of New Orleans, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Loyola University, Nicholls State University, and the State Library of Louisiana were all able to fill gaps in their collections.

    A final response from the library at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, which suffered major damage in a 2004 flood, is forthcoming. Additional states, including Texas and Florida, may be considered when time permits.

    Although the original source of the documents may be lost to history, many were likely obtained via mailing lists or gift and exchange programs. Returning them to their points of origin is a small effort to assist in the rebuilding of collections damaged by hurricanes, floods, and other disasters.

    Special thanks go to Tom Glynn for reviewing the historical material before it was offered; to Elena Schneider, and others in the Shipping & Receiving department, who investigated shipping options, packed the boxes, and delivered the materials to the university department that handles US postal mail; and to Dee Magnoni, who graciously agreed to fund the shipping costs.

    The forgotten collection of state documents is a little less forgotten. The hope is that we run out of disasters before we run out of documents.

  • QuickSearch marketing materials for fall campaign

    For Fall 2018, we will have new marketing materials for QuickSearch. While our summer campaign was designed to raise awareness of the name of our search engine, this campaign will highlight the breadth of our collection and what QuickSearch enables users to do.

    The tag line is One Search Box, Millions of Resources. The images suggest the breadth of our resources and how they can be used for discovery and research. The search box terms also incorporate a soft approach to introducing advanced search technique using Boolean terms.

    This campaign is designed to be flexible — it will be used on posters, postcards, bookmarks, and social media. It also allows us to tailor the messaging to different disciplines. In addition to these materials, we will also have some new promotional items to distribute — pens, highlighters, and maybe even flashlights.

    Download copies of the finished materials as PDFs.

    We also hope you will send along additional suggestions for imagery that we should use for different disciplines. Matt Badessa and Mary Ann Koruth have contributed to this design and we owe a big thank you to Sarah Jewell for recommending the astronomy/universe image which helped us to conceptualize this campaign.

    Please send suggestions and comments to Jessica Pellien.

  • Introducing the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries on Social Media

    Facebook page
    The @RutgersHSL Facebook page.

    Matthew Bridgeman and Sarah Jewell are leading the teams behind the new Facebook and Instagram pages representing the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries. Matthew Bridgeman, an information and education librarian at Robert Wood Johnson, has both professional and personal experiences with Instagram. He began the Instagram account at Middlesex County College. In two years he grew the library’s presence and even had a post shared by the New York Public Library. The NYPL also has a great article on creating Instagram posts to be engaging called 20 Ways to Make People Fall in Love with your Instagram. He sees Instagram as a way to begin a discussion with students and faculty with creative photography.

    Sarah Jewell, an information and education librarian at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, primarily has experience doing social media for organizations outside the professional sphere. In the past, she has volunteered to do Facebook, Instagram, and WordPress work with writing and meditation-based organizations. “I see social media as a great vehicle for expressing passion about important work,” Sarah says. “When you express enthusiasm through this media, it is contagious, and it gets others excited about the work to be done.”

    Instagram
    The @RutgersHSL Instagram page.

    Some resources that Sarah uses to guide her social media efforts include the Rutgers Libraries Social Media Resources (which she helped create) and Young and Rossmann’s book titled Using Social Media to Build Library Communities. As the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries staff is just getting the Facebook and Instagram accounts off the ground, she has been reaching out to her regular contacts to spread the word about the new way to communicate with the libraries. She was thrilled to see the Rutgers School of Public Health post on both Facebook and Instagram a promotion of the Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries pages.

    The primary goals of the Facebook and Instagram accounts are to promote library resources, services, and events to the Rutgers University community and to engage with the students, faculty, and staff of the seven schools under RBHS. The new Rutgers Health Sciences Libraries Facebook and Instagram accounts are off to a running start. The accounts’ plans are to keep a constant scheduled flow of content celebrating the students, faculty, and libraries from the schools of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. If you have not already followed them, connect with them now as they begin this adventure.

    Matthew Bridgeman and Sarah Jewell

  • Glenn Sandberg Retiring After 30 Years

    ILL staff
    Glenn with ILL staffers Mary Belasco (l.) and Lilly Miller (r.) in 2005.

    Glenn Sandberg will retire on August 1, 2018, after 30 years of service to the university. His last day in the office is June 1.

    Glenn’s career at the Libraries began in 1988, when he was hired as the supervisor of the Media Department within the Laurie Music Library (now part of the Douglass Library) in New Brunswick. He became the supervisor of Access Services at the Library of Science and Medicine in Piscataway in 1999. Among his many contributions to the Libraries, Glenn has the distinction of having created “The place to go, when you need to know!”—a slogan for the Libraries he developed as a member of the Marketing/PR Team.

    promo photo
    Glenn poses for a promotional photo in 2007.

    Since 2004, Glenn has been the supervisor of Interlibrary Loan Services. Beginning his tenure in ILL at about the same time as the start of the E-ZBorrow service, Glenn is proud of the role he has played in bolstering Rutgers’ standing within the E-ZBorrow community. After Rutgers joined the CIC (now BTAA) in 2013, Glenn contributed to the adoption of the UBorrow service. In the last three years, Glenn has helped ensure the successful implementation of several major improvements to ILL services, including removal of copyright fees charged to ILL users, adoption of ReprintsDesk as an alternative article delivery service, and further integration into the Get it @ R service. Glenn also contributed his knowledge of ILL services to the ongoing implementation of Alma and Primo.

    glenn with slogan
    Glenn shows off the Libraries slogan he coined in 2008.

    Glenn has deep ties with the university. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in German and music and received his doctoral degree in German from Rutgers University in 1995. He taught in the German Department as an adjunct faculty in New Brunswick from 1994 to 1997 and worked as a manager at the Rutgers University Foundation from 2001 to 2004.

    Glenn served in the U.S. Army from 1984 to 1988 and received a certificate in Czech from the Defense Language Institute in 1985. Last, but not least, Glenn is a talented musician—he received a master’s degree in trumpet from the Julliard School in 1983.

    Please join us in thanking Glenn for his decades-long service to the Libraries and wishing him all the best in his new adventure!

  • Quick Takes on Events and News – May 2018

    Honoring a Great-Great Legacy
    Chantel Harris at the ceremony honoring her great-great grandmother, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, who founded the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
    Chantel Harris (l.) at the ceremony honoring her great-great grandmother, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, who founded the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

    Chantel Harris, library associate and student coordinator at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers–Camden, was a special guest at the ceremonial dedication and unveiling of a school bench at Charles Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri, in honor of her great-great-grandmother, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. Lyle was the originator and founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (AKA). Chantel received a proclamation from the mayor of St. Louis, as well as a resolution from the Board of Aldermen naming April 5, 2018 “Ethel Hedgeman Lyle Day.”

    Lyle graduated from Sumner High School in 1904 and founded AKA in 1908 at Howard University. Chantel is pictured with the sorority’s international president, Dr. Dorothy Buckhanan Wilson, central regional director Kathy Walker-Steele, and members of the Board of Directors.

    The USPS is considering an Ethel Hedgeman Lyle 2019-2020 USPS Forever Postage Stamp.

    You can read more here.

    Jazz Ambassadors Premieres on PBS May 4 
    men at acropolis
    IJS founder Marshall Stearns and Quincy Jones at the Acropolis.

    A new PBS documentary featuring archival material from the Institute of Jazz Studies is slated to premiere at 10 p.m. on Friday, May 4. Here’s a quick synopsis from PBS.org:

    “The Cold War and civil rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their racially diverse band members faced a painful dilemma: How could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?”

    Congratulations to Tad Hershorn, Adriana Cuervo, and all of our IJS colleagues who contributed to this project. We can’t wait to see the premiere!

    Special Collections News Roundup
    children's book
    Helene van Rossum’s new children’s book is titled “The Best Mom in the Universe.”

    Lots of great news coming out of Special Collections and University Archives lately:

    • The finding aid for the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive is now live. The collection continues to grow, and the finding aid will be updated periodically.
    • Speaking of which, the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive has a brand new Facebook page! Be sure to head over and give them a like.
    • A new finding aid is also available for the New Brunswick Vertical File in the Sinclair New Jersey collection. This collection of primarily printed material documents a vast array of aspects of New Brunswick history, mostly between 1935 and 1960 and arranged by subject. Special thanks go to School of Communication & Information graduate student Louise Lobello for her work on the finding aid.
    • The latest children’s picture book by public services and outreach archivist Helene van Rossum has just been published. Written in Dutch, it’s titled The Best Mom in the Universe. Check it out (along with her other children’s books) over on Helene’s blog.
    Busting Students’ Stress
    flyer
    New Stressbusters flyer templates are available from the Communications Department.

    It’s finals week, which of course means that #STRESSBUSTERS are back at libraries across Rutgers–New Brunswick. But Rutgers–Camden is joining in the fun this semester, too, with the first-ever pet therapy session at Paul Robeson Library slated for Friday, May 4. Good luck to our colleagues at Robeson! Hopefully this is the beginning of a long and successful tradition.

    Are you planning your own stress-relieving finals activities? The Communications Department has created new flyer templates to help promote your events. Check them out here: T:\CENTRAL\Templates\Signage Templates\stressbusters\word templates

     

  • Simplifying Routine Digital Projects

    poster
    The Digital Projects Template Working Group presented an interim report poster at the last State of the Libraries.

    Digital projects have been an integral part of the services that Rutgers University Libraries have provided over the past decade. Making some of our resources available online adds to the discovery and accessibility of those holdings, providing a valuable service to our patrons. The digitization of physical items also provides an additional layer of preservation, protecting the original item from additional wear, while ensuring the content lives on.

    In light of this, the Digital Projects Template Working Group was formed in September 2017 to streamline and simplify the process for individual units, empowering them with the knowledge to embark on their own routine digital projects as their resources permit.  We’ve worked hard during this time to document what types of items and collections make up a potential “routine” project; provide technical information on file formats and digitization standards; offer up minimum required descriptive metadata; and provide recommendations on rights statements. With this simplification documentation, we hope that there will be less of a bottleneck for routine digitization projects.

    While the Digital Projects Template Working Group has completed their work, we realize that libraries also need guidance about the process to begin carrying out this work. Cabinet determined that a group will develop a workflow for routine digital projects.  That effort is already under discussion.

    Central units will provide support for these routine digital projects in the areas of digital preservation assessment, accessibility, and search portal and website creation. Shared User Services can consult with directors and project managers to answer questions about whether a digital project is routine, or perhaps more complex. We encourage everyone to visit our website and review the recommended guidelines for digital projects.