March 2011 Archives

The George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida is seeking an experienced, skilled, and dedicated individual to serve as the Chair of Digital Services and Shared Collections. The Chair will be responsible for adopting a business model approach, designing efficient and productive workflows, and effectively communicating vision and goals to donors, partners, and a variety of other internal and external constituents. The Chair will lead Digital Services including the Institutional Repository (IR), and will have reporting responsibilities for Preservation and Shared Collections Processing. The Chair will be involved in the planning for the new complex to house Shared Collections.

For further information regarding this position and application procedures access the full Position Vacancy Announcement .

All inquiries and submissions of required application materials should be sent to Bonnie J. Smith, Smathers Libraries Human Resources Office.

The University of Florida is an equally opportunity employer and is strongly committed to the diversity of our faculty and staff. Applicants from a broad spectrum of people, including members of ethnic minorities and disabled persons, are especially encouraged to apply

Virginia Tech’s University Libraries is under new leadership with the recent arrival of Dean Tyler Walters. As a result, we are looking for three (3) additional librarians to help us develop and expand the work of the Digital Library and Archives. Please consider applying or sharing this information with your colleagues who are looking for an exciting opportunity and dynamic work environment where you/they will have extensive influence on digital repository development and other library initiatives in beautiful Blacksburg, Virginia.

Apply online at https://listings.jobs.vt.edu/

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has received a $49,500 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct an in-depth survey of publications, projects, tools, and environments pertaining to semantic web, linked data, and RDF triples technologies. Simultaneously, Stanford University Libraries has received a parallel grant of $50,000 to conduct an invitational workshop intended to incorporate the results of the CLIR survey into a design for a scalable prototype system.

Linked data offers libraries, universities, and scholarly projects improved ability to cross-search and discover digital information. The survey will provide background for participants in a workshop to be held at Stanford University Libraries in summer 2011 that aims to develop specifications, requirements, and a basic technical design for a multinational, multi-institutional prototype demonstrating the viability and efficacy of a linked data environment for improving discovery and navigation. CLIR will publish the survey report following the workshop. The documents emerging from the workshop will also be published online.

“This is a significant grant for CLIR/DLF, as it builds upon our history of rigorous research and analysis of issues that are fundamentally important to our constituencies, as well as marking a new direction,” said CLIR President Chuck Henry. “Linked data has the potential to align and federate digital resources across thousands of institutions. It is thus an aspect of large-scale solutions that CLIR has placed at the core of its strategic mission.”

“We are at a point where the need is for leading libraries to get real about this technology,” commented Stanford University Librarian Mike Keller. “Using the CLIR study as a baseline for the state of the art, we intend to come out of the workshop with concrete, actionable plans for collaborative, distributed development of metadata conversion tools, as well as for access and visualization tools.”

Efforts and interest surrounding linked data and semantic web is growing rapidly in the digital library community, and I am often asked,”What is DLF doing in relation to Linked Data?”

On March 16, (CLIR) received a $49,500 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct an in-depth survey of publications, projects, tools, and environments pertaining to semantic web, linked data, and RDF triples technologies. Simultaneously, Stanford University Libraries has received a parallel grant of $50,000 to conduct an invitational workshop intended to incorporate the results of the CLIR survey into a design for a scalable prototype system.

Linked data offers libraries, universities, and scholarly projects improved ability to cross-search and discover digital information. The survey will provide background for participants in a workshop to be held at Stanford University Libraries in summer 2011 that aims to develop specifications, requirements, and a basic technical design for a multinational, multi-institutional prototype demonstrating the viability and efficacy of a linked data environment for improving discovery and navigation. CLIR will publish the survey report following the workshop. The documents emerging from the workshop will also be published online.

“This is a significant grant for CLIR/DLF, as it builds upon our history of rigorous research and analysis of issues that are fundamentally important to our constituencies, as well as marking a new direction,” said CLIR President Chuck Henry. “Linked data has the potential to align and federate digital resources across thousands of institutions. It is thus an aspect of large-scale solutions that CLIR has placed at the core of its strategic mission.”

In addition to the Stanford Workshop, DLF will be present at the LOD-LAM: International Linked Open Data Meeting, being held in San Francisco on June 2-3, 2011.

It is apparent, from the questions, conversations, and the sheer level of interest, Linked Data is in the forefront of many DLF community members’ minds. As a community driven organization, we need to identify where in the Linked Data conversation, it makes the most sense for DLF to engage, and where we can contribute for the greatest benefit.

In order to understand how DLF can best serve its community with regards to Linked Data, we are openly calling for ideas to be posted Linked Open Data: Call for Ideas space of the DLF website.

There is also a  Linked Open Data Interest Group Page on the DLF website, to help gather together LOD resources and information. If you are seeking to help coordinate and catalyze this interest group, let me know.

Your voice and contributions are greatly appreciated!

~ Rachel Frick, DLF Director

Round two of the Digging into Data Challenge, a grant competition designed to spur cutting edge research in the humanities and social sciences, was announced on March 16, 2011.  This year, 8 funders are participating enabling this competition to have a world-wide reach into many different scholarly and scientific domains.

For round two, the Digging into Data Challenge is encouraging digital library participants, not only as grant applicants, participating on research teams, but also as content providers, making their collections available to research teams. A list of current data providers is located here.

Final applications will be due June 16, 2011.

Further information about the competition and the application process can be found at www.diggingintodata.org.

The Digging into Data Challenge is being administered by the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ARL and DLF are offering a third, five-day METS Workshop: The Basics and Beyond to be held with Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich of the METS Editorial Board June 27-July 1, 2011, in New Orleans, LA. This workshop is aimed at people who work in digital and physical libraries and would like to gain knowledge and skills for organizing the many and disparate component parts of individual digital resources.

See details.

The Digital Library Federation program today announced its formal alliance with centerNet. Established in 2007, centerNet is an international network of digital humanities centers formed for cooperative and collaborative action that benefits the digital humanities and allied fields in general, and has special resources in the domain of cyberinfrastructure to offer humanities centers in particular.The affiliation will focus on areas where digital libraries and digital humanities converge and need further exploration and understanding of each community’s roles and responsibilities. More information can be found here.

Save the date for CURATECamp 2011 – August 15 and 16. This summer’s camp will be at Stanford University. DLF is excited to provide support towards this dynamic effort. More information will be posted soon on the CURATECamp website.

Thank you so much for participating in the 2012 DLF Forum Location Poll.

By an overwhelming majority (74 of 130 votes), Denver will be the location of the 2012 DLF Forum, which will be held Saturday November 3rd – Tuesday November 6th, 2012. Note, this coincides with Election Day (November 6th), so please remember to make plans accordingly.