Session Description:
In 2012, the Missouri Botanical Garden received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities entitled “The Art of Life: Data Mining and Crowdsourcing the Identification and Description of Natural History Illustrations from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)”. This project aims to develop software tools and a metadata schema for visual resources contained within the scanned literature made available through BHL digitization activities. The tools and schema will support automated identification and crowdsourced description of this corpus.

Initially, software tools will help discover visual resources (illustrations, maps, and other works of art) in BHL’s corpus, and basic metadata will be recorded. These resources will then be shared on multiple image delivery systems, including Flickr and the Wikimedia Commons, where citizen scientists will be able to add further annotations. Because of the wide diversity of information that a citizen scientist can add to any image, a comprehensive yet manageable schema is needed to help standardize inputs and enable synchronization and seamless import back into the BHL databases.

This schema therefore needs to support three objectives:
(1) to enable the discovery, description and use of the identified images by artists, biologists, humanities scholars, and educators;
(2) to make BHL’s metadata and images available to other platforms; and
(3) to import crowdsourced metadata generated in other platforms back into BHL.

The speakers will talk about the process of identifying existing schema that meet the needs of the project, instead of developing yet another schema from scratch, and integrating a solution that combines the best in biodiversity informatics and image curation standards and best practices. We will present our preliminary schema to the DLF community, explain how we addressed metadata challenges specific to biodiversity data, and obtain feedback on improving our schema further.

We welcome your feedback on the schema!

For more info: http://biodivlib.wikispaces.com/Art+of+Life

Session Leaders:
Robert Guralnick, University of Colorado
Trish Rose-Sandler, Missouri Botanical Garden
William Ulate, Missouri Botanical Garden
Gaurav Vaidya, University of Colorado Boulder

Session Notes:
View the community reporting Google doc for this session!

Session Slides:

Session Description:
HathiTrust integrates existing content, processes and workflows from a variety of extant systems and an ever-increasing number of partners. This federation of institutions and systems necessitates a different organizing principle than that for most single-institution systems, at the administrative and data levels. Michigan has played a significant role in shaping the principles and guidelines for content placed into HathiTrust. Michigan staff will share their own experience of working with their library’s materials in HathiTrust, information that may be useful to any institution looking at integration or long-term preservation of digital projects in any repository.

The integration of material in HathiTrust makes the differences in institutional practice more apparent, and decisions preferring one among a variety of different policies are difficult to make. Even within standard formats like MARC, there are many different ways of describing the same item. For older materials without standard identifiers such as ISBNs or even LCCNs, how can you identify, let alone normalize, this variation? But without normalization, how can you ensure your volumes are included with others from the same set? And as individually-created projects are ingested, differences in practice can be magnified, and a lack of the type of administrative metadata available for more recent digitization processes increases uncertainty about variation that is meaningful and intentional and that which is incidental and unintentional.

In short, HathiTrust faces a series of interesting challenges as content, processes, and workflows from multiple partners and extant systems are integrated. We will discuss these challenges, and provide relevant examples, for:
- managing updates to information maintained in separate systems
- recognizing and managing normalization across the variation (cataloging, quality, collections) inherent in a large system
- organizing administrative and data levels to utilize principles of organization for metadata and data with a long term perspective that assumes federation.

Session Leaders:
Kat Hagedorn, University of Michigan
Christina Powell, University of Michigan
John Weise, University of Michigan

Session Notes:
View the community reporting Google doc for this session!

Session Slides:

Session Description:
As the practice of Digital Humanities becomes more widespread in the academy, libraries are finding new opportunities to collaborate with scholars in their DH work. At NYU, interest in DH is burgeoning and scholars are looking to the Libraries for information, training, guidance, and partnership to explore the possibilities of DH for research and teaching. With the NYU English Department and the NYU Humanities Initiative, we are currently developing a Fall 2012 “Introduction to DH” workshop series for graduate students and faculty. After reviewing a variety of “Intro” courses at other institutions and assessing English department graduate student needs, we developed a semester-long curriculum that will frame each session within a topical DH debate, repackage some existing Libraries and Information Technology Services workshops on enterprise academic technologies, and also introduce other appropriate tools.

With this new venture, we’re taking an iterative, learn-as-we-go approach. Discussion and laptop hands-on sessions will be held in a new, flexible teaching and learning venue within the Library, allowing us to introduce and test the usability of the space. Designated session observers will relay what is and is not working so we can adjust mid-course. Session participants will receive questionnaires to provide feedback and help us judge the effectiveness of the presentations, demonstrations, additional resources, and readings.

Our presentation will provide an overview of what other institutions–especially libraries–are doing in this “Introduction to DH” space, explain how we chose the topics for our workshop curriculum, and describe our developing partnerships with NYU faculty and programs. Three of our “Intro” sessions will have occurred before the DLF Forum, so we will also provide a midstream review of our series to date. Finally, we will lead a discussion to hear how others are addressing DH training and support, and to consider emerging library roles and partnerships in this domain.

Session Leaders:
Monica McCormick, New York University
Annette Smith, New York University
Jennifer Vinopal, New York University

Session Notes:
View the community reporting Google doc for this session!

Session Resources:
Link for slides plus speaker notes.

ORCID is an international, interdisciplinary, open and not-for-profit organization. We are working with the research community to address the name ambiguity problem. Our goal is to create a registry of persistent unique researcher identifiers, and using an open and transparent mechanism to automate the linkage to other ID schemes and research objects such as publications, grants and patents. If you like the excitement of a start-up and the public service orientation of a non-profit, come join us as we gear up for the launch of the ORCID registry.

We have an awesome work environment with:
-Competitive compensation and benefits
-Flexible work hours
-Work from where you want to
-Choose your preferred laptop/workstation
-Knowledgeable and involved Board and community participants

Lead Developer. We are looking for a lead developer with back-end and mid-tier expertise, hands-on experience with record matching and disambiguation, and demonstrated ability leading teams and communicating with users and third-party developers. The Lead Developer will have the following responsibilities:

-Work with the ORCID Technical Director to develop ORCID’s product roadmap
-Author deliverables including use-cases, technical/functional requirements, tests, and code
-Participate actively in iterative development meetings (stand-ups, kick-offs, retrospectives), and design sessions with project teams and working groups
-Collaborate with team members, consultants, designers, the development community and users to provide accurate estimations, timelines, and risks associated with development
-Contribute back to the open-source community through code, documentation, and tutorials/speaking

Requirements:

-Experience with Java, Spring, JPA, Solr, Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, PostgreSQL, Webhooks and RESTful Web services
-Demonstrated leadership skills, in particular with distributed teams of developers
-Experience in core aspects of web application development including design, development, separation of layers, configuration, performance, integration, analytics
-Excellent written and verbal communication skills: strong interpersonal skills
-Detail-oriented, self-started, motivated, results-driven, with high-level of energy, enthusiasm, and initiatiive
-5-10 years development experience; experience in/exposure to working in a startup environment
-United States – based, preferably in the greater NYC area

If you were with us already, you would have:

-Developed ORCID’s first API
-Defined use cases and specifications for linking ORCID records with external identifiers
-Worked with research funders, publishers, and research organizations to integrate ORCID
-Participated in community development sprints across the world

To Apply: Send a cover letter and resume to jobs@orcid.org. In your letter please include a Github link.

Technical Support Specialist. We seek a technical support specialist with excellent writing and communication skills, an excitement about technology, and interest in the research communication industry. The Technical Support Specialist will have the following responsibilities:

-Ensure a superior customer service experience for ORCID website users and those who use our APIs
-Process suggestions, bugs, dispute and other website and API use information to ensure we are constantly improving the user experience
-Educate and inform users by phone and writing, while ensuring that feedback flows to the cross-functional team to fuel improvement and innovation
-Advocate for users and engage in an array of activities that drive user experience improvements

Requirements:

-You can take complex information and communicate it clearly, concisely and accurately
-You are persuasive, self-starting and skilled at solving problems and explaining complex issues
-Tech-savvy and with a passion for academic research, you can quickly master our internal and external tools and deeply understand our membership program and support model
-Your exceptional communication skills, attention to detail, and a strong work ethic will help you prioritize effectively and get things done in a dynamic, unstructured environment
-You know how to extract actionable recommendations from feedback and data, and communicate it to stakeholders
-Experience/exposure to working in a startup environment
-Recent grads are welcome to apply
-You are in the United States, preferably in the greater NYC area

If you were with us already, you would have:

-Written our first technical documentation
-Supported research funders, publishers, and research organizations globally to integrate ORCID

To Apply: Send a cover letter and resume to jobs@orcid.org.

Digitization & Services Coordinator

To apply: jobs.ucop.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=55524

Position Description:

The California Digital Library (CDL) offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to the large-scale digitization of significant library collections at the University of California and to the development of key library services provided for those collections. Reporting to the Mass Digitization Project Manager, the Digitization & Services Coordinator provides planning, coordination, analysis and communications support for UC Libraries’ digitization projects including the Google Book Search Library project. In addition, the Digitization & Services Coordinator will have major responsibility for supporting and enhancing the new UC Library Reprints print-on-demand service, as well as participate in a range of activities related to the HathiTrust Digital Library and digital collection development, analysis and management.

Required Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree with theoretical knowledge in library and information sciences and at least three years of experience working in a research library environment, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Demonstrated success in project planning, analysis, and coordination, including translation of project goals and requirements into concrete tasks and deliverables, and in preparing written documentation of project functions and activities.
• Experience implementing digitization projects, including digitization project design, workflows, techniques, and technical standards relating to both books and non-book formats such as images and archival materials.
• Demonstrated experience in creating and maintaining a web presence and in the use of wikis and social media.
• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to analyze metadata, usage statistics, user feedback, and other inputs.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal and teamwork skills, including the ability to work effectively with diverse constituencies, such as faculty and librarians, programmers, and partners in external organizations.
• Working experience with structured data, digital object standards, and metadata formats and standards.
• Understanding of digital library challenges and trends.

Preferred Skills:

• Masters degree in Library or Information Science or a related field.
• Familiarity with databases and Integrated Library Systems (ILSs).
• Experience coordinating projects involving multiple institutions and teams that are geographically distributed.
• Working knowledge of copyright law and fair use.
• Strong service orientation.

This is a 3-year contract postion.

Members of LITA’s Linked Library Data Interest Group and other contributors have added many resources to the LOD-LAM Zotero group to date. In order to increase the usefulness of the group, we are asking for community involvement in two ways:

• As you come across new tools and resources—either from conferences or in the course of your professional reading—please add them to the LOD-LAM Zotero group.
• As you use the LOD-LAM Zotero group—either as a contributor or as a browser—please send us any feedback you may have.

Through collective effort, we hope the LOD-LAM Zotero group will become the “go to” place for information about linked data and its particular uses by libraries, archives, and museums.

Items added to the LOD-LAM Zotero group can be viewed in the group’s library. Alternatively, you may view the group’s library or collections within the group’s library through your feed reader. Click “Subscribe to this Feed” on the page of the library or collection that you wish to follow via RSS.

A Zotero account is not required for “read” access to the group’s library, but it is required for “write” access. To contribute, simply create a Zotero account, download either the Zotero browser plugin or standalone client, and begin adding items. More information about getting started and tips for contributing resources can be found in the README document in the group’s library.

We hope the LOD-LAM Zotero group will create more opportunities for DLF and LOD-LAM community members to learn from one another. We especially encourage community members interested in playing in the linked data sandbox to browse the collection titled LOD 101: Primers, Tutorials, etc. In addition, we encourage contributors to use the “Notes” field to share information about tools from their experience when adding new resources to the group’s library.

Management of the LOD-LAM Zotero group is shared by the DLF and LITA’s Linked Library Data Interest Group. For more information, or to send feedback, please email lodlamzotgrp -at- yahoogroups -dot- com.