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***Submissions for the 2012 DLF Forum are now closed!***

The 2012 Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum is seeking proposals for presentations, panel discussions, workshops, research updates, and hands-on, problem-solving sessions. The Forum is a working meeting where DLF members come together to discover better methods of working through sharing and collaboration. Participation is open to all those interested in contributing to and playing an active part in the successful future of digital libraries, museums and archives services and collections. Read the rest of this entry »

Project Bamboo recently announced the release of its quarterly newsletter Bamboo News. Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you to everyone attended and contributed to the 2011 DLF Fall Forum! With your input, we can work to provide our community with the best Forums possible. Please fill out our evaluation form and let us know what you think! Your feedback is greatly appreciated. See you next year in Denver!

Constellation C: Tuesday, November 1, 11:15AM – 12:00PM

The library community has redescribed its roles in the information lifecycle by building on the extensive knowledge base we have developed through buying published research and organizing and archiving information. With a growing sense of urgency, libraries have defined publishing and archiving services as critical to 21st century research institutions, but dysfunctional in the current environment. Our research and IT colleagues trust Libraries to address these needs that cannot be readily met through existing publication channels or through the existing research infrastructure. But how do libraries effectively operate these services when both short- and long-term costs are not well understood?

We will provide a research update on Business Cases for New Service Development in Research Libraries, a CLIR/DLF-funded research project to recommend methods for effective service planning in research libraries, adapting processes from the business as well as the not-for-profit sectors. Our research will examine how business planning methods can be applied in our not-for-profit contexts, and we will recommend some best practices that may be adopted. We will also research and write up to six case studies based on the development of campus-based publishing programs and research data management services. Our presentation at DLF will recap the goals of this project, present our planning model and outline our plans for case studies. We wish to solicit feedback on how our project can best meet the community’s needs.

Resources

Session Leaders

Mike Furlough is Associate Dean for Research and Scholarly Communications at Penn State University. Joining Penn State in 2006 from the University of Virginia, he leads content stewardship services to support the life cycle of scholarly production, including curation, publication, preservation and outreach to researchers. He is one of the organizers of THATCamp Publishing, and the Taiga Forum, both held in conjunction with this DLF Forum.

Theodore Fons is Director, WorldCat Global Metadata Network, OCLC. In that role he oversees services that include synchronization of WorldCat with thousands of library catalogs, stewardship of the WorldCat Registry, and the WorldCat knowledge base of licensed electronic resources. Prior to joining OCLC Ted worked at Innovative Interfaces, and in academic libraries doing acquisitions, cataloging and reference work.

Elizabeth Kirk is Associate Librarian for Information Resources at Dartmouth College Library, where she is responsible for the Library’s collections program and services in digital resources, scholarly communications, acquisitions, cataloging and metadata, and assessment. Previous to coming to Dartmouth College, Eliz was founding manager of the Entrepreneurial Library Program the Sheridan Libraries at the Johns Hopkins University. She has spoken extensively on electronic information, library services to distance education, social entrepreneurship in libraries, copyright, and using technology to transform higher education.

Constellation C: Tuesday, November 1, 8:30 – 10:00AM

This session is designed to address critical needs for training in libraries, as the shifts in the larger information environment undermine our traditional understanding of our roles and goals. The developers of these materials, Karen Coyle, Diane Hillmann, Gordon Dunsire and Jon Phipps, have significant experience presenting on these issues in a variety of library and technical venues. The session has three parts, with discussion and feedback welcomed at each phase:

Part 1: The presenters will discuss the various audiences for training in libraries, as well as the benefits and limitations of the current strategies for provision of cost-effective training. We will discuss our rationale for organizing materials, review the current outline, and discuss costs and choices in process for the program.

Part 2: A presentation of a discrete section of the materials, the session entitled: “From Metadata to a Web of Data”. This session will introduce the basic concepts necessary to understand and participate in the development of new models for web-friendly metadata. The emphasis will be on the key elements needed to publish library data in the Linked Data space, in the context of the general principles for usable modern data. Covered in this session will be: a brief introduction to relevant Semantic Web and Linked Open Data standards; data types and data uses; identifiers and URIs; metadata ‘statements’ and their role in the Web of Data.

Part 3: A structured feedback session, covering the training program plan, the content and presentation of the section.

Session Resources

Session Leader

Diane Hillmann is currently a partner in the consulting firm Metadata Management Associates and Director of Metadata Initiatives at the Information Institute of Syracuse. From 1977 to 2008 she was associated with Cornell University Library, as a Law cataloger, technical services manager, and manager of authorities and maintenance processes for the Cornell Library’s database. She also participated in the Cornell portion of the National Science Digital Library Core Infrastructure as Director of Library Services and Operations between 2000-2005. (http://nsdl.org) Diane was a liaison to and member of MARBI from the late 1980’s to 2000, specializing in the Holdings and Authorities formats, which lead to her early participation in the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. She is currently a member of the DCMI Advisory Board, was co-Program Chair for the DC-2010 and DC-2011 conferences in Pittsburgh and The Hague.

Constellation E: Monday, October 31, 4:15 – 5:00PM

“’Taking our Pulse’ [Dooley and Luce, 2010] summarized a 2009 survey of archives and special collections and found that born-digital materials are under-collected, under-counted, under-managed, unpreserved, and inaccessible. By the DLF fall forum, OCLC Research will have made significant progress on an activity to look at management of born-digital materials from an archivist’s perspective. One objective of this work is to help situate the role of special collections librarians and archivists within the spectrum of collaborators in the born-digital realm. What skills and experiences can archivists bring to bear that will help those in research libraries who are entrusted to manage born-digital materials? We’ve already completed an essay offering a definition of born digital and enumerating the widely divergent types of materials that are considered born digital. Another piece that has been competed is a proposed approach to getting digital content off of the various kinds of physical media, including both obsolete media and present day media. Among the next components will be a piece on the archival approach to born digital, beginning with assessment and continuing through to description, preservation, and access. An additional component of the work will be a piece that pulls together the best advice for responsible approaches to getting born-digital materials under basic, initial control – and presents it in a clear set of steps to help curators of born-digital materials act confidently. The timing of the DLF forum comes at a perfect point for us to get feedback on what’s been completed and get input on what else would be a useful contribution to the community.

Session Resources

Session Leaders

Jackie Dooley (OCLC)

Ricky Erway, non-presenting contributor (OCLC Research)

Constellation F: Monday, October 31, 3:30 – 5:00PM

Digital collections with large numbers of items (such as HathiTrust) or that cater to a broad audience (such as the proposed Digital Public Library of America) can attract large numbers of users. Many of those users have questions, encounter errors, or can suggest improvements as they use the collections.

Engaging effectively with these users can greatly improve the quality and experience of our digital library collections. Public service is also an important mission and “brand” of libraries, and distinguishes us from high-volume but low-interaction commercial digital offerings.

Libraries that provide access to large-scale digital collections face challenges in effectively soliciting user feedback, responding to the feedback in responsive and productive ways, and making the best use of limited resources in efficiently responding to it. They also need to adapt the skills and resources developed for walk-in desk service to online service to a global audience. Librarians with expertise in patron service and digital collection developers with technical expertise need to work together for best results.

This working session is dedicated to sharing problems and information on how to provide effective public service for large-scale digital collections. We will open with short presentations from people who have long experience providing online public service for such collections. Chris Powell and Jeremy York of Michigan will discuss the main challenges and techniques for public service for HathiTrust. John Mark Ockerbloom of Penn will describe how service on The Online Books Page has adapted to increasing feedback with limited resources. Leslie Johnston will also discuss digital collection public service at the Library of Congress. We intend to devote much of the time for open discussion of the best ways of managing public service with a variety of digital collections.

Session Resources

Session Leaders

John Mark Ockerbloom (University of Pennsylvania)

Jeremy York (University of Michigan)

Chris Powell (University of Michigan)

Leslie Johnston, Chief of Repository Development, Manager of Technical Architecture Initiatives for NDIIPP Library of Congress.

Constellation C: Tuesday, November 1, 10:30 – 11:15AM

The landscape of scholarship in all disciplines is rapidly evolving toward the production of digital outputs of research such as datasets and electronic publications. New meta-research endeavors are seeking to better understand this evolving landscape and to chart a course forward for institutions attempting to navigate it. This presentation will present two collaborating projects researching emerging policies and practices in data management. These research projects are being undertaken by the Council on Library and Information Resources and the University of North Texas.

The first project, entitled DataRes and funded by a $232K IMLS grant, will investigate how the library and information science (LIS) profession can best respond to emerging needs of research data management in universities. Data management plans and associated institutional policies now being implemented at research institutions in response to federal requirements will be analyzed to identify observable trends. A comprehensive investigation will be undertaken of the expectations of key stakeholders in the research community (including researchers, administrative officials, librarians, funding agency officials, research equipment vendors, and others) concerning the long-term management of research data generated in universities and the role of information professionals in such efforts. Finally, a prescriptive analysis based on the foregoing research activities will identify the skills, infrastructure, training, and other preparation needed for professionals charged with data management responsibilities. A CLIR report summarizing project findings will be published, together with a project website treating with these emerging topics.

The second project, funded through $117K from the Sloan Foundation, will investigate alternative ways to build the professional capacity to handle digital data. This project will build upon an existing successful program that brings scholars into libraries, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship in Academic Libraries first by studying the effect of their work in the academy, second by developing a rigorous training program in data curation for individuals with domain expertise, and thirdly by proposing back to Sloan next steps in the testing, implementation and evaluation of sound data management curriculum to extend the CLIR postdoctoral program into the area of digital data curation.

The goal of this session is to make the DLF community aware of these two projects, and to engage members of the DLF community in these two research endeavors early on by soliciting feedback, guidance, and participation.

Session Resources

Session Leaders

Martin Halbert (University of North Texas)
Lori Jahnke (College of Physicians)

David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Berkman Center, filmed these interviews at the LOD-LAM Summit in San Francisco on June 2-3, 2011.

Want to join the conversation? Respond to the W3C Linked Library Data Incubator Group‘s call for public comment on the draft of their report. Feedback can sent as comments to individual sections posted on their dedicated blog or by email to an archived public mailing list at public-lld@w3.org using descriptive subject lines such as ‘[COMMENTS] “Benefits” section.’

http://youtu.be/swQYX4oqfB4

http://youtu.be/cY-aEuFLryo

Videos via the Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory Blog.

The W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group has been chartered from May 2010 through August 2011 to prepare a series of reports on the existing and potential use of Linked Data technology for publishing library data. The group is currently preparing:

• A report which consists of, Benefits, Vocabularies and Datasets, Relevant Technologies, Implementation challenges, and Recommendations
• Use Cases: a survey report describing existing projects
• Vocabularies and Datasets: a survey report

We (LLD XG) invite comments from interested members of the public.

Feedback can sent as comments to individual sections posted on our dedicated blog or by email to an archived public mailing list at public-lld@w3.org using descriptive subject lines such as ‘[COMMENTS] “Benefits” section.’

Comments will be especially welcome through 22 July.

Reviewers should note that as with Wikipedia, the text may be revised and corrected by its editors in response to comments at any time, but that earlier versions of a document may be viewed by clicking on the History tab.

It is anticipated that the three reports will be published in final form by 31 August.