Nathan Gerth
Digital Archivist
University of Nevada, Reno
Emily Boss
Head of Metadata and Cataloging
University of Nevada, Reno
Jessica Tapia
Head, Digital and Web Services
West Virginia University
Go Big or Go Home: Collection and Infrastructure Development in the Age of Big Data (Gerth, Boss)
Libraries are increasingly being asked to look past big research data sets and instead see collections themselves as data. In 2016, the University of Nevada, Reno took in 6.4 million digital files as part of the congressional papers of Senator Harry Reid. As the biggest acquisition of data for the library to date, many mid-stream adjustments to the library’s infrastructure, workflows, and tools had to be made to sustainably support an increasingly modern type of collection development. This session will detail the lessons learned from those changes and their implications that stem from the library approaching the collection as data.
Congressional Correspondence Data Tool: Making Constituent Correspondence Available for Research (Tapia)
When congressional offices close, the constituent correspondence data that they have collected in proprietary software is often exported and given to archives and libraries along with their papers and other materials. Archives and libraries are currently ill-prepared to make this data available to researchers. The West Virginia University (WVU) Libraries have created the Constituent Correspondence Data Tool (CCDT) as an open source software product designed to allow archivists to easily upload their data and make it available for research. WVU has secured a 2018 Lyrasis Catalyst Grant to complete a feasibility study to assess CCDT and plan for a future collaborative technical infrastructure for the tool. This presentation will include a brief demonstration of CCDT, discussion regarding the challenges of scaling its use to other libraries and museums, and goals of the grant.
https://ccdt.lib.wvu.edu/ (Tapia)