The Sun Never Sets on Project Planning: Doing a Digital Project in a Traditional World

Since November 2012, with generous support from the W.M. Keck Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Reed College’s department of computing and information services and its library have been working together with faculty members on a project aimed at increasing students’ capacity to engage with digital sources and tools as integral components of the research process. Our session will provide an overview of the project’s goals and how they have been realized through our course-based collaborations; we will then turn to a more focused case study of one new course, “Migration Histories in the British Imperial World,” that was taught at Reed in spring 2017 after almost two years of collaborative planning and design. In this interactive session, we will discuss the successes and challenges of this course and of our collaborative digital scholarship projects in general

Playing to our strengths : collaboration and maximizing resources to build the RDC Platform.

For years, Reed College has been struggling with a digital asset management system that didn’t quite meet the unique needs of our campus. Faculty often request extensive interface customizations for their digital collections, the proprietary software (CONTENTdm) no longer fits our environment, and technology infrastructure issues have created a pyramid of unsustainable workarounds. In 2013, Reed College began to explore alternatives. After surveying the landscape by talking to other liberal arts colleges, national vendors, and local academic institutions, no existing platform seemed to be the right fit. We decided to tap into the expertise on our campus and build a flexible, scalable platform that is customized to our campus environment. Reed Digital Collections (RDC) is a collaborative effort between the Library, Technology Infrastructure Services, and Web Support Services. Specifically, this panel will discuss: Why Liberal Arts Colleges are in a unique position to tap local expertise to creatively solve problems. Criteria for the new system, options considered, and reasons why we chose to build a homegrown system. Challenges and benefits of the system design and implementation process. Negotiating time for personnel, establishing effective communication, and sustaining a flexible environment in order to maximize limited resources to best serve the local community. Technical aspects of design: architectural decisions, major components, and system data model.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

When You Are Falling, Dive: Launching a Thesis Digitization Project

At Reed College, every student must complete a year-long thesis project and deposit a print copy of their final thesis in the Library. Though a descriptive catalog record (title, author, advisor, and department) exists for each of these 17,000 theses, students and faculty have trouble discovering relevant theses and tracking the evolution of previous research projects. An electronic theses collection does exist, but participation is voluntary and deposit rates low. This spring, the Library embarked on a digital scholarship pilot project to determine what resources and workflows will be necessary to digitize new incoming theses as well as retrospectively digitizing the print collection. This talk will cover both the conceptual and practical challenges of a thesis digitization project including: The publication status of undergraduate theses Whether to make the electronic theses available to the public Copyright considerations Scanning workflows Metadata for the IR vs the catalog Piping IR records into discovery layer (Primo) Staffing project with undergraduates Management of accompanying thesis data Long term goals of moving the institution to requiring electronic deposit Lessons learned from the project so far The talk will be relevant for any attendee dealing with theses and dissertations in their own IR or who are considering how to begin a large scale retrospective scanning project. We will also attempt to use the talk time to elicit feedback and hear about the experiences of attendees who have done similar projects

Panel : lead, follow, or listen

This fun and interactive panel is designed to ask how Liberal Arts College Libraries can best participate in the big issues confronting digital libraries.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

When You Are Falling, Dive: Launching a Thesis Digitization Project

<p>At Reed College, every student must complete a <a href="https://www.reed.edu/apply/academics/thesis.html">year-long thesis project</a> and deposit a print copy of their final thesis in the Library. Though a descriptive catalog record (title, author, advisor, and department) exists for each of these 17,000 theses, students and faculty have trouble discovering relevant theses and tracking the evolution of previous research projects. An <a href="http://library.reed.edu/etheses/">electronic theses collection</a> does exist, but participation is voluntary and deposit rates low. This spring, the Library embarked on a digital scholarship pilot project to determine what resources and workflows will be necessary to digitize new incoming theses as well as retrospectively digitizing the print collection. This talk will cover both the conceptual and practical challenges of a thesis digitization project including.</p><div><br></div><div>This presentation was given July 20 at NWIRUG in Portland, OR.</div