Collaboration-as-Service: Humanities Librarians, Technologists, and Researchers

Part of a panel discussion at the NFAIS 2018 Humanities Roundtable exploring how humanities librarians are conveying and marketing the breadth and depth of services to faculty, students and researchers. Presenters address how perception equates to funding for humanities, and how the role of humanities librarians is changing.Liaison librarians of all disciplines must increasingly draw upon distributed functional expertise within their libraries to meet the shifting, complex demands of university faculty and students. As more research services, funded scholarship, and course projects are built upon digital resources and complicated technology, it becomes more essential for liaisons to translate user needs to developers, repository managers, and technical support teams. In particular, humanities librarians must deftly bridge sometimes large gaps in understanding and knowledge between scholars, students, and technologists to support these projects. However, the invisible emotional labor that supports collaboration within successful projects is often devalued by university administrators—and, crucially, prospective funding sources--in comparison to visibly working code. Further compounding the problem are differences in compensation for project-specific work, and buyouts that may be available to technical specialists, but not to the librarians who are “just doing their job.

Utilizing automation to reduce setup and changeover time in a Just-In-Time environment : an empirical study

Includes bibliographical references.The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of automation on setup and changeover times associated with the Just-in- Time environment. Several automation methods will be evaluated to determine if there are statistical differences between firms that implement automation techniques and firms that do not.B.S. (Bachelor of Science

Girls to the Front: What Riot Grrrl Tells Us About Women in Library IT

Book description: Does gender play a role in library information technology (I.T.)? For the last several decades, libraries have primarily employed women, whereas I.T. jobs have been held by men. What happens when the two collide? What is it like for women who are working for I.T. within the library? Has it changed over time? Through personal narratives, we explore these questions and seek to provide guidance and encouragement for women and men in library I.T., those pursuing a career in library I.T., and library management. The collection includes themes concerning "Imposter Syndrome," career trajectory, experiences of sexism and biases. Contributors also offer advice and encouragement to those entering or already in the field. Examples of positions held by the contributors include managers, web developers, system librarians, programmers, and consultants. This collection provides a voice for women in library I.T., bringing their experiences from the margins to the center, and encouraging conversation for positive change.This contribution to a collection of essays and personal narratives explores the author's background in patriarchal communities, and how riot grrrl became a foundational ethos of her career in library information technology

Measurements of atmospheric CO2 columns using ground-based FTIR spectra

The investigation of CO2 sources and sinks within the carbon cycle is important in order to understand global climate change. In this work high resolution ground-based FTIR measurements were used to retrieve total column amounts of CO2. Required measures for the reduction of error sources and the improvement of total column accuracies are presented. In addition, a novel analysis procedure to retrieve vertical CO2 profiles from TCCON measurements is shown and validated with in situ measurements

The Cost of Keeping It: Towards Effective Cost-Modeling for Digital Preservation at the University of Maryland

With the introduction of tools like the DLF’s Digitization Cost Calculator, forecasting and fundraising for digitization projects can be achieved with transparency and clarity. However, estimating and articulating the considerable long-term expenses of digital preservation lags behind. The surfeit of digital materials entering cultural heritage institutions introduce significant costs that rapidly outstrip the costs of digitization, and these costs are challenging to represent clearly at the outset of a project–either due to obscure technical details, the array of pricing options for storage and preservation systems, and the impossibility of predicting the price of "keeping it forever." In our library, we are in the early stages of developing a cost model for digital preservation systems loosely aligned to the costs of systems and activities within the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation framework. This work is intended to articulate the ongoing costs of desirable and essential digital curation activities to digital project stakeholders, as well as administrators–with the ultimate goal of sustainable funding for responsible digital preservation. Our "Digital Preservation Cost Calculator" has been successfully used to estimate project expenditures in preparation for grant applications and philanthropic financing requests.We are exploring prospective features that can transition this tool from a local budgeting tool to a full-fledged digital preservation application. This paper will introduce our use case and requirements, current development challenges, and propose a prospective roadmap and options for community engagemen

KOREAN-NESS: Creating and Embracing New Identities Through Language and Culture

Technological advances in communications and transportation have unlocked new pathways for mobilizing transnational flows of people, information, and culture. The cyber-networked landscape in which we now live has enabled a pluralistic existence, no longer restricted to singular definitions of citizenship, identity, and cultural membership. In the era of the internet and globalization, the world is often said to be “shrinking.” However, instead of a smaller or simpler world, our project illustrates far more layered and complex relationships and positionalities. This multi-sited research project focuses on the ways in which Korean immigrants and Korean Americans use language to establish cultural networks, preserve dual/plural identities, and develop shared practices or appropriate behavior. Based on existing research focusing on linguistic practice (Bucholtz, 1999), we examined how individuals at specific sites in the San Francisco Bay Area embrace or reject Korean cultural and identity maintenance. In addition, we focused on code-switching and language crossing as methods of informal learning and constructing belonging (Rampton, 1998). We employed ethnographic observations and interviews totaling over 100 hours at Korean-owned businesses and churches. This exploration of language use and interactions in the local Korean American community provides a lens into the contemporary transnational condition. One in which expressions of dual identities and a pluralistic sense of ‘being’ challenges notions of a contracted world. Ultimately, these interactions and processes reshapes understandings of new Korean immigration experiences, transnational identities, and the linguistic practices that produce them

Delay, Distract, Defer: Addressing Sabotage in the Academic Library

Short paper submitted to The Maintainers III Conference, October 7, 2019.In 1944, the US Office of Strategic Services released the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Originally intended to aid the WWII-era citizen saboteur in committing small, undetectable acts of sabotage within an enemy organization, the Field Manual developed a second life on social media after its declassification, as its advice to “make faulty decisions, to adopt an uncooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit” echoed the pitfalls of modern office work. In the context of academic libraries, seemingly neutral actions that actively work to delay production may include our insistence on following proper channels, creating committees, haggling over precise language, and holding unnecessary meetings. In this paper, we argue that academic libraries find themselves uniquely susceptible to unintentional and willful saboteurs alike. As higher education’s hierarchical culture meets professional norms that stress collaborative decision-making and emotional labor, we create an environment ripe for exploitation by those unhappy with the direction of an organization. As workers charged with the stewardship of information infrastructure, and as individuals who create and implement best practices in digital cultural heritage systems, library saboteurs have the potential to derail and impede the care work essential to information maintenance. This paper explores aspects of the Field Manual that apply to modern organizations, how academic libraries can fall victim to sabotage, and ways that individual librarians and staff can identify and resist the saboteur in the next cubicle--or in their own learned library behavior

Terps Publish: A Student Publication Fair

Student-run publications are valuable to the campus and scholarly record, serving as an academic playground for emergent forms of publishing and media. However, student publications face many of the same sustainability problems affecting the broader publishing industry as well as unique problems inherent in student publications, such as routine turnover, unreliable or shifting income sources, and few networks to share knowledge. The inaugural Terps Publish, modeled on Hoyas Publish at Georgetown University, provides student publishers with a discussion venue to connect with peers and library resources for publishing, and a fair on April 11th to promote and celebrate student publishing activities. This poster will share outcomes from the student round table, discussion points, and opportunities for the Libraries to support student publications

Lifting All Boats: Fostering a Community of Practice for Student Publishers

Undergraduate and graduate students are increasingly being encouraged to work with faculty and researchers to generate traditional scholarship, as well as other types of projects that feature original content. Through this process, students are more frequently taking on roles as researchers, authors, and publishers. Student scholarship and student-run publications are valuable to the scholarly record, representing the nascent activities of the next generation of scholars, but also serving as an academic playground for emergent forms of publishing and media. Furthermore, students who manage publications gain practical skills that transfer to a variety of careers in academia and private industry. However, student publications are often struggling and are occasionally invisible. They face many of the same sustainability problems affecting the broader publishing industry, as well as unique problems inherent in student publications. These groups frequently need and often seek a combination of professional mentorship and a forum for peer group interactions to advance their publishing goals. At Georgetown University, Ohio University, and the University of Maryland, university presses and libraries have each leveraged their expertise and resources to research the student publishing landscape and develop a low-risk program to build a community of practice for student publications

Starting with “Yes, And...”: Collaborative Instructional Design in Digital Scholarship

Conference paper published in the proceedings of the Library Orientation Exchange (LOEX) National Conference in 2016.Improv principles and techniques are applicable in any instance of teaching: respect your partner, know your audience, work the room, jump in with both feet, agree agree agree. These techniques take for granted that this form of instruction and collaboration is new for both partners, that neither person is the expert, and that the content and situations will have to be recreated anew in every classroom and workshop. In this workshop, two librarians and former improv and theater instructors lead workshop attendees through some of the fundamentals of improv, and reflect upon how these same activities and principles help create an environment of collaboration and openness necessary to support the diverse goals of digital scholarship