Preparing to Preserve: Three Essential Steps to Building Experience with Long-Term Digital Preservation

Many organizations face complex questions of how to implement affordable and sustainable digital preservation practices. One strategic priority at the University Libraries at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, United States, is increased focus toward preservation of unique digital assets, whether digitized from physical originals or born digital. A team comprised of experts from multiple functional library departments (including the special collections/archives area and the technology area) was established to help address this priority, and efforts are beginning to translate into operational practice. This work outlines a three-step approach: Partnership, Policy, Pilot taken by one academic research library to strategically build experience utilizing a collaborative team approach. Our experience included the formation of a team, education of all members, and a foundational attitude that decisions would be undertaken as partners rather than competing departments or units. The team’s work included the development of an initial digital preservation policy, helping to distill the organizational priority and values associated with digital preservation. Several pilot projects were initiated and completed, which provided realistic, first-person experience with digital preservation activities, surfaced questions, and set the stage for developing and refining sustainable workflows. This work will highlight key activities in our journey to date, with the hope that experience gained through this effort could be applicable, in whole or part, to other organizations regardless of their size or capacity

Policies governing use of computing technology in academic libraries

The networked computing environment is a vital resource for academic libraries. Ever-increasing use dictates the prudence of having a comprehensive computer-use policy in force. Universities often have an overarching policy or policies governing the general use of computing technology that helps to safeguard the university equipment, software, and network against inappropriate use. Libraries often benefit from having an adjunct policy that works to emphasize the existence and important points of higher-level policies, while also providing a local context for systems and policies pertinent to the library in particular. Having computer-use policies at the university and library level helps provide a comprehensive, encompassing guide for the effective and appropriate use of this vital resource

Insights into the Commons on Flickr

The Commons on Flickr, comprised of an international community of select libraries, museums, and archives, was a project initially launched in 2008 by the Library of Congress and Flickr. Primary goals of The Commons are to broaden exposure to rich cultural heritage photographs and to observe and participate in the communities of engagement and dialog enabled through The Commons. A survey was administered to all The Commons institutions during summer 2009, focusing on assessment of the overall satisfaction of current members and seeking additional details on participation goals, social interactions, staff time involvement, and general statistics. Members report a very positive experience with The Commons

A Library’s integrated online library system: System assessment and new hardware implementation

For more than a decade, a consortium of academic libraries in southern Nevada has shared a central integrated online library system (IOLS), Innovative Interfaces’ Innopac (Innovative when referring to the vendor, Innopac when referring to the software). At present, this consortium includes the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) (both the main university library system and the UNLV law library), the Community College of Southern Nevada, Nevada State College, and the Desert Research Institute. The last central-site server was purchased and installed in 1997. In the four intervening years, tremendous growth occurred with the system, necessitating a hardware upgrade. Prior to committing to a fiscally significant hardware upgrade, library management felt it prudent to conduct an analysis of the library-system-vendor marketplace in general, to validate the consortium’s continued commitment to the existing vendor. This article discusses background assessment work and the subsequent planning and installation of the consortium’s new central-site hardware

Toward a Nevada Digital Collaborative

In mid-2008, a statewide committee was formed to engage in a comprehensive, Nevada statewide digital planning process. This group consisted of broad membership from the range of Nevada cultural heritage institutions, and was focused on creating a five year digital plan for the state, with an emphasis on collaboration amongst various cultural heritage institutions, increased digitization, and adoption of a digital preservation strategy. This article describes the initial work of the parent committee and two subsequent working groups, funded by the Library Technology and Services Act and aided by outside consultants. Early steps included a comprehensive planning survey and various meetings to understand the capabilities and desires of both primary stakeholders and the community at large. While several challenges not necessarily unique to Nevada arose over the first couple of years, a clear path forward for additional progress has been charted

Management and support of shared integrated library systems

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) University Libraries has hosted and managed a shared integrated library system (ILS) since 1989. The system and the number of partner libraries sharing the system has grown significantly over the past two decades. Spurred by the level of involvement and support contributed by the host institution, the authors administered a comprehensive survey to current Innovative Interfaces libraries. Research findings are combined with a description of UNLV’s local practices to provide substantial insights into shared funding, support, and management activities associated with shared systems

Innovation in UK companies. An evaluation of the implementation of best practice in front end innovation processes and methodologies

With the global economy facing its toughest test in over 60 years never has it been so important for companies, large and small, to innovate and grow. Whilst few business leaders would argue with this statement, research has highlighted the difficulty that businesses face in developing commercially successful, innovative products and services. It’s well documented that between 80-90% of new product launches fail and whilst 80% of business leaders believe that innovation is important 65% are dissatisfied with their ability to innovate. To understand why successful, innovative products and services appears to be so elusive we conducted original research amongst a sample of UK based companies. The aim of the research was to identify how companies generate potential product ideas and what barriers they face in taking these ideas to the next stage of development. The results showed that whilst small and medium sized companies recognized the importance of innovation they did not have formal processes for generating ideas. In contrast all respondents from large companies reported that their organizations did have formal documented processes for innovation activities. Worryingly, all companies failed to use a sufficiently wide range of research tools to identify customers unmet needs. Another key area of the research was regarding barriers to innovation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cost was considered to be the greatest barrier. Several of the other top and middle tier barriers to innovation were: lack of communication between departments; senior management; politics; poor decision making processes; and incomplete scientific or technical understanding. These barriers are directly rectifiable by putting specific transparent front end innovation processes in place. Although these problems are likely to differ between different industries the use of some innovation methodologies such as technical forecasting would help in the strategic decision making process. These findings suggest that both SMEs and large companies have gaps in the quality of their innovation systems which present a significant risk that the new products they develop may meet with commercial failure

Success factors and strategic planning: Rebuilding an academic library digitization program

This paper discusses a dual approach of case study and research survey to investigate the complex factors in sustaining academic library digitization programs. The case study involves the background of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries’ digitization program and elaborates on the authors’ efforts to gain staff support for this program. A related survey was administered to all Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members, seeking to collect baseline data on their digital collections, understand their respective administrative frameworks, and to gather feedback on both negative obstacles and positive inputs affecting their success. Results from the survey, combined with the authors’ local experience, point to several potential success factors including staff skill sets, funding, and strategic planning

Insights into the Cultivation and Sustainability of Academic Library Digitization Programs: Success Factors and Challenge Threats

Many academic libraries have invested time and resources into the creation of library digitization programs, and at this point in time there is a growing need to evaluate the impact and success of these efforts. What factors determine whether institutions achieve goals and experience long-term success or face challenges in staffing, funding, and strategic vision? This poster presents the results of a comprehensive survey administered to ARL (Association of Research Libraries) Library digitization managers to help provide a cross section of the current state of a diverse group of programs. Presented along with the survey results, the authors delve deep into the process undertaken at the UNLV Libraries to develop a strategic vision and decision-making structure to revitalize the library’s digitization unit and create increased buy-in from staff and partners. Such work entailed two reorganizations, various workshops presented to library staff, drafting of a comprehensive digitization white paper, and establishing an administrative structure to review and prioritize digitization project proposals. These two methods of investigation are presented side-by side to reflect patterns and point to several factors that contribute to success and sustainability of digitization efforts in academic libraries

Investigations into library web scale discovery services

Web scale discovery services for libraries provide deep discovery to a library’s local and licensed content, and represent an evolution, perhaps a revolution, for end user information discovery as pertains to library collections. This article frames the topic of Web scale discovery, and begins by illuminating Web scale discovery from an academic library’s perspective – that is, the internal perspective seeking widespread staff participation in the discovery conversation. This included the creation of a Discovery Task Force, a group which educated library staff, conducted internal staff surveys, and gathered observations from early adopters. The article next addresses the substantial research conducted with library vendors which have developed these services. Such work included drafting of multiple comprehensive question lists distributed to the vendors, onsite vendor visits, and continual tracking of service enhancements. Together, feedback gained from library staff, insights arrived at by the Discovery Task Force, and information gathered from vendors collectively informed the recommendation of a service for the UNLV Libraries