Constructing the 1889 Baist Atlas of Richmond, VA: Building Blocks for Digital Projects

The beautiful end product of a digital cultural heritage project is a wonderful thing. But building collaborative digital projects is challenging. VCU Libraries created an interactive 1889 atlas with ideas both old and new about use, access, engagement and collaboration. Poster Description The focus of this poster is two-fold. First, the collaborative effort to repair, digitize, preserve, plan and create an interactive website and digital representation of the 1889 Baist Atlas of Richmond will be documented. http://labs.library.vcu.edu/baist-atlas/ Second, the details of the iterative process and various approaches related to feedback, design, outreach, use, access and assessment portions of launching and maintaining a digital cultural heritage collection will be depicted. Some approaches included creating new materials for download and use such as geospatial data, and the use of both analytics and faculty outreach for assessment. Lessons learned thus far and plans for the future of the project will also be covered

A Tale of Two Digital Projects: Open Source Tools for Awesome User Engagement

What do public media and Flickr have in common with Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries? Both provided the means for VCU to build upon open source tools and create new ways for users to engage with our digital collections. This snapshot session will discuss the use of NPR\u27s Quotable tool in partnership with the Richmond community featured in an oral history project, and will also showcase how the CONTENTdm to Flickr uploader tool built by VCU\u27s web team was used to further user engagement with a unique digital atlas project

Show me the data: Analyzing item level metrics from CONTENTdm reports to aid digital collection assessment

Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries recently launched several initiatives to increase the accessibility and enable greater discovery of our digital collections. Like many other organizations, we are interested in creating a standardized assessment approach to determine how these initiatives may help grow the impact of our digital collections, as well as demonstrating their overall value and use. CONTENTdm reports are part of that standardized assessment. This session will provide an overview of how we are using Excel to quickly import, identify, track and report trends derived from CONTENTdm reports at the item level. This working approach has been used for small and mid-sized digital collections to aid our overall assessment picture. In this presentation, formulas, techniques and templates will be described and available for use. Among other topics of assessment, a demonstration of how to easily discover and track items that are not being accessed and viewed by users will be discussed, as these items are not accounted for in CONTENTdm reports. This presentation reflects an ongoing and iterative project, and will therefore aim to also encourage feedback and a discussion of techniques

Choosing a Repository Platform: Open Source vs. Hosted Solutions

Discusses selection of a locally hosted, open-source system (DSpace/Fedora) versus a cloud-hosted, proprietary system (Digital Commons), it is important to note that these examples are merely illustrative. Libraries have a range of choices for repository software that includes open source and proprietary in any number of support environments, and exemplary repositories are flourishing on a variety of systems, both open source and proprietary. This chapter focuses on the differences between proprietary and open-source solutions, but also demonstrates how and why libraries choose a repository system. In writing about this process, we realized that it was important to acknowledge that there are two different audiences for this chapter: those who may just be starting out with building a repository at their institution, and those with an established repository who are considering a platform change. Thus, this chapter addresses the challenges and opportunities of platform selection in both circumstances

Case report: An evaluation of early motor skills in an infant later diagnosed with autism

Researchers and clinicians are increasingly interested in understanding the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and identifying behaviors that can provide opportunities for earlier detection and therefore earlier onset of intervention activities. One promising avenue of research lies in the early development of motor skills. The present study compares the motor and object exploration behaviors of an infant later diagnosed with ASD (T.I.) with the same skills in a control infant (C.I.). There were notable difference in fine motor skills by just 3 months of age, one of the earliest fine motor differences reported in the literature. In line with previous findings, T.I. and C.I. demonstrated different patterns of visual attention as early as 2.5 months of age. At later visits to the lab, T.I. engaged in unique problem-solving behaviors not demonstrated by the experimenter (i.e., emulation). Overall, findings suggest that infants later diagnosed with ASD may show differences in fine motor skills and visual attention to objects from the first months of life

Supporting Software Preservataion Services in Research and Memory Organizations

Reconnaître la préservation des logiciels comme un problème commun et complexe que chaque organisation ne peut résoudre seul, le Software Preservation Network (SPN) a été lancé en 2016 pour sensibiliser, renforcer les capacités et favoriser les actions collectives qui mobilisent un large éventail d’intervenants qui ont un intérêt dans ce travail

Trust in genomic data sharing among members of the general public in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia

Abstract: Trust may be important in shaping public attitudes to genetics and intentions to participate in genomics research and big data initiatives. As such, we examined trust in data sharing among the general public. A cross-sectional online survey collected responses from representative publics in the USA, Canada, UK and Australia (n = 8967). Participants were most likely to trust their medical doctor and less likely to trust other entities named. Company researchers were least likely to be trusted. Low, Variable and High Trust classes were defined using latent class analysis. Members of the High Trust class were more likely to be under 50 years, male, with children, hold religious beliefs, have personal experience of genetics and be from the USA. They were most likely to be willing to donate their genomic and health data for clinical and research uses. The Low Trust class were less reassured than other respondents by laws preventing exploitation of donated information. Variation in trust, its relation to areas of concern about the use of genomic data and potential of legislation are considered. These findings have relevance for efforts to expand genomic medicine and data sharing beyond those with personal experience of genetics or research participants

Members of the public in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia expressing genetic exceptionalism say they are more willing to donate genomic data

Funder: State Government of Victoria (Victorian Government); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004752Funder: Victorian State GovernmentAbstract: Public acceptance is critical for sharing of genomic data at scale. This paper examines how acceptance of data sharing pertains to the perceived similarities and differences between DNA and other forms of personal data. It explores the perceptions of representative publics from the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia (n = 8967) towards the donation of DNA and health data. Fifty-two percent of this public held ‘exceptionalist’ views about genetics (i.e., believed DNA is different or ‘special’ compared to other types of medical information). This group was more likely to be familiar with or have had personal experience with genomics and to perceive DNA information as having personal as well as clinical and scientific value. Those with personal experience with genetics and genetic exceptionalist views were nearly six times more likely to be willing to donate their anonymous DNA and medical information for research than other respondents. Perceived harms from re-identification did not appear to dissuade publics from being willing to participate in research. The interplay between exceptionalist views about genetics and the personal, scientific and clinical value attributed to data would be a valuable focus for future research

308.1 Approaching Appraisal: Framing criteria for selecting digital content for preservation

Digital preservation practitioners are often asked to make collec- tion and preservation decisions about content they steward; more often than not this is simply because a collection contains or is solely composed of digital content. However, traditional preserva- tion practitioners typically do not make these same decisions in a vacuum for analog collections; they are informed and prioritized by selectors, liaisons, or curators who make decisions based on con- tent and collection priorities in concert with information provided by the preservation practitioners. In this paper, we argue that this model should not change sim- ply because the nature of the materials has changed. While digital preservation may be new to an institution, basic preservation de- cisions are best prioritized by the people building collections and selecting content, which is complemented by the knowledge and expertise from digital preservation practitioners. Selectors and curators are collaborative preservation partners whose roles and expertise render them best able to judge the value of the content they collect. Digital preservation practitioners have an obligation to work with selectors and curators to help them understand the ways in which technical characteristics, descriptive records, and financial impact, along with value, affect selection choices for digital content and how these choices affect a digital preservation program. Digital preservation practitioners need to provide selectors and curators with guidelines and criteria to help them make informed selection decisions for digital content. In this paper, we will address this issue in five parts. First, we review existing literature and workflows on the issue of selection for general collections. Second, we review existing literature on the topic of appraisal in special collections. Third, we provide an analysis of how these practices compare and contrast. Fourth, we discuss differences between preserving analog and digital content. Finally, we recommend specific guidelines and criteria geared to- ward selectors and curators to aid with content selection for digital preservation in both general and special collections