Open Source Software and Tools for the Library and Archive

Engard will begin her presentation with an introduction to open source and why it’s a great option for libraries and archives. Additionally, she will speak about her own experiences with open source and the importance of going into the community to increase awareness of open source offerings for libraries.

Cultural institutions have increasingly taken up the practice of exhibiting digital collections online, extending access to collections materials beyond institutions’ physical sites and enhancing research capabilities. Oral history materials present special ethical and practical challenges to this already complex digital terrain. These materials constitute the recorded embodiment of an intersubjective process of authority sharing. As such, they require particular attention to the rhetorical implications of how their contents are structured and interpreted in digital space. In a more practical sense the durational properties of audio and video recordings can likewise prove challenging as they resist searchability and synchronization with textual surrogates and other visual materials.

The open source rich media platform Scalar, designed by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (ANVC) for digital scholarly publications, has many affordances that lend themselves to the structuring of multimodal digital/digitized oral histories. As a recent graduate student, McCarther explored how these affordances enact theoretical facets of oral history work and evaluated their practical strengths as navigational tools. Scalar is a sophisticated platform that can be customized with minimal coding experience, and its growing number of plug-ins can be used to further enhance users’ discovery of and experience with digital collections. Archivists and librarians who are considering whether to use Scalar for oral history collections will want to consider the strengths and limitations of the platform for handling these materials, as well as their attendant ethical implications.

McCarther will present on her experience with Scalar by 1) mapping its affordances to the practical and theoretical concerns of oral history materials generally, 2) describing how those concerns shaped the project design for a use case regarding a multimodal collection of interrelated oral history materials, and 3) evaluating the successes and limitations of implementing that design.

The Dataverse Project started in 2006 at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science as an open source software application to share, cite and archive data.

From its beginnings, Dataverse (then referred to as the Dataverse Network) has provided a robust infrastructure for data stewards to host and archive data while offering researchers an easy way to share and get credit for their data. Since then, Dataverse has grown to 10 repositories that now share metadata with each other, hosted in institutions around the world that together serve more than 55,000 datasets with 750,000 data files (dataverse.org). These Dataverse repositories are using the Dataverse software in a variety of ways, from supporting existing large data archives to building institutional or public repositories. One of these Dataverse repositories is the Harvard Dataverse, that alone hosts more than 800 dataverses (containers of datasets) owned and managed by either researchers, research groups, organizations, departments or journals. The Harvard Dataverse has so far served more than a million downloads of its datasets, allowing researchers around the world to reuse the data, discover new findings, and extend or verify previous work.

While the Dataverse project started from the social sciences for the social sciences, it has expanded to benefit a wide range of disciplines and scientific domains (astronomy, life sciences, etc), leveraging progress in the social science domain to define and enhance data publishing across all research communities. In particular, as part of the new Dataverse release (v4.0), staff has evaluated the features needed in data publishing so data can be properly shared, found, accessed and reused.

This presentation will provide some background information on the Dataverse's history, offer examples of how libraries and archives are using Dataverse to share data, and showcase the new features developed in version 4.0 for researchers.

In this presentation, Pun will address how he promoted open source mapping tools in an event called Geographic Information System (GIS) Day in a global network university: New York University-Shanghai, China, where he works. In November 2014, the speaker collaborated with two other universities that form NYU's Global Network University: NYU in New York City and NYU in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to promote GIS Day across three continents. The speaker will share his experiences on promoting mapping tools globally and collaboratively: the lessons learned and how to effectively outreach and engage with students across the global network through events such as GIS Day. Attendees may be inspired to organize their own GIS Day in November and to collaborate with other universities across the globe to promote open access mapping tools and learn about other open source tools in cartography.

Special Snowflake Syndrome: the feeling that you are a beautiful and unique snowflake unlike any other.

In the world of archives, libraries, and cultural resource management, there are many, many special snowflakes. Institutions may share goals and problems, but situations are often vastly different, which is why open source software is so appealing. Such is the case for the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and the staff's desire to create a unified online database of state historic properties. The database is, in essence, an item-level description finding aid. After the debut of two prototypes and a limited distribution, CollectiveAccess has proven its worth as the software for the job.

During this presentation, Jones-King will discuss the goals of the South Carolina SHPO and how and why she chose the open source software CollectiveAccess for the database project. She will also discuss the process of installing and using CollectiveAccess as an archivist with a small amount of coding experience. Finally, she will discuss takeaways from the project, why she would choose open-source software again, and how CollectiveAccess has been successful.

For the past two years, Athena Christa Holbrook has worked with video artist Joan Logue to organize, document, and contextualize a body of art work that spans over four decades. The initial phase of this project, which included the production of an inventory and catalog of her work, is now entering Phase Two, creating a centralized database for this catalog and providing access to this information through a public-facing collection website.

After comparing and testing various free and open source software appropriate for small collections, including Collective Access and Omeka, staff ultimately opted for Omeka as its chosen platform. They are currently halfway through the process of data import and site design, and would like to use their experience with open source software platforms within the context of small, personal art collections.

This session will discuss Skidmore College's implementation of the open source ArchivesSpace platform. The program was installed locally in 2014, and staff spent a year working with it before moving to Lyrasis' hosted version in May. Frederick will provide an overview of ArchivesSpace, including demonstrations of the public and staff interfaces, discuss training staff, and review the pros and cons of local versus hosted installations.

A quarter of all sites on the web sit on WordPress. Soon, when a new feature (WP-API) is bundled in all updates, WordPress will be responsible for scaling the entire internet. Yes, we can use it for easy, small library websites, but ambitious library systems can use WordPress to power multiple apps and supplant traditionally third-party services like your OPAC, event system, DAMs, institutional repositories, and so on.

This inspirational talk is focused on divorcing libraries from the notion that "WordPress is for blogs." Instead, it may be the most powerful open-source tool libraries can use. Schofield will show existing WP-powered library services and explain how they're working, and – without getting too nitty-gritty – introduce concepts like COPE (create once publish everywhere) using APIs, and how building future-friendly library services with WordPress can help libraries pivot when whatever next big game-changing technology comes around.

Most academic libraries produce research or subject guides, online “bibliographies” used to direct students to information resources in specific subject areas or geared toward specific academic courses. In 2011 Saint Peter's University Libraries transitioned their Subject Guides from static HTML pages to an open source content management system called SubjectsPlus. (SubjectsPlus was refreshed to version 2.0 in early 2015). Staff also uses SubjectsPlus to manage the library’s A-Z Database List and library FAQs.

This presentation will discuss the technical requirements for installing SubjectsPlus and demonstrate both the user and librarian interfaces. Also discussed will be the challenges faced, including indexing SubjectsPlus guides in discovery search Tool and embedding them into BlackBoard course shells.

One of the biggest challenges in the preservation and access of audiovisual materials is obtaining sufficient intellectual control in order to prioritize, budget for reformatting, and make collections findable. This is as challenging for large collections with significant backlogs as it is for smaller institutions with limited resources or that lack expertise with AV. With support from the National Recording Preservation Board, AVPreserve has developed AVCC, a free, web-based tool for creating rapid inventories of AV collections. AVPreserve also provides a series of reports to help quantify and describe a collection, plan for various preservation activities such as reformatting and rehousing, and begin the building blocks of item-level records that can be further described as materials are made accessible and then imported into other cataloging systems. This session will present the process of creating a free AVCC account and using the tool to create inventory records so that attendees can begin overcoming their own backlogs with audiovisual collections.

In July, 2014, the Bartlett Library and Archives of the Museum of International Folk Art and the Library of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, NM, converted from a non-MARC InMagic system to a hosted implementation of Koha. This session explores the issues these libraries faced in forming a strong collaboration; selecting a hosted open source solution; converting existing data; and planning for integration of archives records into a library catalog. Emphasis will be placed on building successful collaborative projects and on understanding the difference between hosted and in-house open source systems. Staff believe that for a small library with limited access to IT staff, hosted open source is the "best of both worlds."

Yavapai College Library has a small (1 room, 120 sq. ft.) archives consisting of materials from 45 years of college history. Staff needed an AMS that would let staff and the public search and view objects in the collections. A team of three staff ultimately chose CollectiveAccess, installed and configured the software, and have begun entering collections.

Starting Point

• No defined collections
• No DACS descriptions
• No online access (public or internal)
• Indexing: various Word documents; MS Access database loosely based on Dublin Core.

Goals

• Index the collection so it's searchable by keyword
• Self-service research by YC staff
• Public search & display
• Identify people in photos
• Self-guided training for data-entry and staff searching.

Implementation Team

• ITS: server space
• Library IT (James): config/support/training
• Archives Librarian (Shelly): volunteer training; collection-level data entry
• Archives Assistant (Barb): collection-level data entry

How did staff decide to go open source?

• Referred to our Goals
• Research software (CollectiveAccess, AdLib, ArchivesSpace, Eloquent, CuadraSTAR, Minisis M2A, ReDiscovery Proficio)
• Created evaluation matrix
• We chose CollectiveAccess.

Accomplishments

• Defined physical collections: put in boxes, label, title, codes.
• Defined objects types.
• Decided how they wanted to enter their records.
  1. Chose DACS to describe collections.
  2. CA goes beyond DACS and has many metadata fields to use; staff had to decide what was important to index. They decided to devote their energy to objects, people, and groups; but not places or events.
  3. CA, being a relational database, allows for qualified relationships between records, and we had to decide what and how many to use.
• Decided how to use DACS fields in CA. (explanation paragraph above)
• Configured software: relationships; object types; data entry forms; users/permissions;
• CA allowed them to create a workflow for records to be reviewed before they are publicly available.

Where they are now

• CA is running & configured.
• Self-guided training for data entry has been created.
• Internal-use only.
• Entered their first collection of student final project films: ~250 objects (films) w/ ~700 entities (people)
• Continue to add collections/objects

A presentation of three case studies discusses the challenges, solutions, and successes of customizing the Omeka CMS (a platform specifically created for digital archival content) for specific audiences. The projects to be reviewed are the Seamen's Church Institute's "American Merchant Marine Veterans Oral History Project," geared towards an audience with little computer or archive exposure; "Exploring Zines: Print Culture and Digital Humanities," geared towards DIY communities interested in how new technologies interact with print; and Queens College's "Print History Collections," built for rare book enthusiasts and archivists heavily versed in technical metadata. Issues related to using open source software and object-oriented modeling will also be discussed.

Drupal is web-based, open source content management system that can be used by libraries for a wide variety of electronic publishing services. Drupal includes an impressive array of features for building sophisticated, customized websites without programming. Drupal can also be easily extended to provide specialized features through a vast library of plugin modules. This presentation will describe the features and capabilities of Drupal and survey some of the major Drupal projects implemented at the University of New Mexico Libraries, including the Tony Hillerman Portal (ehillerman.unm.edu), the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (sora.unm.edu) and Celebrating New Mexico Statehood (nmstatehood.unm.edu).

In early 2014 the Special Collections department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, began implementation of ArchivesSpace, a new open source collection management application for archival collections. Irwin will discuss the implementation process including the justification for selecting ArchivesSpace, support received from the ArchivesSpace community and development team, their participation in the ongoing development of ArchivesSpace, how the libraries’ systems department provides technical assistance, and the migration of their legacy data into ArchivesSpace.

In January 2015, Lapworth began her role as project archivist for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project at UNLV Special Collections. She will discuss how ArchivesSpace fits into the project workflow that spans from acquisition to digitization and online access, how it improves collaboration with her colleagues on the project, and other benefits and challenges of using the application.

They will describe how ArchivesSpace has helped improve collection access overall, lessons learned, and share some plans for the future.

Long, long ago – okay, actually, not all that long ago – libraries built digital exhibits using JPEGs meticulously collected and saved on local desktops coupled with textual narrative assembled using a WYSIWYG editor (Dreamweaver, anyone?) and uploaded via FTP to be displayed on functional, yet often creatively stifling, HTML sites. Though exhilarating and groundbreaking at first, as the web evolved libraries wondered, "Isn’t there a better way?"

The UC Santa Cruz Library first used Omeka, the open source digital exhibit platform, to create the Grateful Dead Archive Online in 2010. We wanted to extend this great application to create exhibits for its other collections, but bringing together and managing the content from multiple sources has been a challenge.

To meet these needs, the UC Santa Cruz University Library has been developing a suite of 15 Omeka plugins. Known as the Omeka Curator Dashboard (or OCD), these plugins allow Omeka administrators to pull content from CONTENTdm, YouTube (and, soon, Vimeo!), Flickr, OHMS (the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer), and the UC Libraries Digital Collection (UCLDC) for use in their exhibits.

The library's Omeka-based Digital Exhibits site was just launched in March 2015, and staff quickly found its Omeka administrators to be highly enthusiastic exhibit creators. They already have three published exhibits on the site and two more currently in progress. Their administrators enjoy being able to pull in non-library content from external platforms, such as YouTube and Flickr, easily pull library content from local DAMS (CONTENTdm), and display complex oral history content using OHMS. Pulling content in multiple formats from a variety of sources allows exhibit creators to enrich their narrative and build more complex or interactive exhibits.

For this session, Waggoner will describe the Omeka Curator Dashboard plugins developed by the UC Santa Cruz University Library, and how staff have leveraged these plugins to create dynamic exhibits that are fun to build. Session attendees will learn where to access the OCD plugins, how to apply these plugins in their own Omeka exhibit platforms, and lessons learned during the creation and use of the library’s own Omeka exhibit site.

ePADD is a software package developed by Stanford University's Special Collections & University Archives that supports archival processes around the appraisal, processing, discovery, and delivery of email archives. In this session, members of the ePADD development team will demo the latest version of the ePADD software and answer specific questions about the project.

Every library has content that is unique to itself and its community. Islandora is open source software that enables libraries to store, present, and preserve that unique content to their communities and to the world. Built atop the popular Drupal content management system and the Fedora digital object repository, Islandora powers many digital projects on the web today. The software is also backed by a vibrant and growing community of users, developers and service providers. In this session, learn how to get started using Islandora to bring your unique assets to the web.

Session participants will:

• View a sample of projects that use Islandora to preserve, display, and promote their content
• See demonstrations of the kind of content that Islandora can store and present
• Understand how the resources of the Islandora community can help jumpstart their own project

For over 115 years, the California Library Association has conducted an annual conference for the state's many librarians. To ensure that conference attendees find the presentations engaging and useful, CLA wanted to allow individual members to help select conference topics and tracks.

The Galecia Group rapidly built a Drupal-based crowdsourcing platform, allowing hundreds of librarians to submit presentation proposals, vote on and discuss their favorite sessions, and share ideas. The conference organizers were able to use this wealth of information to structure conference session tracks that appealed to as many attendees as possible.

In this session, Craner will review the built-in capabilities of Drupal that allow developers and non-developers alike to create powerful, flexible community-based applications with ease. Using the "OurConference" crowdsourcing platform as an example, he will demonstrate how an app like this can be created without having to write a single line of PHP code.

Implementing digital signage in your library is a great way to communicate with your patrons about your great services and programs. Herreweghe and Coleman have experimented with several open source software and hardware solutions that make adding digital signs simple and cost effective. They will share their work and the pros & cons of each solution they tested.

Christina and Tiffany will discuss how they launched a new approach to staff training called eCourses @ SLCL.

The Reference Department at the St. Louis County Library (SLCL) has developed online training courses using the open source Moodle learning management system (LMS). In this session, Chris and Tiffany will go over the eCourses that Reference developed and discuss their experiences using Moodle. They will also cover the challenges and lessons learned.