In 2016, after we launched the first iteration of the Duke Chapel Recordings Digital Collection in the Duke Digital Repository (DDR), we began a collaborative project between Digital Collections and Curation Services, University Archives, and the Duke Divinity School to enhance the metadata. The original metadata was fairly basic and allowed users to identify individual written, audio, and video sermons based on speaker, date, title, and format. All good stuff, but it didn’t allow for discovery based on the intellectual content of the sermons themselves. So, it was decided that, at the same time Divinity School staff listened to and corrected machine-generated transcripts for each sermon, they would also capture information that is useful from a homiletic perspective.

At the very beginning of the project, the Divinity School convened two focus groups of preachers from a variety of denominations and backgrounds to ask them how they would like to be able to discover and use a digital collection of sermons. These groups developed a set of terms/categories based on which they would like to be able to identify sermons. From there I worked with the project team to begin thinking about what kinds of fields they would want to capture, and determine whether or how those fields could map to the existing metadata application profile that we use in the DDR.

It quickly became clear that this project was going to require the creation of new metadata fields in the DDR application. I try to be really judicious about creating new fields (because otherwise, you end up doing this), but in this case, I felt that the need was justified: homiletic metadata is fairly specialized, and given Duke’s commitment to this collecting area, making adjustments to accommodate it seemed more than reasonable. Since I always like to work with best practices, I attempted to identify any extant metadata schemas that might already exist for working with biblical metadata. I felt pretty confident that I would find one, considering that the Bible is actually one of the oldest books out there. While I did find some resources, they were pretty old (think last-updated-in-2006), and all of them were oriented towards marking up actual Biblical texts, rather than the encoding of metadata about those texts.

Screen capture of the OSIS (Open Scripture Information Standard) in the Wayback Machine.

With no established standards to work with, we set about determining what the fields should be, using the practice of homiletics itself as a guide. We also developed a workflow for the capturing of this metadata, using a google spreadsheet with conditional formatting and pre-developed drop-down lists to control and facilitate data entry. And starting from the set of terms/categories developed during the focus groups, we came up with a normalized set of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for staff to choose from or add to, as needs arose.

Example of subject headings applied to a sermon, available at https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r41r6nf5b

Working with LCSH was in itself a challenge, as it required us to navigate the tension between the need to use a standardized set of headings while also include concepts that weren’t themselves well represented in the vocabulary. In some cases we diverged from LCSH in the interest of using terms that would be familiar, expected, and recognizable to practitioners of homiletics. One example of this is the term ‘Community’, which has a particular meaning in a Biblical context, but which, were we to have used the LCSH term ‘Communities’, loses its intent.

We rolled out the new metadata properties and values in early August so they could be available for use by attendees at the international homiletics conference, Societas Homiletica, which was held at Duke University August 3-8, 2018. Now, users of the digital collection can facet and browse by: Liturgical Calendar, Biblical Book, Chapter and Verse, and Subject. We’ve also added curated abstracts, and key quotations from the sermons, which are free-text searchable.

The enhanced metadata makes for a much more meaningful experience using the Duke Chapel Recordings, and future plans involve the inclusion of sermon transcripts, as well as the development of a complimentary website, maintained by the Duke Divinity School, to provide even more information about the speakers and their sermons. With these enrichments, we are well on our way to having an unparalleled free and open resource for the study of homiletics, and hopefully, in so doing, we will facilitate the discovery and study of preachers whose voices have traditionally been underheard.

Equipment, Technology

A New(-ish) Look for Public Computing

September 21, 2018 jbp1@duke.edu

Over the past year, you’ve probably noticed a change in the public computing environments in Duke University Libraries. Besides new patron-facing hardware, we’ve made even larger changes behind the scenes — the majority of our public computing “computers” have been converted to a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

The physical hardware that you sit down at looks a little different, with larger monitors and no “CPU tower”:

What isn’t apparent is that these “computers” actually have NO computational power at all! They’re essentially just a remote keyboard and monitor that connects to a VDI-server sitting in a data-center.
The end-result is really that you sit down at what looks like a regular computer, and you have an experience that “feels” like a regular computer. The VDI-terminal and VDI-server work together to make that appear seamless.

All of the same software is installed on the new “computers” — really, virtual desktop connections back to the server — and we’ve purchased a fairly “beefy” VDI-server so that each terminal should feel very responsive and fast. The goal has been to provide as good an experience on VDI as you would get on “real” computers.

But there are also some great benefits …

Additional Security:
When a patron sits down at a terminal, they are given a new, clean installation of a standard Windows environment. When they’re done with their work, the system will automatically delete that now-unused virtual desktop session, and then create a brand-new one for the next patron. From a security standpoint, this means there is no “leakage” of any credentials from one user to another — passwords, website cookies, access tokens, etc. are all wiped clean when the user logs out.

Reduced Staff Effort:
It also offers some back-end efficiency for the Specialized Computing team. First off, since the VDI-terminal hardware is less complex (it’s not a full computer), the devices themselves have been seen to last 7 to 10 years (vs. 4 years for a standard PC). There have also been reports that they can take quite a beating and remain operational (and while I don’t want to jinx it, there are reports of them being fully submerged in water and, once dried out, being fully functional).

Beyond that, when we need to update the operating system or software, we make the change on one “golden image” and that image is copied to each new virtual desktop session. So despite having 50 or more public computing terminals, we don’t spend 50-times as much effort in maintaining them.

It is worth noting that we can also make these updates transparent to our patrons. After logging in, that VDI session will remain as-is until the person logs out — we will not reboot the system from under them. Once they logout, the system deletes the old, now-outdated image and replaces it with a new image. There is no downtime for the next user, they just automatically get the new image, and no one’s work gets disrupted by a reboot.

Flexibility:
We can, in fact, define multiple “golden images”, each with a different suite of software on it. And rather than having to individually update each machine or each image, the system understands common packages — if we update the OS, then all images referring to that OS automatically get updated. Again, this leads to a great reduction in staff effort needed to support these more-standardized environments.

We have deployed SAP and Envisionware images on VDI, as well as some more customized images (e.g. Divinity-specific software). For managers who don’t otherwise have access to SAP, please contact Core Services and we can get you set up to use the VDI-image with SAP installed.

Future Expansion:
We recently upgraded the storage system that is attached to the VDI-server, and with that, we are able to add even more VDI-terminals to our public computing environment. Over the next few months, we’ll be working with stakeholders to identify where those new systems might go.

As the original hardware is nearing it’s end-of-life, we will also be looking at a server upgrade near the end of this year. Of note: the server upgrade should provide an immediate “speed up” to all public computing terminals, without us having to touch any of those 50+ devices.

Announcements, First Wednesday, Technology

New Project Request Process

September 10, 2018 Tim McGeary

Last week, I presented our New Project Request Process at First Wednesday. This request process is to help the Digital Strategies & Technology (DST) Leadership Team more effectively evaluate and prioritize projects that require ITS resources. Over the summer, we developed and tested a two-stage workflow aimed to lower the barrier for library staff to submit project ideas and streamline the prioritization of projects into our three new project management streams: Library Systems, led by Karen Newbery; Web Experience, led by Tom Crichlow, and Application Development, led by Cory Lown, or into the existing Operations stream, led by John Pormann.

You can view the presentation here. (My presentation begins at 35:45, but you should definitely watch Karen present on the Updated Request App and her trip to DKU.)

The quick summary notes of our process is this:

Project Summary is a short, one page summary of your project idea that includes 4 major elements:
- Summary
- Project Rationale
- Goals
- Stakeholders
The DST Leadership will evaluate Project Summaries within one month of submission and accept it, decline it, or request more information.
Accepted Project Summaries will be assigned a Project Lead, who will guide the Project Sponsor in writing the Project Charter.
Project Charter is an in-depth project plan that includes these elements:
- Project Details:
  - Requirements – list of the high-level project requirements
  - Scope Statement – narrative description of the project scope
  - Deliverables – A deliverable is a unique and verifiable product, result or capability to perform a service that must be produced to complete a process, phase or project.
  - Estimated Schedule – focus on schedule and timeline, not specific dates
  - Completion Criteria – what must occur before project is considered complete
  - Goals – specific measurable objectives the project must achieve for completion
  - Dependencies – any outside factors, including people, data, and systems
  - Collaboration and communication strategy – frequency of meetings, project management tools used, plan to provide communication to those outside the project
- Risks to Scope, Budget, Resources, Schedule, Technologies
- Stakeholders – people outside of ITS (List of names and contact information)
- Project Team – roles needed for team (Specific team members will be assigned, if project is approved and scheduled)
- Budget – especially important for grant-based projects
The DST Leadership will review Project Charters within one month of submission. Accepted project charters will be prioritized based on one or more of the following:
- Portfolio Management review of resources by the Director, ITS
- EG input for projects involving two or more divisions, or that impact campus users, or that impact a majority of DUL staff
- Input of corresponding AUL, if competing projects require same team members of an previously approved project in queue
- Input from DUL department or existing committee with governance oversight of a particular area, such as WebX or Digital Preservation and Production Program

We believe this process will enable us to plan projects more effectively with project sponsors and utilize the Libraries’ resources more efficiently. We also believe this will improve communication with stakeholders and provide EG with better information to make priority decisions for projects that have benefit or impact to our staff and users.

You can download the Project Summary and Charter template here. You can submit your Project Summary to dst-lt@win.duke.edu.

Technology

Enter the Vortex

August 21, 2018 Alex Marsh

When Duke students tour the Digital Production Center, I always show them our video digitization system, and point out that Duke Libraries’ collection of U-matic, VHS and Betacam analog videotapes are ancient relics from the last century. This fall’s first-year students were born in the new millennium. They have little use for physical media, except for perhaps an occasional external thumb-drive. Their concept of video is something you capture on your iPhone or stream online, not play using a crude plastic rectangular-shell. And rewinding videotape? “Like… what is that?, it’s so… weird!”

So, imagine my surprise when I recently walked into Raleigh’s brand new Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, and entered their Video Vortex, a massive library of over 75,000 video titles on VHS and DVD, that are free for customers to check out and watch at home. Video Vortex even rents out VHS players, another historical artifact. This may seem odd at a time when everyone is streaming movie content online. But, Video Vortex specializes in movies you can’t get from Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services. Many of their titles are out of print, and some of these films were never released on DVD, or in any digital format, so the only way you can see them is on VHS.

Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls (1988). Directed by Meredith Lucas

Walking through the VHS collection is like going to a run-down grindhouse movie theater in 1975, or tuning into an obscure cable-TV channel at 3 A.M. in 1987. Many of the films would be classified as “exploitation:” cheaply-made horror, cult or action titles that never had a chance at the Oscars, and are “so bad, they’re good,” like “Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls.” But there’s also critically acclaimed films like Frank Perry’s “Last Summer,” which earned an academy award nomination in 1969. Due to copyright issues or lack of funds, these two films have never made it into the digital realm, and can only be seen on VHS.

Last Summer (1969). Directed by Frank Perry

Josh Schafer is co-manager and “VHS Culture Captain” of Video Vortex. He moved here from New Jersey to work in the vortex, because he’s a longtime connoisseur and expert on the VHS format, and even publishes a VHS fanzine called “Lunchmeat.”

“The whole goal here is to not just reimagine the video store, and give people that feeling and experience again, but also give people this library, this community asset where both film-lovers and the casual movie-goer alike, can come in and explore all kinds of cinema, for free,” says Schafer. The Alamo’s lobby, where Video Vortex lives, is decorated with rare movie posters, giant VHS facsimiles, and has tables where film-nerds can congregate, order from the Alamo’s full kitchen and bar, and discuss their favorite obscure animation titles.

Video Vortex has every film by every director in the known universe.

Skip Elsheimer of AV Geeks has taken on the job of helping to maintain the Video Vortex collection, which involves cleaning off mold, splicing tape, fixing cases and repairing DVDs. “A lot of these videotapes and DVDs were boxed up for years in storage spaces that were not ideal,” says Skip. “We do TLC on these titles, many of which don’t exist in any other format.”

DVDs are actually harder to fix and reclaim than videotape. Skip says the rescue rate of VHS is about 90%, because he can swap out tape, put it in a new cassette case, splice it, etc. But once the lamination separates on a DVD, or if there’s a significant scratch, it’s toast, because the laser can no longer read the data, and there’s no way to retrieve it. So much for the idea of digital = permanent. Or as the VHS Culture Captain says, “only analog is real.”

In addition to Video Vortex, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema offers a mix of first-run, independent and vintage films on 11 screens. The comfy theater seats recline, and customers can order an eclectic mix of foods, cocktails, craft-beers and wine, right from their seat. Most everyone who works at Alamo is a movie fan, and it shows in everything from the vintage movie posters that line the walls, to the enthusiasm of the employees. The only way to dampen that enthusiasm is if you talk or text in the theater, because, after one warning, you will be asked to leave, as explained in this colorful public service announcement.

Behind the Scenes, Digital Exhibits, Technology

Bringing ‘Views of the Great War’ to life

August 17, 2018 Michael Daul

I recently worked on an interactive kiosk for a new exhibit in the library — Views of the Great War: Highlights from the Duke University Libraries. Elizabeth Dunn, the exhibit curator, wanted to highlight a series of letters that shared the experiences of two individuals during the war. She was able to recruit the talents of Jaybird O’Berski and Ahnna Beruk who brought the writings of Frederick Trevenen Edwards and Ann Henshaw Gardiner to life.

letter excerpt — Excerpt from Edwards’ June 9, 1918 Letter

Elizabeth and I booked time for Jay and Ahhna in the Multimedia Production Studio where we recorded their performances. I then edited down multiple takes into more polished versions and created files I could use with the kiosk. I also used youtube’s transcript tool to get timed captions working well and to export VTT files.

Here is an example:

The final interface allows users to both listen to the performances and read timed transcriptions of the letters while also being able to scroll through the original typed versions.

screenshot of interface — Screenshots of the kiosk interface

The exhibit is housed in the Mary Duke Biddle Room and runs through February 16. Come check it out!

Behind the Scenes

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

August 9, 2018 Karen Newbery

At the beginning of the school year in elementary school, we were usually given the assignment to write about our summer. I dreaded the assignment. Summers were spent running around from dawn to dusk, maybe a road trip packed into the family car to see relatives, nothing worth writing about. I now understand that it was a great way for teachers to get to know their students; a chance to visit the world through the students’ eyes. I am on my last day of ten days at Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China. I was tasked with helping their library as they grow, and this is DKU through my eyes.

The Campus

Photos of Duke Kunshan University — Phase one building of Duke Kunshan University.

Duke Kunshan University is located in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province. The Province is home to many ancient water towns with buildings lining ancient canals, sidewalks for pedestrians, and shops on the first floor of most buildings. DKU pays homage to the area’s water towns with a pond in the center of campus, small fountains and reflecting pools in front of the academic building. The conference center, the academic building and faculty residences surround the pond. The academic building is home to the canteen, the library, team rooms, and classroom auditoriums. There is a building called the Innovation Center under construction that will house faculty offices and classrooms, with two more phases of buildings and a Duke Gardens area planned. In the center of the pond is a pavilion with arches in tribute to the architecture at Duke.

The Library

Photo of Duke Kunshan Library — Duke Kunshan Library

The library has seven full-time staff and two interns. All staff have Master’s degrees, and the interns are studying for their Masters in Library Science. The staff are from China and Australia and need to wear multiple hats to keep the library running smoothly.

We worked on setting up loan policies and discussed their need to load patrons into our integrated library system. DKU Library is expanding they types of items they’re loaning and expanding borrowing privileges to family of DKU faculty, staff and students as well as DKU alumni and visitors. Extending privileges to DKU family is very important, as DKU as a whole wants to feel like a strong community to everyone who has a link to the University. We started work so they could use the acquisitions module to track budgets and orders, and we solved some technical issues, allowing the staff to send loan notices to patrons and to print spine labels for books.

The Area

It wasn’t all work and no play. I visited two local water towns, the cities of Suzhou and Shanghai, and experienced the historic culture of the Kun Opera. I toured an ancient private garden, ate delicious food, shopped in Shanghai, and rode the bullet train which traveled between Kunshan and Shanghai at a speed of 268 km/h. I was honored with a special traditional dinner with the staff that included regional specialties like hairy crab soup, tender loofah and jellyfish. The DKU staff have been welcoming, friendly, and generous. I’m sad to leave and hope I get the opportunity to return. In the meantime, we’ve forged new friendships, new working relationships, and made lasting memories. It was the best summer vacation ever!

Photo of travels in China — Water Towns, Kun Opera, Shanghai Skyline

Announcements, Digital Collections, Digitization Expertise

We are Hiring!

August 3, 2018 Molly Bragg

Duke University Libraries is recruiting a Digital Production Services Manager to direct the operations of our Digital Production Center, its staff (3 FTE plus student assistants), and associated digitization services. We are seeking someone experienced in leading digitization projects who is excited to partner with colleagues around the library to reformat and preserve unique library collections and provide access to them online. This is an excellent opportunity for someone who likes working with people, projects, and primary sources!

This newly created position combines people and project management responsibilities with hands-on digitization duties. Previous supervisory experience is not required; however, the ability to direct the work of others is essential to this position, as is a service oriented attitude. Strong organizational and project management skills are also a must. Some form of digitization experience in a library or other cultural heritage setting is required for this role as well. The successful candidate will join the highly collaborative Digital Collections and Curation Services department and work under the direct supervision of the department head.

The Digital Production Center (DPC) is a specialized unit that creates digital surrogates of primary resources from Duke University Libraries collections for the purposes of preservation and access. Learn more about the DPC on our web page, or through the Digital Strategies and Technology division’s blog, Bitstreams. To see some of the materials we have digitized, check out Duke Digital Collections online.

Duke is a diverse community committed to the principles of excellence, fairness, and respect for all people. As part of this commitment, we actively value diversity in our workplace and learning environments as we seek to take advantage of the rich backgrounds and abilities of everyone. We believe that when we understand, celebrate, and tap into our uniqueness to creatively solve problems and address shared goals, our possibilities are limitless. Duke University Libraries value diversity of thought, perspective, experience, and background and are actively committed to a culture of inclusion and respect.

Duke offers a comprehensive benefit package, which includes both traditional benefits such as health insurance, leave time and retirement, as well as wide ranging work/life and cultural benefits. Details can be found at: http://www.hr.duke.edu/benefits/index.php.

For a full job description please see https://library.duke.edu/about/jobs/dpsmanager. To apply, submit an electronic resume, cover letter, and list of 3 references: https://hr.duke.edu/careers/apply – refer to requisition #401463554. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.

Projects, Technology, User Experience

A collaborative approach to developing a new Duke Libraries catalog

July 27, 2018 Cory Lown

Post contributed by: Emily Daly, Thomas Crichlow, and Cory Lown

If you’re a frequent or even casual user of the Duke Libraries catalog, you’ve probably noticed that it’s remained remarkably consistent over the last decade. Consistency can be a good thing, but there is certainly room for improvement in the Duke Libraries catalog, and staff from the libraries at Duke, UNC, and NCSU are excited to replace the current catalog’s aging infrastructure and outdated user interface with an entirely new collaboratively developed open-source discovery layer. While many things are changing, one key feature will remain the same: The catalog will continue to allow users to locate and access materials not only here at Duke but also across the other Triangle Research Libraries member libraries (NCSU, NCCU, UNC).

Users will be able to search for items in the Duke Libraries catalog and then expand to see books and items from NCSU, NCCU, and UNC if they wish.

Commitment to collaboration

In addition to an entirely new central index that supports institutional and consortial searching, the new catalog benefits from a shared, centrally developed codebase as well as locally hosted, customizable catalog interfaces. Perhaps most notably, the new catalog has been built with the needs of library and complex bibliographic data in mind. While the software used for the current library catalog has evolved and grown in complexity to support e-commerce and business needs (not higher ed or library needs), the library software development community has been hard at work building specialized discovery layers using the open-source Blacklight framework. Peer institutions including Stanford, Cornell, and Princeton are already using Blacklight for their library catalogs, and there is an active Blacklight development community that Duke is excited to be a part of. Being part of this community enables us to build on the good work already in place in other library catalogs, including more intuitive facets, adaptive linking for subjects and other fields, a more responsive user interface for access via tablets and phones, and the ability to preserve the order of MARC fields when it’s useful to researchers (MARC is an international standard for representing bibliographic and related data).

We’re upping our collaboration game locally, too: This project has given us the opportunity to develop a new model for collaborative software development. Rather than reinvent the wheel at each Triangle Research Library, we’re combining effort and expertise to develop a feature-rich yet highly customizable discovery layer that will serve the needs of researchers across the triangle. To do this, we have adopted an agile project management process with talented developers and dedicated product owners from NCSU, UNC, and Duke. The agile approach has helped us be more productive and efficient during the development phase and increased collaboration across the four Triangle Research Libraries, positioning us well for maintaining and governing the catalog after we go live.

This image depicts the structure of the development team that was formed in May 2017 to collaboratively build the new library catalog.

What’s next?

The development team has already conducted multiple rounds of user testing and made changes to the user interface based on findings. We’re now ready to hear feedback from library staff. To facilitate this, we’ll be launching the Duke instance of the catalog to all library staff next Wednesday, August 1. We encourage staff to explore catalog features and records and then report feedback, providing screenshots, URLs, and other details as needed. We’ll continue user testing this fall and solicit extensive feedback from faculty, students, staff, and general researchers.

Our plan (fingers crossed!) is to officially launch the new Duke Libraries catalog to all users in early 2019, perhaps as soon as the start of the spring semester. A local implementation team is already at work to be sure we’re ready to replace Duke’s old catalog with the new and improved version early next year. Meanwhile, development and interface enhancement of the catalog will continue this fall. While we are pleased with what we’ve accomplished over the last 18 months, there is still significant work to be done before we’ll be ready to go live. Here are a few items on the lengthy TO DO list:

finish loading the 16 million records from all four Triangle Research libraries
integrate Duke’s request workflows so users can request items they discover in the new catalog
develop a robust Advanced Search interface in response to user demand
tune relevance ranking
ensure that non-Roman scripts are searchable and display correctly
map non-MARC metadata so items such as digital collections records are discoverable

Effective search and display of non-Roman scripts is just one of the many items left on our list before we launch the library catalog to the public.

There is a lot of work ahead to be sure, but what we will launch to staff next week is a functional catalog with nearly 10 million records, and that number is increasing by the day. We invite you to take the new catalog for a spin and tell us what you think so we can make improvements and be ready for all researchers in just a few short months.

Duke Digital Repository

DDR-RD: Previewing DUL’s new platform for research data

July 20, 2018 Will Sexton

While we sometimes talk about “the repository” as if it were a monolith at Duke University Libraries, we have in fact developed and maintained two core platforms that function as repository applications. I’ll describe them briefly, then preview a third that is in development, as well as the rationale behind expanding in this way.

Continue reading DDR-RD: Previewing DUL’s new platform for research data →

Behind the Scenes, Digitization Expertise, MSI

Multispectral Imaging Summer Snapshots

July 13, 2018 Molly Bragg

If you are a regular Bitstreams reader, you know we just love talking about Multispectral Imaging. Seriously, we can go on and on about it, and we are not the only ones. This week however we are keeping it short and sweet and sharing a couple before and after images from one of our most recent imaging sessions.

Below are two stacked images of Ashkar MS 16 (from the Rubenstein Library). The top half of each image is the manuscript under natural light, and the bottom are the results of Multispectral imaging and processing. We tend to post black and white MSI images most often as they are generally the most legible, however our MSI software can produce a lot of wild color variations! The orange one below seemed the most appropriate for a hot NC July afternoon like today. More processing details are included in the image captions below – enjoy!

Metadata for Homiletics: Enhancing the Duke Chapel Recordings Digital Collection