Category Archives: New Collections

Announcements, Behind the Scenes, Digital Collections, New Collections

2.5 Years in the Life of Digital Collections

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Admit it, you have been wondering what your favorite digital collections team has been up to. Well after 2.5 years, the wait is over.

So. Many. Digitization. Requests.

When I last shared a digital collections update, it was the end of 2020, and the digital collections team was focusing on managing and refining our folder level patron request digitization workflow. This workflow has two main goals:

  • simplify the patron request process in the Rubenstein Library;
  • preserve and make accessible files from patron requests in the Duke Digital Repository (DDR).

Note that in this context, our patrons are generally folks that want to access Rubenstein Library materials without making the trip to Durham. Anyone, regardless of their researcher or academic status, can request digital copies of Rubenstein collections.

Moving digitization requests through this workflow continues to be the major focus for the digital collections team and the Digital Production Center (DPC). Given the folder level nature of the process (whole folders of manuscript material at preservation quality), more requests are digitized by the DPC than under our previous workflow. Additionally, the new request process became an essential tool to serving remote researchers during the pandemic. It continues to be a valuable service, and we have not seen demand lessen significantly since the peak of the pandemic. Below is a chart showing the number of patron requests managed by the DPC since before the pandemic (note that we track our statistics by fiscal year or FY, which in Duke’s case is July – June).

FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 FY23
# of requests 81 77 39 394 438 469
Files produced 1,323 676 1092 79,519 74,517 73,705

Patron requests received and files produced from said requests by the DPC.

As a result of the new patron request workflow, the digital collections team has made portions of hundreds of collections accessible in the digital repository. We also see new materials from the existing collections requested periodically, so individual digital collections grow over time. Our statistics for new digital collections are in the chart below.

FY21 FY22 FY23
New digital collections from patron requests 36 154 119
Additions to existing collections from patron requests 4 12 6
Print items digitized for patron requests 16 21 30
Non-patron based new digital collections 131 15 80
Additions to digital collections (not patron request oriented) 4 4 5

Numbers of collections launched in the Duke Digital Repository since 2020.

The patron request workflow, like all other digital collections projects, is carried out by the cross-departmental Duke Libraries Digital Collections Implementation Team (DCIT). DCIT members include representatives from Conservation Services, Digital Curation Services, the Digital Production Center, a Digital Projects Developer (from the Assessment and User Experience Strategy department), Rubenstein Library Research Services, and Rubenstein Library Technical Services. The group’s membership shows how varied the needs are to develop and sustain digital collections. 

Not Just Patron Requests

Although the digital collections team shelved strategic projects when the pandemic began, we have still managed to complete some project work. One of our highest priorities in this area has been the Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South: Digital Access to the Behind the Veil Project Archive project (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities). Work on this project was just featured on Bitstreams, so I won’t share too many details here. Stay tuned for more news about this incredible effort.

We have also been making slow progress on the “Section A” mass digitization project. This project is named for an old Rubenstein Library shelving location, and contains over 3000 small manuscript collections.  Many of the collections document life in the South in the 19th Century. Since 2020, we have been able to make 210 Section A collections accessible online. Many of these were scanned before the pandemic began, however the DPC continues to scan Section A when time permits. We have also seen at least 25 Section A collections come all the way through the patron request workflow, and there are more in progress.  I’ve included embedded links to 3 Section A collections below.

 

 

Here are a few other project highlights from the past 2.5 years.

Deed of manumission freeing Sue, an enslaved woman, and her daughter Margaret, Georgetown, South Carolina, 1815 October 6
Deed of Manumission from the American Slavery Digital collection
Migrants and refugees walk to a waiting bus after arriving on a rubber dinghy on a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, January 29, 2016.
Image from the Darrin Zammit Lupi digital collection

Looking ahead

Digital Collections has a lot to look forward to in 2023-2024. Along with the John Hope Franklin Research Center we expect to wrap up the Behind the Veil grant in 2024 (lots more news to come on that). The digital collections team also plans to continue refining the patron request workflow. We are hoping to find a new balance in our portfolio that allows us to continue serving the needs of remote researchers while also completing more project based digitization. How will we actually do that without significantly changing our staffing? When we figure it out, we will be happy to share.

In the meantime, all digital collections are available through the Duke Digital Repository.
Happy Browsing!

 

Announcements, Behind the Scenes, Collections, Digital Collections, Duke Digital Repository, New Collections, spotlight

Respectfully Yours: A Deep Dive into Digitizing the Booker T. Washington Collection

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Post authored by Jen Jordan, Digital Collections Intern.

Hello, readers. This marks my third and final blog as the Digital Collections intern, a position that I began in June of last year.* Over the course of this internship I have been fortunate to gain experience in nearly every step of the digitization and digital collections processes. One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about the different workflows I’ve learned about is how well they accommodate the variety of collection materials that pass through. This means that when unique cases arise, there is space to consider them. I’d like to describe one such case, involving a pretty remarkable collection. 

Cheyne, C.E. “Booker T. Washington sitting and holding books,” 1903. 2 photographs on 1 mount : gelatin silver print ; sheets 14 x 10 cm. In Washington, D.C., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In early October I arrived to work in the Digital Production Center (DPC) and was excited to see the Booker T. Washington correspondence, 1903-1916, 1933 and undated was next up in the queue for digitization. The collection is small, containing mostly letters exchanged between Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and a host of other prominent leaders in the Black community during the early 1900s. A 2003 article published in Duke Magazine shortly after the Washington collection was donated to the John Hope Franklin Research Center provides a summary of the collection and the events it covers. 

Arranged chronologically, the papers were stacked neatly in a small box. Having undergone undergone extensive conservation treatments to remediate water and mildew damage, each letter was sealed in a protective sleeve. As I scanned the pages, I made a note to learn more about the relationship between Washington and DuBois, as well as the events the collection is centered around—the Carnegie Hall Conference and the formation of the short-lived Committee of Twelve for the Advancement of the Interests of the Negro Race. When I did follow up, I was surprised to find that remarkably little has been written about either.

As I’ve mentioned before, there is little time to actually look at materials when we scan them, but the process can reveal broad themes and tone. Many of the names in the letters were unfamiliar to me, but I observed extensive discussion between DuBois and Washington regarding who would be invited to the conference and included in the Committee of Twelve. I later learned that this collection documents what would be the final attempt at collaboration between DuBois and Washington.

Washington to Browne, 21 July 1904, South Weymouth, Massachusetts

Once scanned, the digital surrogates pass through several stages in the DPC before they are prepared for ingest into the Duke Digital Repository (DDR); you can read a comprehensive overview of the DPC digitization workflow here. Fulfilling patron requests is top priority, so after patrons receive the requested materials, it might be some time before the files are submitted for ingest to the DDR. Because of this, I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of the BTW collection in late January. By then I was gaining experience in the actual creation of digital collections—basically everything that happens with the files once the DPC signals that they are ready to move into long term storage. 

There are a few different ways that new digital collections are created. Thus far, most of my experience has been with the files produced through patron requests handled by the DPC. These tend to be smaller in size and have a simple file structure. The files are migrated into the DDR, into either a new or existing collection, after which file counts are checked, and identifiers assigned. The collection is then reviewed by one of a few different folks with RL Technical Services. Noah Huffman conducted the review in this case, after which he asked if we might consider itemizing the collection, given the letter-level descriptive metadata available in the collection guide. 

I’d like to pause for a moment to discuss the tricky nature of “itemness,” and how the meaning can shift between RL and DCCS. If you reference the collection guide linked in the second paragraph, you will see that the BTW collection received item-level description during processing—with each letter constituting an item in the collection. The physical arrangement of the papers does not reflect the itemized intellectual arrangement, as the letters are grouped together in the box they are housed in. When fulfilling patron reproduction requests, itemness is generally dictated by physical arrangement, in what is called the folder-level model; materials housed together are treated as a single unit. So in this case, because the letters were grouped together inside of the box, the box was treated as the folder, or item. If, however, each letter in the box was housed within its own folder, then each folder would be considered an item. To be clear, the papers were housed according to best practices; my intent is simply to describe how the processes between the two departments sometimes diverge.  

Processing archival collections is labor intensive, so it’s increasingly uncommon to see item-level description. Collections can sit unprocessed in “backlog” for many years, and though the depth of that backlog varies by institution, even well-resourced archives confront the problem of backlog. Enter: More Product, Less Process (MPLP), introduced by Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner in a 2005 article as a means to address the growing problem. They called on archivists to prioritize access over meticulous arrangement and description.  

The spirit of folder-level digitization is quite similar to MPLP, as it enables the DPC to provide access to a broader selection of collection materials digitized through patron requests, and it also simplifies the process of putting the materials online for public access. Most of the time, the DPC’s approach to itemness aligns closely with the level of description given during processing of the collection, but the inevitable variance found between archival collections requires a degree of flexibility from those working to provide access to them. Numerous examples of digital collections that received item-level description can be found in the DDR, but those are generally tied to planned efforts to digitize specific collections. 

Because the BTW collection was digitized as an item, the digital files were grouped together in a single folder, which translated to a single landing page in the DDR’s public user interface. Itemizing the collection would give each item/letter its own landing page, with the potential to add unique metadata. Similarly, when users navigate the RL collection guide, embedded digital surrogates appear for each item. A moment ago I described the utility of More Product Less Process. There are times, however, when it seems right to do more. Given the research value of this collection, as well as its relatively small size, the decision to proceed with itemization was unanimous. 

Itemizing the collection was fairly straightforward. Noah shared a spreadsheet with metadata from the collection guide. There were 108 items, with each item’s title containing the sender and recipient of a correspondence, as well as the location and date sent. Given the collection’s chronological physical arrangement, it was fairly simple to work through the files and assign them to new folders. Once that was finished, I selected additional descriptive metadata terms to add to the spreadsheet, in accordance with the DDR Metadata Application Profile. Because there was a known sender and recipient for almost every letter, my goal was to identify any additional name authority records not included in the collection guide. This would provide an additional access point by which to navigate the collection. It would also help me to identify death dates for the creators, which determines copyright status. I think the added time and effort was well worth it.

This isn’t the space for analysis, but I do hope you’re inspired to spend some time with this fascinating collection. Primary source materials offer an important path to understanding history, and this particular collection captures the planning and aftermath of an event that hasn’t received much analysis. There is more coverage of what came after; Washington and DuBois parted ways, after which DuBois became a founding member of the Niagara Movement. Though also short lived, it is considered a precursor to the NAACP, which many members of the Niagara Movement would go on to join. A significant portion of W. E. B. DuBois’s correspondence has been digitized and made available to view through UMass Amherst. It contains many additional letters concerning the Carnegie Conference and Committee of Twelve, offering additional context and perspective, particularly in certain correspondence that were surely not intended for Washington’s eyes. What I found most fascinating, though, was the evidence of less public (and less adversarial) collaboration between the two men. 

The additional review and research required by the itemization and metadata creation was such a fascinating and valuable experience. This is true on a professional level as it offered the opportunity to do something new, but I also felt moved to understand more about the cast of characters who appear in this important collection. That endeavor extended far beyond the hours of my internship, and I found myself wondering if this is what the obsessive pursuit of a historian’s work is like. In any case, I am grateful to have learned more, and also reminded that there is so much more work to do.

Click here to view the Booker T. Washington correspondence in the Duke Digital Repository.

*Indeed, this marks my final post in this role, as my internship concludes at the end of April, after which I will move on to a permanent position. Happily, I won’t be going far, as I’ve been selected to remain with DCCS as one of the next Repository Services Analysts!    

Sources

Cheyne, C.E. “Booker T. Washington sitting and holding books,” 1903. 2 photographs on 1 mount : gelatin silver print ; sheets 14 x 10 cm. In Washington, D.C., Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Accessed April 5, 2022. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672766/

 

Announcements, Behind the Scenes, Collaborations, Collections, Digital Collections, New Collections, Projects

Good News from the DPC: Digitization of Behind the Veil Tapes is Underway

Image

This post was written by Jen Jordan, a graduate student at Simmons University studying Library Science with a concentration in Archives Management. She is the Digital Collections intern with the Digital Collections and Curation Services Department.  Jen will complete her masters degree in December 2021. 

The Digital Production Center (DPC) is thrilled to announce that work is underway on a 3-year long National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant-funded project to digitize the entirety of Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South, an oral history project that produced 1,260 interviews spanning more than 1,800 audio cassette tapes. Accompanying the 2,000 plus hours of audio is a sizable collection of visual materials (e.g.- photographic prints and slides) that form a connection with the recorded voices.

We are here to summarize the logistical details relating to the digitization of this incredible collection. To learn more about its historical significance and the grant that is funding this project, titled “Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South: Digital Access to the Behind the Veil Project Archive,” please take some time to read the July announcement written by John Gartrell, Director of the John Hope Franklin Research Center and Principal Investigator for this project. Co-Principal Investigator of this grant is Giao Luong Baker, Digital Production Services Manager.

Digitizing Behind the Veil (BTV) will require, in part, the services of outside vendors to handle the audio digitization and subsequent captioning of the recordings. While the DPC regularly digitizes audio recordings, we are not equipped to do so at this scale (while balancing other existing priorities). The folks at Rubenstein Library have already been hard at work double checking the inventory to ensure that each cassette tape and case are labeled with identifiers. The DPC then received the tapes, filling 48 archival boxes, along with a digitization guide (i.e. – an Excel spreadsheet) containing detailed metadata for each tape in the collection. Upon receiving the tapes, DPC staff set to boxing them for shipment to the vendor. As of this writing, the boxes are snugly wrapped on a pallet in Perkins Shipping & Receiving, where they will soon begin their journey to a digital format.

The wait has begun! In eight to twelve weeks we anticipate receiving the digital files, at which point we will perform quality control (QC) on each one before sending them off for captioning. As the captions are returned, we will run through a second round of QC. From there, the files will be ingested into the Duke Digital Repository, at which point our job is complete. Of course, we still have the visual materials to contend with, but we’ll save that for another blog! 

As we creep closer to the two-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic and the varying degrees of restrictions that have come with it, the DPC will continue to focus on fulfilling patron reproduction requests, which have comprised the bulk of our work for some time now. We are proud to support researchers by facilitating digital access to materials, and we are equally excited to have begun work on a project of the scale and cultural impact that is Behind the Veil. When finished, this collection will be accessible for all to learn from and meditate on—and that’s what it’s all about. 

 

Announcements, Behind the Scenes, Collaborations, Collections, Digital Collections, New Collections, Uncategorized

Access for One, Access for All: DPC’s Approach towards Folder Level Digitization

Earlier this year and prior to the pandemic, Digital Production Center (DPC) staff piloted an alternative approach to digitize patron requests with the Rubenstein Library’s Research Services (RLRS) team. The previous approach was focused on digitizing specific items that instruction librarians and patrons requested, and these items were delivered directly to that person. The alternative strategy, the Folder Level digitization approach, involves digitizing the contents of the entire folder that the item is contained in, ingesting these materials to the Duke Digital Repository (to enable Duke Library staff to retrieve these items), and when possible, publishing these materials so that they are available to anyone with internet access. This soft launch prepared us for what is now an all-hands-on-deck-but-in-a-socially-distant-manner digitization workflow.

Giao Luong Baker assessing folders in the DPC.

Since returning to campus for onsite digitization in late June, the DPC’s primary focus has been to perfect and ramp up this new workflow. It is important to note that the term “folder” in this case is more of a concept and that its contents and their conditions vary widely. Some folders may have 2 pages, other folders have over 300 pages. Some folders consists of pamphlets, notebooks, maps, papyri, and bound items. All this to say that a “folder” is a relatively loose term.

Like many initiatives at Duke Libraries, Folder Level Digitization is not just a DPC operation, it is a collaborative effort. This effort includes RLRS working with instructors and patrons to identify and retrieve the materials. RLRS also works with Rubenstein Library Technical Services (RLTS) to create starter digitization guides, which are the building blocks for our digitization guide. Lastly, RLRS vets the materials and determines their level of access. When necessary, Duke Library’s Conservation team steps in to prepare materials for digitization. After the materials are digitized, ingest and metadata work by the Digital Collections and Curation Services as well as the RLTS teams ensure that the materials are preserved and available in our systems.

Kristin Phelps captures a color target.

Doing this work in the midst of a pandemic requires that DPC work closely with the Rubenstein Library Access Services Reproduction Team (a section of RLRS) to track our workflow using a Google Doc. We track the point where the materials are identified by RLRS, through multiple quarantine periods, scanning, post processing, file delivery, to ingest. Also, DPC staff are digitizing in a manner that is consistent with COVID-19 guidelines. Materials are quarantined before and after they arrive at the DPC, machines and workspaces are cleaned before and after use, capture is done in separate rooms, and quality control is done off site with specialized calibrated monitors.

Since we started Folder Level digitization, the DPC has received close to 200 unique Instruction and Patron requests from RLRS. As of the publication of this post, 207 individual folders (an individual request may contain several folders) have been digitized. In total, we’ve scanned and quality controlled over 26,000 images since we returned to campus!

By digitizing entire folders, we hope this will allow for increased access to the materials without risking damage through their physical handling. So far we anticipate that 80 new digital collections will be ingested to the Duke Digital Repository. This number will only grow as we receive more requests. Folder Level Digitization is an exciting approach towards digital collection development, as it is directly responsive to instruction and researcher needs. With this approach, it is access for one, access for all!

Collections, Digital Collections, New Collections

Just in time for Summer – New Digital Collections!

Looking for something to keep you company on your Summer vacation?  Why not direct your devices to a Duke Digital collections! Seriously! Here are a few of the compelling collections we debuted earlier this Spring, and we have have more coming in late June.

Hayti-Elizabeth Street renewal area

These maps and 2 volume report document Durham’s Hayti-Elizabeth st neighborhood infrastructure prior to the construction of the Durham Freeway, as well as the justifications for the redevelopment of the area.  This is an excellent resource for folks studying Durham history and/or the urban renewal initiatives of the mid-20th century. 

Map of the Hayti-Elizabeth Street renewal area
One map from “Hayti-Elizabeth Street renewal area : general neighborhood renewal plan, map 1”

African American Soldiers’ Photography albums

We launched 8 collections of photograph albums created by African American soldiers serving in the military across the world including Japan, Vietnam and Iowa.  Together these albums help “document the complexity of the African American military experience” (Bennett Carpenter from his blog post, “War in Black and White: African American Soldiers’ Photograph Albums”).  

One page from the African American soldier’s World War II photograph album of Munich, Germany

 

Sir Percy Moleworth Sykes Photograph Album

This photograph album contains pictures taken by Sir Percy Moleworth Sykes during his travels in a mountainous region of Central Asia, now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, with his sister, Ella Sykes.  According to the collection guide, the album’s “images are large, crisp, and rich with detail, offering views of a remote area and its culture during tensions in the decades following the Russo-Turkish War”.

A Sidenote

Both the Hayti-Elizabeth and soldiers’ albums collections were proposed in response to our 2017 call for digitization proposals related to diversity and inclusion.  Other collections in that batch include the Emma Goldman papers, Josephine Leary papers, and the ReImagining collection.  

Coming soon

Our work never stops, and we have several large projects in the works that are scheduled to launch by the end of June. They are the first batch of video recordings from the Memory Project. We are busy migrating the incredible photographs from the Sydney Gamble collection –  into the digital repository.  Finally there is one last batch of Radio Haiti recordings on the way.  

Advertisement for the American AirlinesKeeping in touch

We launch new digital collections just about every quarter, and have been investigating new ways to promote our collections as part of an assessment project.  We are thinking of starting a newsletter – would you subscribe? What other ways would you like to keep in touch with Duke Digital Collections? Post a comment or contact me directly. 

Announcements, Behind the Scenes, Duke Digital Repository, New Collections, Projects

Digital Collections Round Up 2018

It’s that item of year where we like to reflect on all we have done in 2018, and your favorite digital collections and curation services team is no exception.  This year, Digital Collections and Curation Services have been really focusing on getting collections and data into the Digital Repository and making it accessible to the world!

As you will see from the list below we launched 320 new digital collections, managed substantial additions to 2, and migrated 8. However, these publicly accessible digital collections are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of our work in Digital Collections and Curation Services.

A cover from the Ladyslipper, Inc Retail Catalogs digital collection.

So much more digitization happens behind the scenes than is reflected in the list of new digital collections.  Many of our larger projects are years in the making. For example, we continue to digitize Gedney photographs and we hope to make them publicly accessible next year.  There is also preservation digitization happening that we cannot make publicly accessible online.  This work is essential to our preservation mission, though we cannot share the collections widely in the short term.

We strongly believe in keeping our metadata healthy, so in addition to managing new metadata, we often revisit existing metadata across our repositories in order to ensure its overall quality and functionality.

Our team is also responsible for ingesting not just digital collections, but research data and library collections as well.  We preserved 20 datasets produced by the Duke Scholarly Community in the Research Data Repository (https://research.repository.duke.edu/)  via the Research Data Curation program https://library.duke.edu/data/data-management.

A selection from the Buffalo Bill papers, digitized as part of the Section A project.

New Digital Collections 2018

Additions to Existing Digital Collections

The men’s basketball team celebrates its 1991 championship win.

Collections Migrated into the Digital Repository

Collections, Digital Collections, New Collections

“To Greenland in 105 Days, or, Why Did I Ever Leave Home”: Henry J. Oosting’s Misadventure in the Arctic (1937)

When Duke professor and botanist Henry J. Oosting agreed to take part in an expedition to Greenland in the summer of 1937 his mission was to collect botanical samples and document the region’s native flora. The expedition, organized and led by noted polar explorer Louise Arner Boyd, included several other accomplished scientists of the day and its principal achievement was the discovery and charting of a submarine ridge off of Greenland’s eastern coast.

Narwhal sketch
Oosting’s sketch of a Narwhal

In a diary he kept during his trip titled “To Greenland in 105 Days, or Why did I ever leave home,” Oosting focuses little on the expedition’s scientific exploits. Instead, he offers a more intimate look into the mundane and, at times, amusing aspects of early polar exploration. Supplementing the diary in the recently published Henry J. Oosting papers digital collection are a handful of digitized nitrate negatives that add visual interest to his arctic (mis)adventures.

Oosting’s journey got off to an inauspicious start when he wrote in his opening entry on June 9, 1937: “Frankly, I’m not particularly anxious to go now that the time has come–adventure of any sort has never been my line–and the thought of the rolling sea gives me no great cheer.” What follows over the next 200 pages or so, by his own account, are the “inane mental ramblings of a simple-minded botanist,” complete with dozens of equally inane marginal doodles.

Musk Ox Steak doodle
Oosting sketch of Musk Ox steak

The Veslekari, the ship chartered by Louise Boyd for the expedition, first encountered sea ice on July 12 just off the east coast of Greenland. As the ship slowed to a crawl and boredom set in among the crew the following day, Oosting wrote in his diary that “Miss Boyd’s story of the polar bear is worth recording.” He then relayed a joke Boyd told the crew: “If you keep a private school and I keep a private school then why does a polar bear sit on a cake of ice…? To keep its privates cool, of course.”  For clarification, Oosting added: “She says she has been trying for a long time to get just the right picture to illustrate the story but it’s either the wrong kind of bear or it won’t hold its position.”

Hoisting a polar bear
Crew hoisting a polar bear on board the Veslekari

When the expedition finally reached the Greenland coast at the end of July, Oosting spent several days exploring the Tyrolerfjord glacier, gathering plant specimens and drying them on racks in the ship’s engine room. On the glacier, Oosting observed an arctic hare, an ermine, and noted that “my plants are accumulating in such quantity.”

Oosting sketch of foot
Oosting sketch of foot

As the expedition wore on Oosting grew increasingly frustrated with the daily tedium and with Boyd’s unfailing enthusiasm for the enterprise. “In spite of everything…we are stopping at more or less regular intervals to see what B thinks is interesting,” Oosting wrote on August 19.  “I didn’t go ashore this A.M. for a 15 min. stop even after she suggested it–have heard about it 10 times since…I’ll be obliged to go in every time now regardless or there will be no living with this woman. I am thankful, sincerely thankful, there are only 5 more days before we sail for I am thoroughly fed-up with this whole business.”

Arctic Hare
Arctic Hare

By late August, the Veslekari and crew headed back east towards Bergen, Norway and eventually Newcastle, England, where Oosting boarded a train for London on September 12. “This sleeping car is the silliest arrangement imaginable,” Oosting wrote, “my opinion of the English has gone down–at least my opinion of their ideas of comfort.” After a brief stint sightseeing around London, Oosting boarded another ship in Southampton headed for New York and eventually home to Durham. “It will be heaven to get back to the peace and quiet of Durham,” Oosting pined on September 14, “I’m developing a soft spot for the lousy old town.”

Veslekari
Veslekari, the vessel chartered by Louise Boyd for the 1937 Greenland expedition

Oosting arrived home on September 21, where his diary ends. Despite his curmudgeonly tone throughout and his obsession with recording every inconvenience and impediment encountered along the way, it’s clear from other sources that Oosting’s work on the voyage made important contributions to our understanding of arctic plant life.

In The Coast of Northeast Greenland (1948), edited by Louise Boyd and published by the American Geographic Society, Oosting authored a chapter titled “Ecological Notes on the Flora,” in which he meticulously documented the specimens he collected in the arctic. The onset of World War II and concerns over national security delayed publication of Oosting’s findings, but when released, they provided valuable new information about plant communities in the region.  While Oosting’s diary reveals a man with little appetite for adventure, his work endures.  As the forward to Boyd’s 1948 volume attests:  “When travelers can include significant contributions to science, then adventure becomes a notable achievement.”

Oosting sketch
Oosting sketch
Behind the Scenes, Digital Collections, New Collections

‘Tis the Season for New Beginnings

New Additions

Brief summaries of articles pulled from a future digitized issue published by The Chronicle, as part of the 1990s Duke Chronicle Digitization Project

The time has come for the temperature to drop, decadent smells to waft through the air, and eyes become tired and bloodshot. Yep, it’s exam week here at Duke! As students fill up every room, desk and floor within the libraries, the Digital Collections team is working diligently to process important projects.

One such project is the 1990s decade of The Duke Chronicle. By next week, we can look forward to the year 1991 being completely scanned. Although there are many steps involved before we can make this collection available to the public, it is nice to know that this momentous year is on its way to being accessible for all. While scanning several issues today, I noticed the last issue for the fall semester of 1991. It was the Exam Break Issue, and I was interested in the type of reading content published 26 years ago. What were the students of Duke browsing through before they scurried back home on December 16, 1991, you may ask…

  • There were several stories about students’ worst nightmares coming true, including one Physical Therapy graduate student who lost her research to a Greyhound bus, and an undergraduate dumpster diving to find an accidentally thrown away notebook, which encompassed his final paper.
  • A junior lamented whether it was worth it to drive 12 hours to his home in Florida, or take a plane after a previous debacle in the air; he drove home with no regrets.
  • In a satirical column, advice was given on how to survive exams. Two excellent gems suggested using an air horn instead of screaming and staking out a study carrel, in order to sell it to the highest bidder.

This is merely a sprinkling of hilarious yet simultaneously horrifying anecdotes from that time-period.

Updates to Existing Collections

Digital collections, originally located on the old Digital Collections website, now have new pages on the Repository website with a direct link to the content on the old website.

In addition to The Chronicle, Emma Goldman Papers, and other new projects, there is a continued push to make already digitized collections accessible on the Repository platform. Collections like Behind the Veil, Duke Papyrus Archive, and AdViews were originally placed on our old Digital Collections platform. However, the need to provide access is just as relevant today as when they were originally digitized.

As amazing as our current collections in the Repository are, we have some treasures from the past that must be brought forward. Accordingly, many of these older digital collections now possess new records in the Repository! As of now, the new Repository pages will not have the collections’ content, but they will provide a link to enable direct access.

New Page:

Vs.

Old Page:

The new pages will facilitate exposure to new researchers, while permitting previous researchers to use the same features previously allowed on the old platform. There are brief descriptions, direct links to the collections, and access to any applicable finding aids on the Repository landing pages.

Now that the semester has wound down to a semi-quiet lull of fattening foods, awkward but friendly functions, and mental recuperation, I urge everyone to take a moment to not just look at what was done, but all the good work you are planning to do.

Based on what I’ve observed so far, I’m looking forward to the new projects that Digital Collections will be bringing to the table for the Duke community next year.

 

 

References

Kueber, G. (1991). Beginning of exams signals end of a Monday, Monday era. The Duke Chronicle, p. 26.

Robbins, M. (1991). Driving or crying: is air travel during the holidays worth it? The Duke Chronicle, p. 13.

The Duke Chronicle. (1991). The Ultimate Academic Nightmares – and you thought you were going to have a bad week! pp. 4-5.

Digital Collections, Duke Digital Repository, New Collections

William Gedney: Connect to the photographs

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A while back, I wrote a blog post about my enjoyment in digitizing the William Gedney Photograph collection and how it was inspiring me to build a darkroom in my garage.  I wish I could say that the darkroom is up and running but so far all I’ve installed is the sink.  However, as Molly announced in her last Bitstreams post, we have launched the Gedney collection which includes series two series that are complete (Finished Prints and Contact Sheets) and more to come.

The newly launched site brings together this amazing body of work in a seamless way. The site allows you to browse the collection, use the search box to find something specific or use the facets to filter by series, location, subject, year and format.  If that isn’t enough, we have not only related prints from the same contact sheet but also related prints of the same image.  For example, you can browse the collection and click on an image of Virgil Thomson, an American composer, smoothly zoom in and out of the image, then scroll to the bottom of the page to find a thumbnail of the contact sheet from which the negative comes.  When you click through the thumbnial you can zoom into the contact sheet and see additional shots that Gedney took.  You even can see which frames he highlighted for closer inspection. If you scroll to the bottom of this contact sheet page you will find that 2 of those highlighted frames have corresponding finished prints.  Wow!  I am telling you, checkout the site, it is super cool!

What you do not see [yet], because I am in the middle of digitizing this series, is all of the proof prints Gedney produced of Virgil Thomson, 36 in all.  Here are a few below.

Once the proof prints are digitized and ingested into the Repository you will be able to experience Gedney’s photographs from many different angles, vantage points and perspectives.

Stay tuned!

Behind the Scenes, Collections, Digital Collections, New Collections, Projects

A Summer Day in the Life of Digital Collections

A recent tweet from my colleague in the Rubenstein Library (pictured above) pretty much sums up the last few weeks at work.  Although I rarely work directly with students and classes, I am still impacted by the hustle and bustle in the library when classes are in session.  Throughout the busy Spring I found myself saying, oh I’ll have time to work on that over the Summer.  Now Summer is here, so it is time to make some progress on those delayed projects while keeping others moving forward.  With that in mind here is your late Spring and early Summer round-up of Digital Collections news and updates.

Radio Haiti

A preview of the soon to be live Radio Haiti Archive digital collection.

The long anticipated launch of the Radio Haiti Archives is upon us.  After many meetings to review the metadata profile, discuss modeling relationships between recordings, and find a pragmatic approach to representing metadata in 3 languages all in the Duke Digital Repository public interface, we are now in preview mode, and it is thrilling.  Behind the scenes, Radio Haiti represents a huge step forward in the Duke Digital Repository’s ability to store and play back audio and video files.

You can already listen to many recordings via the Radio Haiti collection guide, and we will share the digital collection with the world in late June or early July.  In the meantime, check out this teaser image of the homepage.

 

Section A

My colleague Meghan recently wrote about our ambitions Section A digitization project, which will result in creating finding aids for and digitizing 3000+ small manuscript collections from the Rubenstein library.  This past week the 12 people involved in the project met to review our workflow.  Although we are trying to take a mass digitization and streamlined approach to this project, there are still a lot of people and steps.  For example, we spent about 20-30 minutes of our 90 minute meeting reviewing the various status codes we use on our giant Google spreadsheet and when to update them. I’ve also created a 6 page project plan that encompasses both a high and medium level view of the project. In addition to that document, each part of the process (appraisal, cataloging review, digitization, etc.) also has their own more detailed documentation.  This project is going to last at least a few years, so taking the time to document every step is essential, as is agreeing on status codes and how to use them.  It is a big process, but with every box the project gets a little easier.

Status codes for tracking our evaluation, remediation, and digitization workflow.
Section A Project Plan Summary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diversity and Inclusion Digitization Initiative Proposals and Easy Projects

As Bitstreams readers and DUL colleagues know, this year we instituted 2 new processes for proposing digitization projects.  Our second digitization initiative deadline has just passed (it was June 15) and I will be working with the review committee to review new proposals as well as reevaluate 2 proposals from the first round in June and early July.  I’m excited to say that we have already approved one project outright (Emma Goldman papers), and plan to announce more approved projects later this Summer. 

We also codified “easy project” guidelines and have received several easy project proposals.  It is still too soon to really assess this process, but so far the process is going well.

Transcription and Closed Captioning

Speaking of A/V developments, another large project planned for this Summer is to begin codifying our captioning and transcription practices.  Duke Libraries has had a mandate to create transcriptions and closed captions for newly digitized A/V for over a year. In that time we have been working with vendors on selected projects.  Our next steps will serve two fronts; on the programmatic side we need  review the time and expense captioning efforts have incurred so far and see how we can scale our efforts to our backlog of publicly accessible A/V.  On the technology side I’ve partnered with one of our amazing developers to sketch out a multi-phase plan for storing and providing access to captions and time-coded transcriptions accessible and searchable in our user interface.  The first phase goes into development this Summer.  All of these efforts will no doubt be the subject of a future blog post.  

Testing VTT captions of Duke Chapel Recordings in JWPlayer

Summer of Documentation

My aspirational Summer project this year is to update digital collections project tracking documentation, review/consolidate/replace/trash existing digital collections documentation and work with the Digital Production Center to create a DPC manual.  Admittedly writing and reviewing documentation is not the most exciting Summer plan,  but with so many projects and collaborators in the air, this documentation is essential to our productivity, communication practices, and my personal sanity.   

Late Spring Collection launches and Migrations

Over the past few months we launched several new digital collections as well as completed the migration of a number of collections from our old platform into the Duke Digital Repository.  

New Collections:

Migrated Collections:

…And so Much More!

In addition to the projects above, we continue to make slow and steady progress on our MSI system, are exploring using the FFv1 format for preserving selected moving image collections, planning the next phase of the Digital Collections migration into the Duke Digital Repository, thinking deeply about collection level metadata and structured metadata, planning to launch newly digitized Gedney images, integrating digital objects in finding aids and more.  No doubt some of these efforts will appear in subsequent Bitstreams posts.  In the meantime, let’s all try not to let this Summer fly by too quickly!

Enjoy Summer while you can!