Category Archives: Collections

– materials (not processing)
– fun new stuff

Sí, nosaltres tenim llibres en català! (Yes, we have books in Catalan!)

Photo of the cover of a book: "El Catala, la llengua efervescent: 77 vision sobre el terreny"What language is spoken in Spain? This isn’t a trick question—or maybe it is, depending on how you look at it. Sure, Spanish (a.k.a. Castilian) is the most widely spoken language by the 47 million people who call Spain home. But a whole host of other languages is also native to the country — not to mention the hundreds of languages brought to the Iberian peninsula by immigrants from around the world.

In various regions of Spain, these languages are co-official with Spanish: Catalan, Galician, Valencian, Basque, and Aranese. Aragonese, Asturian, and Leonese are also spoken in different parts of the country. All of these except Basque, which is also known as Euskera, are Romance languages, descended from Latin, although some resemble Spanish much more closely than others.

After Spanish, Catalan is the most commonly spoken language in Spain. Most linguists agree that Valencian, spoken in the Valencian Community, is the same language as Catalan. Between the two, there are estimated to be between 8 and 10 million Catalan speakers, though it’s difficult to pin down that number because so many people report that they understand Catalan but only sort of speak it, or that they can read it but can’t write it, or so on. A 2019 Pew Research survey found that Catalan or Valencian is the primary language spoken at home in 12% of Spanish households.

If you’ve ever been to Barcelona, you probably noticed that the street signs there aren’t in Spanish – they’re in Catalan. Beyond Catalunya (spelled Catalonia in English) and València, Catalan is the official language of the nation of Andorra and is also spoken in parts of France and Italy. (The map below shows areas where Catalan/Valencian is spoken, as an official language or not, in various shades of green; the darkest green represents the core area of speakers.)

“Catalan Language in Europe” by Martí8888 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

In the past couple of years, we have been purchasing more books in Catalan here at the Duke University Libraries. Not only is Catalan fascinating to speakers and scholars of other Romance languages, and a source of some of Spain’s most interesting contemporary literature and media, the Catalonian independence movement has been a major force in Spanish politics in recent years, and a significant amount of the scholarship on this topic is written and published only in Catalan.Photo of the cover of a book: "Cata-lana-ment"

For all these reasons, we’ve decided it’s important to add more titles in Catalan to our collection. As the cataloger for Iberian languages, I have been working with Diego Godoy, our Librarian for Latin American, Iberian, and Latino studies and the staff of Monograph Acquisitions, to select, order, and catalog many unique titles in and about the Catalan language and culture. These photos show just a few of the books we have acquired recently.

Photo of several books in Catalan

If you’re interested in perusing our Catalan collections, they are concentrated in the PC3810-PC3976 call number range of our stacks. Additionally, you’ll find many of our books on Catalunya, its history, and its culture in the range DP302.C56-69.

If you want to learn some Catalan, Duolingo offers a free online course, but it’s taught from Spanish, not from English. The Catalan government’s Secretaria de Política Lingüística also offers online courses at parla.cat.

Finally, thanks to the website of the TV channel TV3, you can watch Catalan-language TV online at https://www.ccma.cat/tv3/. There are also a handful of series and films in Catalan available on Netflix – my favorite is the dark comedy Welcome to the Family (Benvinguts a la Família), which offers subtitles in English, Spanish, and Catalan.

 

Gràcies per llegir aquest article (Thanks for reading this article), and, as we often say at the end of a conversation in Catalan, que vagi bé (literally, may you go well)!

(Please note that some of the materials above might not be ready for patrons yet. Never fear – while they’re in process, check out all the books in Catalan already available!)

Happy National Book Month!

Books on ShelfIn honor of National Book Month in October, DUL Technical Services was surveyed about our favorite books, as well as our favorite book formats. The survey was sent to staff who work across the Technical Services workflows, including collection development, ordering and receiving, cataloging,  bindery, conservation and preservation. Their work involves a variety of materials in a variety of formats. The list of favorite books (below) is a fascinating mix of fiction and non-fiction genres.  We bet you’ll add several to your to-read list!

 

 

 DULTS Staff Favorites

DULTS Format Preferences

Pie chart of format preferences noted below

  • Print–64.71%
  • eBook–23.53%
  • Audiobook–11.76%

 

 

 

 

 

Survey Notes

One colleague enjoys all three formats interchangeably, while another colleague doesn’t have just one favorite book. (So many to choose from, right?!) Yet another colleague listed a favorite book included in the list above, but added that their all-time favorite was the Cradle series by Will Wight.

Selected Links about Books

Selected Book-related Bibliography from the DUL Catalog

 

E-Resource Database Trial Accessibility Evaluations

Overview

Over the past few years, Duke University Libraries have been making efforts to consider additional ways to incorporate DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) principles into our daily work. In Technical Services, one example of this work is advocating for strong accessibility language in e-resource license negotiations. This is a high priority, because accessibility compliance is inherent to complying with civil rights law. Prioritizing accessibility language in DUL licenses lets providers know that the library’s willingness to acquire e-resources is compromised when accessibility needs are not met or prioritized. Inclusion of strong accessibility language also codifies content providers’ acknowledgment that the e-books, e-journals, and online databases they are selling for inclusion in the library’s collection should be accessible according to national and international standards. It also ensures that the library has the right to modify material as needed when resources do not comply with patrons’ accessibility needs.

To build on this existing accessibility work, the DUL E-Resources Management Team is piloting a database accessibility evaluation project to more closely assess e-resources under consideration for acquisition during trials. E-resource trials are a common way for subject selectors to review e-resources before committing to add the material to the collection, typically via a temporary gratis access period of around 30 days. By testing databases on trial for a few key accessibility elements, we hope to provide additional useful information for our colleagues’ consideration as they build the library’s collection.

Designing a Template

Barb Dietsch, ERM Specialist, and Abby Wickes, ERM Librarian, based the pilot on the Library Accessibility Alliance E-resource Reports (LAA) which are highlighted in detail in an incredibly informative ASERL webinar, “Accessibility of Research Library E-resources”. Using the LAA model, Dietsch and Wickes developed a local Accessibility Evaluation Template for testing with a variety of free tools and manual testing methods according to the POUR rubric, which is adroitly described in the 2020 NASIG session, “Designing for Accessibility”.

Perceivable (can be accessed with more than one sense)

Evaluate for captions, alternative image text, screen reader success

Operable (provides flexible navigation options and can be accessed with a variety of input methods)

Attempt to navigate website using only keyboard

Understandable (behaves in an intuitive, logical, and predictable way)

Attempt to intuitively navigate website, looking for usability issues (e.g., help or documentation, clearly labeled links)

Robust (works across browsers and devices, follows standards)

Attempt to navigate website in multiple browsers, devices; attempt to zoom in to resize text

Using POUR as a guide, the evaluation template also incorporates data from free tools including the NVDA Speech Viewer screen reader and the WAVE online web service and browser extensions.

Additionally, the template includes the option to link to existing accessibility language and/or a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, describing providers’ compliance with accessibility standards), if the library has already negotiated a license with the content provider. (These licensing additions to the Accessibility Evaluation Template were incorporated after learning more about a similar evaluation process at the University of Washington through another very helpful and informative Library Accessibility Alliance webinar, “Accessibility Committees: Cultivating Cultures of Accessibility at Your Library”.)

Sharing Findings

After testing the Accessibility Evaluation Template with multiple databases and soliciting feedback from colleagues, we will be launching the project for all database trials going forward. The findings from the evaluations will be shared with both DUL colleagues for incorporation into acquisition decisions, as well as content providers in the hopes that they will remedy any accessibility problems the evaluation uncovers. As part of our local evaluation process, we also plan to try to reproduce results from existing LAA E-Resource Reports whenever a database has already gone through their more detailed review process. If LAA reports are not yet available for the database in question, we will typically use the form on the LAA site to suggest the more extensive LAA review.

Helpful Resources

In addition to the resources linked throughout this post, we also found these tools, webinars, and websites incredibly helpful when learning more about this topic:

Future Plans

We expect to learn a lot more after launching the pilot evaluations, and we have a few ideas on how to potentially expand our efforts in the future.

  • We’ve learned a lot from other organizations undertaking similar efforts, and it would be beneficial to figure out a way to share our local evaluations more broadly so peer institutions can incorporate findings into their own acquisition decisions.
  • It could also be helpful to more quantitatively assess the resources to come up with a score or color-coded range for easier comparison with other databases under review. However, since online databases can differ greatly in content and format, we anticipate this would be a challenging metric to quantify.
  • Finally, we hope to continue incorporating additional and emerging accessibility tools and resources. In the future, incorporating content’s availability in the FRAME repository of adapted, accessible materials could also be helpful information.

Database Accessibility Evaluation Template

Download the template

Please take a look at our template, and thank you for any feedback on this pilot project! If you’d like to hear more, Barb Dietsch and Abby Wickes will be presenting on this project at the upcoming November DUL First Wednesday presentation.

Database Trials Accessibility Review:

[Provider: Title]

Resource

Provider:
Title:  
Access URL:
Test search term:
Example page used in testing:
DUL Tester:

Overview Summary

[Paragraph and quick bullet points providing general overview]

Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) Evaluation

Manual Evaluation according to POUR Rubric

(Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)

Perceivable (can be accessed with more than one sense)

Evaluate for captions, alternative image text, screen reader success:

Notes Screenshot(s)
·
·

Operable (provides flexible navigation options and can be accessed with a variety of input methods)

Attempt to navigate website using only keyboard (tab and shift tab to go forward and back):

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

 Understandable (behaves in an intuitive, logical, and predictable way)

Attempt to intuitively navigate website, looking for usability issues (e.g., help or documentation, clearly labeled links):

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

Robust (works across browsers and devices, follows standards)

Attempt to view website in multiple browsers, devices; attempt to zoom in to resize text:

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

High-level WAVE findings:

Notes Screenshot(s)
Errors

·   []

Alerts

·   []

Notes

·   []

Communicating Findings

Stakeholders Item Status/Notes
DUL Colleagues BTAA Evaluation or,

High-level summary of CRA Accessibility Review

Content Providers BTAA Evaluation (or flag that we have submitted to BTAA for review) or,

High-level summary of CRA Accessibility Review

Licensing

Link to License Accessibility Language Link to VPAT

 

Catch Three Lobed Recordings at the Music Library

Logo for Three Lobed  Monographic Acquisitions recently undertook the pleasurable task of acquiring numerous LPs and CDs released by the North Carolina independent record label Three Lobed Recordings. Cory Rayborn (’98) is a Duke grad and corporate attorney based in Jamestown, NC, (just outside of Greensboro) who, for the past two decades, has also run one of the most esteemed underground record labels going. With a keen attention to design, and an ongoing impressive roster of artists, Three Lobed has set a standard that is bolstered by every new release. This has especially come into relief as the label turns 21 this year and is celebrating with a festival  on April 14-16, 2022,  by Duke Performances. Working directly with Rayborn, and sourcing elsewhere as needed, we were able to purchase a large chunk of the Three Lobed catalog in advance of the upcoming celebration and festival. Let’s take a closer look at just three of the releases in the Three Lobed catalog, which patrons can find at the Music Library or listen to immediately via Bandcamp links.

Sonic Youth:  In/Out/In (At the Music Library | On Bandcamp) Album cover for Sonic Youth In/Out/In
Perhaps no other band in the Three Lobed catalog is as known or esteemed as the mighty Sonic Youth. These 5 tracks are culled from studio outtakes during their last years of recording, 2000-2010. Call them “jams” if you like, but these mostly instrumental tracks find the group extending and exploring in the studio with always compelling results. ‘Social Static’, especially, recalls the series of more experimental recordings that the band released on their own Sonic Youth Records imprint.

Album cover for Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore Ghost ForestsMeg Baird and Mary Lattimore:  Ghost Forests (At the Music Library | On Bandcamp)
These two prolific stalwarts and friends collaborated for the first time on this 2018 release. Meg Baird has numerous recordings that can best be described as modern folk, whether solo or in the groups Espers and Heron Oblivion. Mary Lattimore is an experimental harpist who is continually pushing the boundaries and possibilities of her instrument, via loops and avant techniques. Together they created this beautiful, pastoral and engaging album, full of the best of their sounds and approaches.

Daniel Bachman:  River (At the Music Library | On Bandcamp) Album cover for Daniel Bachman River
Solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar that the former Durham resident refers to as “psychedelic Appalachia”. Bachman really came into his on with this 2015 release, evoking the classic sounds of the American Primitive style of playing and pushing his own sound and take further. He also covers a tune by the late Jack Rose (‘Levee’), another artist with several Three Lobed releases, who tragically passed away in 2009. You can find more Rose recordings here: https://jackrose.bandcamp.com/

For more information, and an interview with Rayborn, see this recent Duke Arts post: “Q&A with Cory Rayborn ’98, Founder & Manager, Three Lobed Recordings
Tickets are still on sale for some of the festival sessions. See the roster and learn more via Duke Performances: THREE LOBED RECORDINGS 21ST ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL
And for further reading, here’s a post from the Indy Week about the label and fest: “For Artists at Three Lobed Recordings, Its Durham Festival Is Another Family Reunion

Sharing: Resources on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

In Technical Services, our jobs revolve around obtaining and making available information and resources. Right now, we can’t think of more important information to share than this vital post by our esteemed colleague, Ernest Zitser, with reliable sources of news, scholarship and places to take action. Ernest, thank you for your hard work – with you, we wish to work towards a peaceful resolution to this conflict, as soon as possible.

Logo and title for IAS blog: Been All Around This World

Resources on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Climbing Your Family Tree: Genealogy Resources Available to the Duke Community

Genealogy word cloudInterested in researching your family history, but don’t know how to start? Wondering whether or not Duke University Libraries has any resources to help you find your ancestors? Jacquie Samples (Head, Metadata and Discovery Strategy) and Lesley Looper (Team Lead, Bindery & Monograph Maintenance) have been working collaboratively to update and maintain Duke University Libraries’ Family History & Genealogy Research Guide to help members of the Duke community navigate their genealogy journey!

Below are some highlights:

One of Duke Libraries’ genealogy resources is a subscription to Ancestry Library Edition, accessible with your Duke NetID and password. Resources within Ancestry Library Edition include U.S. Census records, vital records, military records, and immigration records. Additional resources include city directories, school yearbook photos, and some newspaper obituaries.

HeritageQuest Online is another online database available through the DUL online catalog, thanks to NCLive. (It is also available through other libraries across North Carolina.) Available resources include U.S. Indian Census Rolls, Agricultural and Industrial Schedules, and the U.S. Freedman’s Bank Schedule- 1861-1875.

In addition to these and other databases, like America’s Historical Newspapers, World Newspaper Archive, and others available with a Duke login, there are several online resources available to everyone, regardless of Duke affiliation. Favorites include FindaGrave, Cyndi’s List, and the National Archives Resources for Genealogists. Google and Google Translate are also helpful resources.

Duke University Libraries also has print and online books and serials, as well as videos, related to genealogy. One interesting collection is several seasons of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  Other genealogy resources within DUL can be discovered by searching here.

Since Jacquie and Lesley began updating the Family History & Genealogy Guide, they have enjoyed presenting these resources and more to various groups within the Duke community, including a Duke Libraries Lunch & Learn, a DiversifyIT Brown Bag session, and most recently, an undergraduate Public Policy class. They also host a Microsoft Teams group, Genealogy@Duke, for genealogists of all experience levels within the Duke community.

INSIST! – Black Activist Voices in Music, pt.1

During the recent 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge to DUL staff made by the Racial Justice Task Force, my fellow MonoACQ-er, Stephen Conrad, and I had a number of conversations about Black activist voices in music. This was partly inspired by Stephen’s work with Laura Williams to expand diversity within DUL’s music holdings, and partly due to the fact that the two of us turn to music as a way both to make sense of, and push back against, what we see in our country right now.

We thought it might be nice to replicate and continue that conversation here in Signal Boost. We’re going to do an open-ended run of (very) short posts highlighting tracks of interest. These will be in no particular order and likely will bounce around various genres.

As our first post below will demonstrate, we’ll be delving into the history of Black activism in music, but we’ll be careful not to limit ourselves to sounds of the past. Activism is a thriving part of contemporary music, and we’ll want to highlight that. When we can point to DUL holdings we will, and for emerging voices we’ll do our best to link to sources that benefit artists directly.

We’d love it if anyone else who is interested would join the conversation, either by guest-writing a post or simply by sending us suggestions!

Before jumping in, we’ll note a couple of facts that are glaringly obvious. First and foremost, as two white men we should acknowledge that, while we align ourselves with the voices we’ll be representing, our innate privilege allows us to experience these works of art basically from a position of fandom. To pretend otherwise would be an affront to those who have experienced the struggles from which these voices emerge.

And speaking of being fans, we’ll also point out that neither of us is an historian, a musicologist, or any kind of expert in the music we’ll discuss. We’re just two dudes talking about records. (Because, you know, the world doesn’t have enough of that already.)

So, Stephen, how about if I go first?

For both of us (and, I’ll note, for our fearless leader Dracine who immediately yelled the title of this song when told of our plans for this series), the first piece that comes to mind when thinking of Black activism in music is of course Strange Fruit, as sung hauntingly by Billie Holiday:

This blunt confrontation against the practice of lynching is, to my mind at least, one of the keystones of protest music. It sounds just as raw and sadly relevant today as it did when it was originally recorded in 1939. Its horrific imagery and anti-racist boldness almost ensured that it was never recorded. Columbia Records refused to record the song for Billie Holiday, as did her producer at the time, John Hammond. Only smaller label Commodore had the courage to do so.

Cover Image Billie Holiday cafe society and an early cry for civil rightsThe story of Strange Fruit’s being adapted from a poem and of Billie Holiday’s early performances of it, as well as the impact it had at the time and throughout subsequent decades, are detailed in two resources held by DUL:

  • The book Strange Fruit : Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an early cry for civil rights (online; print)
  • The documentary “Strange Fruit.”, directed by Joel Katz, streaming via Alexander Street Press here.   The DVD is available from Duke University Libraries Lilly Library, here.

(Stephen, you may notice that one of the artists featured in the documentary is Abbey Lincoln, who will figure prominently in our next post…)

Trans Pride in the Duke Libraries Catalog

To wrap up Pride Month, we wanted to highlight some acquisitions from the past few years. The following photobooks feature portraits of trans individuals.

 

To Survive on This Shore, photographs by Jess T. Dugan

From the publisher: “Representations of older transgender people are nearly absent from our culture and those that do exist are often one-dimensional. For over five years, photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States creating To Survive on this Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Older Adults. Seeking subjects whose lived experiences exist within the complex intersections of gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and geographic location, they traveled from coast to coast, to big cities and small towns, documenting the life stories of this important but largely underrepresented group of older adults. The featured individuals have a wide variety of life narratives spanning the last ninety years, offering an important historical record of transgender experience and activism in the United States.”

 

TransCuba, photographs by Mariette Pathy Allen

From the publisher: “For more than 30 years, New York-based photographer and painter Mariette Pathy Allen has been documenting transgender culture worldwide…[In] TransCuba, Allen focuses on the transgender community of Cuba, especially its growing visibility and acceptance in a country whose government is transitioning into a more relaxed model of communism under Raúl Castro’s presidency. This publication therefore records a cultural watershed within Cuba.”

 

 

On Christopher Street: Transgender Stories,
photographs by Mark Seliger

From the publisher: “[Seliger’s] portraits of trans people on Christopher Street combined with their moving and deeply personal stories remind us of our need for sanctuary, for a space to call our own. Their presence challenges us to redefine home, community, and ownership. Their presence challenges us to stop and reflect. No longer will we remain idle and pass by them in fear and prejudice. We will stand with them, recognize them, and see them. These are our streets, and these are our people.”

 

Female, photographs by Pilar Vergara

From the publisher: “Female strives to capture transgender women without artificial studio lighting or the irrelevance of color. While trans people are often sensationalized in the media, Pilar Vergara set out to quietly capture their individuality through intimate portraits.”

 

American Boys, photographs by Soraya Zaman

From the publisher: “American Boys by photographer Soraya Zaman is a bold and intuitive representation of the transmasculine community from big cities to small towns across the USA. For three years, Zaman traveled to 21 states to photograph and interviewed 29 transmasculine individuals aged 18 to 35 in their hometowns at distinct stages of their transition. Zaman’s sincere and tender portraits and accompanying essays candidly capture their grace and humanity providing viewers with a snapshot into their lives, personality, honesty and journeys across the transmasculine spectrum.”

 

Finally, we would like to highlight a photobook by Duke alumni, Mikael Owunna.

 

Limitless Africans, photographs by Mikael Owunna

From the creator: “I found photography as my voice…and in 2013 I began Limitless Africans. Over the course of four years, I would travel to ten different countries across North America and Europe to document, for the first time, the LGBTQ African immigrant experience. Shooting and interviewing over 50 LGBTQ African immigrants, I found that every one had experienced a similar sense of rejection on all sides. This body of work is a collaborative response between me and my community, to re-define what it means to be an immigrant, African and queer in North America and Europe at this time. To confront, with our self-love and stories, the oppressive narratives that say we should not exist. We are Limitless.”

Antiracism Resources at Duke University Libraries and Beyond

Over the past few weeks, there have been many resources shared on race, racism, and antiracism. Libraries have been working to find solutions to the meet the demand for antiracism books.

This list below is just a start. There are many resources to be found, in Duke University Libraries and beyond, to educate, inspire, and call to action. Please feel free to email Jacquie Samples (jacquie.samplesr@duke.edu) with any additional resources you find helpful, and I will add them to the list.

Statement from Duke University Libraries

Videos:

5 Tips for Being an Ally

Back to Natural

Exploring the Emotions of White Racism and Antiracism

Taking a Stance Against Racism and Discrimination

TED Talks to Help You Understand Racism in America

The Thirteenth Amendment and Civil Rights

White Like Me: Race, Racism & White Privilege in America

 

Articles:

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

For Our White Friends Desiring to be Allies by Courtney Ariel

Here’s how to teach Black Lives Matter

How NOT to be an Ally – Part 1 “Centering the Privileged”

How NOT to be an Ally – Part 2 “He-peat, Re-white, and Amplification”

How NOT to be an Ally – Part 3 “Spoken-Language Microaggressions”

How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

Understanding Our New Racial Reality Starts with the Unconscious

White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy

 

Books:

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century by Dorothy Roberts

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph

West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story? by Suzanne Model

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories

 

Making the Most of HathiTrust’s Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS)

At the end of March, HathiTrust announced that one of the ways they are responding to the widespread closures of libraries is to launch their Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) to allow the circulation of millions of digital copies of books now locked up in library stacks. Even those digital books that are still in copyright which under normal circumstances are not available. This is very exciting to those of us whose regular job duties include getting resources into the hands of patrons. Most of us in Technical Services have that mission at the core of our jobs, even though we do not work directly with patrons providing reference or instruction.

After HathiTrust outlined parameters of the ETAS with representatives from member institutions on April 2nd, 2020, an announcement went out to the Duke Community letting everyone know to look for the “Temporary Access” button on HathiTrust’s site, which gives us access to view one page at a time for in- copyright materials of which DUL holds a print copy.

Cory Lown and I quickly started communicating on how we could improve access for our patrons. Because the Hathi BibAPI is already in use for the Books & Media catalog for open access materials, we considered that avenue. Initially, there was not enough metadata available to us to reliably determine which digital books are available through ETAS. So, I started to strategize on how to add records to our Aleph ILS and communicated with our colleagues at UNC-Chapel Hill to determine if their method would work for us. The number of records that would need to be created, though, was high at 1.3 million. That much new access for our patrons is great, but developing the process to get records in, and plan for getting them back out later when ETAS ended, meant that loading records into Aleph was going to be very time consuming.

On April 8th, HathiTrust published an article on their website, “How to Add ETAS Records to Your Catalog” which discusses three ways to provide direct links to the digital surrogate of an institution’s holdings. After reading this article, investigating what our peers were doing, and searching for the information needed to succeed, I realized all of the methods described meant that we had to have access to the HathiFiles database, the Overlap Report for Duke, and authentication credentials so that patrons would be prompted to login with Shibboleth to prove they are Duke people.

I reached back out to Cory to discuss which of the three methods we should use; ultimately, we decided that a combination of two was best for Duke. So, Cory updated how we use the BibAPI to harvest data from a local store of the HathiFiles and Overlap Report to generate URLs that are embedded in records as they are displayed in the Books & Media Catalog.

So, as of April 17th, in addition to being able to search for materials directly in HathiTrust, as they had since April 2nd, patrons now see “View Online” links to the ETAS items directly in our catalog. This temporary access means that approximately 38% of our print holdings now have links to HathiTrust materials (this percentage includes the open access links that were available before making this change).

Here is an example record that shows a “View Online” link: https://find.library.duke.edu/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_fields&q=D02036262L

With teaching, learning, and research activities now having to be done remotely I expect we will continue to look for ways to help our users gain the most effective access we can manage under the circumstances.