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One of our major initiatives this year was to work with a vendor to provide metadata enrichments for our entire Alma database. Leanne Finnigan coordinated this project, working closely with Matt Ducmanas to liaise with SCRC and Blockson. Approximately 300,000 records were enriched with tables of contents and summaries, providing richer keyword access for discovery. Approximately 2,000,000 records were enriched with consistent forms of author names, subject headings, genre headings, and series headings, which will increase accuracy of faceting and searching in Library Search. All records were upgraded to current standards for catalog description and encoding; obsolete and incorrect coding was updated, and punctuation was normalized. All of this should vastly improve the accuracy of Library Search, which is crucial as we move to Charles Library and depend solely on Library Search for discovery for the majority of our collection.

Barcoding project Project

We completed this major project, led by Carla Davis Cunningham, in May 2019. Over the past three years, we have retrospectively processed tens of thousands of items found in the Paley Stacks without a barcode, in preparation for the move to Charles Library. This year alone, we cataloged over 1700 titles for this project, created 5000 item records, and modified an additional 8000 item records. In addition to the items identified by Access Services, our staff used Alma to identify over 5500 additional items missing barcodes that had not previously been detected based on visual inspection, and also corrected hundreds of barcodes in Alma with missing digits or bad characters. All of these efforts contributed to the success of our ASRS implementation, resulting in thousands fewer items that would have otherwise failed to load into the ASRS when it came time to move, as well as making thousands of titles more discoverable in Library Search.

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Born Digital Access Bootcamp. Workshop presented with Alison Clemens, Jessica Farrell, & Greg Wiedeman. DLF Forum, Henderson, NV, Oct. 14, 2018.

Primary Source Set Sorcery. Lightning Talk presented with Jasmine Clark. DLF Forum, Henderson, NV, Oct. 15, 2018.
CONTENTdm Customization at Temple University. Webinar presentation. CONTENTdm Community Insights, March 26, 2019.

Hello, Is It Me You’re Looking For? Usability Studies in Archives. Presentation with Alexis Antracoli, Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, & Sarah Denison. Society of American Archivists, Washington, DC, Aug. 17, 2018.
Completed Introduction to XML and Transforming and Querying XML with XSLT and XQuery courses through Library Juice Academy.

The Metadata-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: Assessing Metadata Quality at DPLA Hubs. Presentation with Amelia Mowry, Teresa Hebron, & Penelope Shumaker. DPLAFest, Apr. 17, 2019, Chicago, IL.
Aggregating with Eliza and Barb: Creating User Personas for Software Development at PA Digital. Lightning Talk. DPLAFest, Chicago, IL, Apr. 18, 2019.
Completed certificate program in XML and RDF-based Systems

From Prototype to Production: Turning Good Ideas into Useful Library Services. Presentation with Andrew Pace. CNI Fall Membership Meeting, Washington, DC, Dec. 10, 2018.
Recipient of Distinguished Service Award from the American Indian Library Association

Carla Davis Cunningham and Molly Larkin
- Completed training in the Library of Congress Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO)
- Completed training and joined the PA Digital Metadata Review team.

Patron Stories

"The session about OpenRefine was excellent."
"I don't usually like to learn new software in a workshop setting, but the OpenRefine session was designed well (installation prior to workshop, instructions and handouts, and organization), so I was able to leave with a better understanding of how to use the software in my work."
"Great workshop - I learned a lot, both during and between the sessions (from talking with presenters/attendees). Thanks!"

We received anecdotal feedback throughout the year for both the PA Digital program as well as our Digital Collections. For example, we heard from an educator at the PA Museums conference who uses all of the PA Digital primary source sets, a Lyft driver who is using our digital collections to research the Ambler campus, and comments online from people who are using Temple’s digitized yearbooks to attempt to identify people in the 1957 Gay Wedding Photo Mystery. These stories exemplify the impact that our staff’s digitization and digital project work has on everyday Philadelphians and beyond.