Strategic Actions, Goals and Accomplishments

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Key Activities and Accomplishments 

Digitization

  • We upgraded our CONTENTdm site to the responsive version, which is more accessible and mobile-friendly. Using Google Analytics to track statistics, we saw an increase in user engagement through number of views, including new users, and users remaining on the site.
  • The analytics show us that our bounce rate, defined as the percentage of users who visited CONTENTdm and left without interacting with our content or navigating to another page on the site, dramatically decreased since upgrading the site. Prior to the upgrade, our bounce rate was at 50-61%, on average. After the upgrade, our bounce rate has averaged around 8%. This indicates that more users are remaining on the site for longer.
  • Our team completed five digitization projects this year: the Jacob H. Gomborow Papers, the ingest of 300 pamphlets for the Blockson Pamphlet collection, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Nodnol Collection, and new items for the Medieval and Early Modern Manuscript collection for inclusion in BiblioPhilly, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. New content was scanned for ongoing projects, including the George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Photographs and Clippings collections, Temple News, WPVI/KYW Log Books, Temple and Conwell history collections, YWCA collections for inclusion in the CLIR Project, In Her Own Right, and the Sci-fi corpus project in collaboration with the DSC.
  • In total, our team scanned 79,581 items this year, an increase of over 29,000 items from last year, and cataloged 4,401 items (from Scanning and Cataloging Statistics).

PA Digital

  • We onboarded 11 new contributors and harvested 478 new digital collections containing 61,534 new digital objects. PA Digital now has 394,774 total records discoverable through the DPLA.
  • We updated the PA Digital website.
  • We launched a formal Outreach and Curation team, which updated PA Digital’s Outreach Guidelines and Email Templates and Communication Policy. Worked with students from Temple’s College of Education to create and publish four primary source sets in August 2018 featuring PA Digital collections and highlighting significant topics in PA history: WWII and the Pennsylvania homefront, student protest, suffrage, and Quaker beliefs and practices. Two new students were hired in January 2019 to create four new primary source sets on new topics to be published later in the summer of 2019.
  • We hosted the following events:
    • Metadata Anonymous workshop (held at Penn State University in July 2018 attended by 16 people),
    • Copyright Open Office Hours (held March, April, and June 2018, and continuing this next fiscal year), and
    • “Frost, Cather, and Lovecraft: Coming to a Public Domain Near You” (a webinar on new items entering the public domain in December 2018).
  • We began developing a new aggregator environment based on Combine software, named Funnel Cake. The new aggregator will launch in Fall 2019 and will allow us to harvest and output richer metadata from our contributors.
  • Carla Davis Cunningham and Molly Larkin joined the internal PA Digital metadata review team.
  • PA Digital team members serve on DPLA working groups: Rachel Appel on Assessment (serves as Co-Chair), Leanne Finnigan on Metadata (serves as Co-Chair), Gabe Galson on Rights, Stefanie Ramsay on Outreach (serves as Chair), and Chad Nelson on Technology.

Cataloging

  • Cataloging production was similar to last year but slightly higher, growing from approximately 20,000 titles to approximately 21,500 titles across TUL. There was a reduction in shelf-ready cataloging by about 2,000 and a corresponding increase in in-house cataloging by about 3,500. Our original descriptions increased 40% from the previous year to 575 titles. Matt Ducmanas cataloged approximately 1200 titles for SCRC.
  • We fully integrated Health Sciences cataloging and receiving into Main campus operations this year, and we also began cataloging new books, games, and equipment for the DSC.
  • We completely cleared the backlog of federal and Pennsylvania state government documents. We hired a temporary cataloging librarian, Amy Mayer, who completed cataloging for 700 titles and 1500 volumes in the PA Docs collection. We also completed sorting through approximately 100 boxes of federal documents and approximately 1000 government CD-ROMs and sent these materials to Kardon as appropriate. Having cleared the government document backlog, we transitioned the receiving of any new tangible documents to the Collection Development and Acquisitions Department. Our department continues to catalog any newly received tangible documents and to load MARC records for all electronic titles in the Documents Without Shelves program.
  • Rachel Appel was trained in Alma copy cataloging and contributed to departmental cataloging work this year * Molly Larkin processed over 220,000 electronic resource records this year, including ebooks, streaming media, datasets, and government documents.

Metadata Enrichment Project

  • 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

  • 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.


ASRS implementation & triage

  • Prior to the beginning of the move to Charles Library and the ingestion of materials into the ASRS, Holly Tomren worked with LTD and the Physical Collections Working Group to establish the connection between Alma and the Dematic ASRS inventory system. In April-May 2019, we ran Alma location change and remote storage inventory update jobs day and night, in order to populate the ASRS inventory system with the 1,250,000 items expected to move from Paley Library to the ASRS. Holly Tomren also participated in the test load of 1000 items into the ASRS in April and assisted with other ASRS request testing, working closely with the Library Search team to develop catalog public display options that would minimize confusion and maximize alternate access to resources both during the ASRS location change process as well as in the period following the closure of Paley Library.
  • Following the beginning of ASRS ingestion in mid-May, our department began handling items that were rejected from the ASRS because they were not in Alma or for other reasons. MADS staff were trained to use the Dematic software to check the ASRS inventory in order to assist with troubleshooting. This began a new retrospective cataloging project, following the closure of our previous project to catalog items missing barcodes. As of June 30, over 7000 volumes had been returned to our department for troubleshooting because they were not in Alma. We also worked with Acquisitions to troubleshoot 1600 items with Main Stacks locations that should have been green-dotted. Between our department and others, we were able to return 24,000 corrected items back to the ASRS from May 21 to June 30, 2019.
  • From May 21 through June 30, 2019, we cataloged over 1300 retrospective titles that had come back to our department via the ASRS triage process. We managed this all while maintaining regular new book cataloging operations at the end of the fiscal year, which is one of the busiest times for new book acquisitions. In addition, during this same period, Matt Ducmanas and Holly Tomren corrected Alma records for over 21,000 items that had been successfully loaded into the ASRS, but had been previously marked as missing or some other unavailable status in Alma, or had other incorrect material types or item policies.


Other Move-related preparation

  • In addition to the two major retrospective cataloging projects mentioned above, we also participated in a great deal of other collection related projects to prepare for the move to Charles Library.
  • In order to reduce the number of volumes that needed to be moved from Paley to Charles Library, the Acquisitions and Collection Development department identified a number of bound journals and duplicate monographs that could be deselected. Molly Larkin processed 75,000 withdrawn bound journal volumes, comprising over 1100 titles that needed to be removed from our catalog and our holdings removed from WorldCat, while Myra Hom and others processed 1500 duplicate monograph withdrawals.
  • When it was determined that some Paley microfilm reels would be housed in the ASRS, Molly Larkin created approximately 1000 detailed item records for each reel belonging to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, so that they could be barcoded and added to the ASRS.
  • Leading up to the move, numerous collections changed locations. Leanne Finnigan facilitated the Alma location changes for over 5,000 items in Media and Oversize collections that were moved to Kardon. A new Juvenile collection was created, for which Leanne Finnigan changed the Alma locations for 3600 items and Evelyn Lane helped with relabeling. As part of the ASRS-related location changes, we also transferred the majority of the Paley Reference collection to circulating stacks.
  • To complement our retrospective cataloging efforts, we outsourced the cataloging of over 500 materials for which we do not have in-house language expertise, in order to expedite the processing of these materials prior to the move to Charles Library and to ensure timely patron access.
  • Numerous MADS staff contributed to measuring & green dot stickering projects in order to prepare the physical collection to be moved from Paley to Charles Library.
  • We developed an inventory of digitization equipment to track the move from Paley to Charles and coordinated the move of the Quartz planetary scanner with a vendor.


Database cleanup

  • In addition to the above mentioned database maintenance related to the move, we also performed ongoing cleanup to the various metadata repositories we maintain, including CONTENTdm and Alma.
  • To prepare for the migration of electronic theses and dissertations from CONTENTdm to DSpace, we updated identifiers and/or filenames for over 1,300 records.
  • In Alma, we cleared out numerous defunct location codes, removed approximately 2000 records for returned leisure books, identified and updated items with a Music Restricted item policy, fixed approximately 3000 broken URLs in bibliographic records, and continued to cleanup electronic resource portfolios following Alma migration.
  • Altogether we modified approximately 50,000 physical item records in Alma between various projects, including retrospective cataloging, and we withdraw nearly 100,000 items, including bound journals and duplicates.


Hathi Trust Phase 2

  • This year, Temple University joined the phase 2 Hathi Trust partnership, in which we committed to retain approximately 25,000 physical items for a period of 25 years. As a result of our participation, we needed to add retention notes to these records in Alma at three levels (bibliographic, holdings, and item) and develop a workflow to prevent these items from being deselected in the future. Leanne Finnigan was responsible for updating 25,405 items and 25,049 titles & holdings as well as identifying a special item note field to support our ongoing retention workflow. Institutional Repository Implementation
  • MADS staff including Rachel Appel, resident librarian Jasmine Clark, Matt Ducmanas, Leanne Finnigan, Stefanie Ramsay, and Holly Tomren served in the Institutional Repository Services Metadata Subgroup in order to develop the metadata infrastructure to support Temple’s new DSpace repository. This subgroup developed a metadata application profile, controlled vocabularies, and metadata crosswalks, all of which are key to the technical implementation of the repository as well as ongoing IR services and resource discovery.
  • Rachel Appel also served on the Institutional Repository Services group to write preservation, recommended file formats, metadata, and withdrawal policies.

Ongoing Library Search & Website metadata advising

  • MADS staff continued to provide metadata consultation and support to ongoing Library Search and Website development efforts. This year, we worked with developers on features including Purchase on Demand Ebooks, Bound-With titles, Music/Uniform Titles, and display of URLs. We also began meeting with developers to explore an infrastructure for incorporating authority records into Library Search and other metadata environments in the future.


Symplectic Elements

  • Rachel Appel and Michael Carroll trained and oversaw 5 student workers and coordinated with 6 liaison librarians to populate publications for the College of Science and Technology, Boyer College of Music and Dance, and School of Theater, Film, and Media Arts in Temple University’s research information management system. Rachel also provided trainings for university staff in the College of Engineering and Information and Technology Services. Elements connects to library databases such as Web of Science and PubMed and automatically ingests publications authored by faculty members; Rachel worked with the library’s Research Information Management (RIM) Team to configure Elements settings to ensure accurate matching and ingestion of these faculty authored publications.

Cataloging in Publication Partnership with Library of Congress

  • This year we formally began our partnership with the Library of Congress to prepare Cataloging in Publication metadata for Temple University Press titles. As a cataloging partner with Temple University Press, we will be able to work with them to create optimal bibliographic records with a quick turnaround time. Our participation in the Cataloging in Publication Program was delayed for most of the year by the development of a new platform at the Library of Congress for the distribution of publishers’ galleys and submission of MARC records; we were not able to start until the platform was implemented. Carla Davis Cunningham served as the liaison to the Library of Congress throughout the year and attended training for the new platform in May 2019. We are now eagerly awaiting our first galley from Temple University Press.

Name Authority Cooperative Program of the Library of Congress (NACO)

  • We continued our participation in the NACO program and added two new NACO-trained staff, Carla Davis Cunningham and Molly Larkin. We contributed 60 names to the Library of Congress Name Authority File this year.

Project Passage

  • Rachel Appel, Jasmine Clark, Matt Ducmanas, Leanne Finnigan, and Holly Tomren participated in a project to test OCLC’s linked data prototype, named Project Passage. During Summer 2018, we created descriptions for digital images, archival collections, and events, using OCLC’s Wikibase system, and contributed feedback and suggestions about our experiences. Temple’s work on digital images was highlighted by OCLC during the project’s office hours and became a component of a forthcoming OCLC Research report on the project.

Member Merge

  • Carla Davis Cunningham, Matt Ducmanas, Leanne Finnigan, Molly Larkin, and Holly Tomren received training and worked with an OCLC liaison to learn how to merge duplicate records in the WorldCat database. While we had to take a break from this project to focus on more immediate needs at Temple, we look forward to returning to this project in order to help contribute to metadata quality beyond Temple.

Technology Projects & Initiatives

  • Rachel Appel, Jasmine Clark, Stefanie Ramsay, and Holly Tomren participated in the new Technology Projects & Initiatives Roundtable, serving to document and improve project management practices at TUL.

MADS staff participated in several Library Strategic Steering Teams:

  •  Collections Strategy: Holly Tomren (also subgroup: Physical Collections Working Group)
  •  Research Data Services: Leanne Finnigan (partial year)
  •  Scholarly Communications: Rachel Appel
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