2020-2021 MADS Annual Report

Owned by Holly Tomren
Sept 14, 2021
7 min read

Key Accomplishments and Activities

  • Digital Collections

    • Analytics demonstrate that the usage of our digital collections is higher than it has ever been since we started tracking these statistics. We saw increasing growth in usage throughout the year, doubled from last year and quadrupled since the year before that. As with last year, we were able to dedicate some time to metadata enrichment and cleanup efforts, which we believe significantly improved access and discovery of digital collections (This includes 808 access points updated in 9361 records). We believe the higher use of digital collections during this time also demonstrates the value of digital collections to scholarship, especially in a remote learning environment.

    • Due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, staff departures, and a hiring freeze, we were severely understaffed for the entirety of this fiscal year. Therefore, our scanning and cataloging statistics are down this year, both compared to the previous year (which itself was significantly down due to both the move to Charles Library as well as the pandemic), and compared to two years prior, when we were fully staffed. 

    • Thanks to Michael Carroll, we completed scanning for the In Her Own Right project, which has spanned several years and several different grants from NEH and CLIR. In addition, we uploaded four Muslim Manuscripts to our digital collections, which were scanned via a partnership with University of Pennsylvania, and which were part of a larger collaborative project, Manuscripts of the Muslim World. We also made progress scanning for Oak Lane Day School, and we completed special scan orders throughout the year. 

    • We collaborated with Temple University Press and the Acquisitions and Collection Development department to add over 300 non-trade publications from Temple University Press to a restricted ebook collection on our digital collections site. This greatly increases the offerings of Temple University Press publications available online to the Temple community. 

    • We worked closely with the Digitization and Metadata Practices group to migrate oral histories from our legacy oral histories site, which can no longer be maintained, to CONTENTdm, as a temporary home until a new oral histories platform can be identified. This phase of the project is still in progress and will be completed in the next year. As a part of this project, we also implemented a solution to fix streaming audio and video within CONTENTdm.

  • PA Digital

    • We completed a two year project to replace the former aggregator, DPLAH, with a new set of systems and workflows, nicknamed Funnel Cake and Shoofly Pie. This work involved close collaboration with the Library Technology Development (LTD) team to develop the technical components, as well as the creation of customized metadata mappings and configurations for each contributing institution. 

    • We saw significant growth in our contributions to DPLA, as we resumed active harvesting following our aggregator migration. In particular, much of our growth came from reprocessing POWER Library, which contains the PA Photos and Docs and Pennsylvania State Archives collections, and which represents numerous smaller institutions throughout the Commonwealth, including many public and school libraries. This year we added 45 new contributing institutions (53% increase), 535 new collections (57% increase), and 199,818 new items (48% increase). Altogether PA Digital now includes 130 contributing institutions, 1475 digital collections, and 618,908 items.

    • We received notice that our LSTA funding for this project would decrease by 50% this grant year (October 1, 2020 - September 30, 2021), and would not be funded next year. We had already begun efforts last year to discuss sustainability strategies for the program, and this year we created a task force and hired a consultant to engage in PA Digital Futures planning. The task force has generated a final report containing an expanded vision for the project as well as three phases of work going forward through 2025. In the short term, the PA Digital team at Temple will continue to perform DPLA harvests for our contributors on a quarterly basis. 

    • We supported the work of the PA Digital Rights subgroup by providing Zoom support for events throughout the year, including 2 webinars and quarterly copyright office hours.

    • Leanne Finnigan continued to co-chair the DPLA Metadata Working Group and contributed to the creation of the Statement on Potentially Harmful Content for the DPLA main site as well as the Black Women’s Suffrage Portal. 

  • Covid-19 response

    • Beginning in August 2020, we partially resumed our onsite operations, where we were able to describe, process and make available physical materials, as well as provide limited scanning for special collections and archival materials. Thank you to Michael Carroll, Carla Davis Cunningham, Matt Ducmanas, Evelyn Lane, and Yelena Lidskaya for their work onsite this year.

    • When the library reopened, a quarantine period was required for newly returned materials. We assisted with configuring Alma to reflect the quarantine period in the Library Search availability display.

    • As with last year, we contributed to efforts to improve discovery and make more library resources available online in a remote learning environment. 

      • We had a huge increase in electronic resources cataloging, including a 220% increase in firm-ordered ebooks and an over 2000% increase in subscription ebooks. Due to this increased volume, Celio Pichardo took on some ebook cataloging responsibilities.

      • Molly Larkin created a new workflow for the Request Rapid Access program, in which we load and enrich catalog records to Library Search and offer a purchase on demand service. 

      • We replaced numerous catalog records with more accurate records with proper encoding so that they would link out properly to Hathi Trust and Google Books. We also supplied missing identifiers for records to support this same linking in order to provide more online access options for users, as well as to ensure that the correct format displays in Library Search.

      • We updated access points in both CONTENTdm and Alma to more accurate and up-to-date terminology, including remediation of some records containing potentially harmful language.

  • Ongoing Cataloging 

    • Total cataloging for all libraries was 14,442 titles, which is down 26% from last  year and 33% from two years ago. This is primarily a reflection of a temporary shift of budgetary resources toward collecting electronic resources (batch loaded electronic resources are not included in this total) rather than print materials during the pandemic, as well as a continuation of a more general gradual shift from print to electronic that has been happening for some time. This total includes approximately 2,000 replaced/enhanced records, so new cataloging alone was 12,305 titles.

    • The largest cataloging increases were for ebooks, streaming media, and online music scores, while the greatest decreases were for print music scores, DVDs, and print serials. 

    • We cataloged 10,546 print books, which is still a significant number due to a decreased onsite presence. This represents a decrease of 38% from last year and 45% from 2 years ago. We expect our print books cataloging to increase next year both due to a resumption of print purchasing as well as more staff working onsite more often.

    • Carla Davis Cunningham cataloged 41 virtual reality games for the Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio. This was a new format that required additional research and development of new procedures and best practices.

    • Matt Ducmanas cataloged 867 titles for the Special Collections Resource Center (SCRC), including items from the Beth Heinly Zine Collection, Harry C. Cochran History of Business Collection, and Richard W. Ellis Collection, as well as miscellaneous titles selected and prioritized by SCRC.

  • CIP Partnership Program

    • We continued to provide original pre-publication cataloging for all Temple University Press titles, as a part of our partnership with the Library of Congress. This year we created metadata for 31 TU Press titles, along with associated name authority records submitted via the NACO program as a part of this work.

  • NACO

    • We continued to participate in the Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO) of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, including names found in Special Collections as well as Temple University Press publications. This year we created 52 new name authority records and 24 updated name authority records. 

  • Web Archiving

    • We continued to use Archive-It to capture websites relevant to Temple University and the Special Collections Research Center, including websites related to Covid-19. We added several new seeds for SCRC and we helped organize the Temple University Websites collection to prepare it for public display. 

  • Digital Preservation

    • Digital preservation continues to be a high priority for our organization. Prior to her departure, Stefanie Ramsay completed a survey of digital preservation practices at TULUP and documented planning efforts for the future. This work continues via the Digital Collections Infrastructure group, convened by David Lacy and Margery Sly. 

  • Discovery & Website

    • We continued to contribute metadata expertise to the Library Search and Library Website projects. This year, this includes implementation of several features related to browse functionality. 

  • Institutional Repository

    • We participated in the migration of electronic theses & dissertations from CONTENTdm to TUScholarShare, including metadata cleanup to standardize advisor names. Following the migration, we worked with the ScholarShare team to develop new workflows for ongoing metadata review for newly submitted theses & dissertations. We worked with the Library Technology Development team to develop an automated process for harvesting ETD metadata from ScholarShare and transforming it to MARC records that can be used to provide discovery in Alma and Library Search. 

  • ArchivesSpace

    • Following the migration of DBTextWorks to ArchivesSpace, several members of our team participated in ArchivesSpace training. We worked closely with SCRC staff throughout the year to test workflows for exporting MARCXML from ArchivesSpace and importing to Alma in order to reduce redundant data entry.

  • Strategic Steering Teams

    • Communications: Stefanie Ramsay

    • Community Engagement: Carla Davis Cunningham

    • Collections: Holly Tomren

Aligning Work Plans with Presidential Commitments: Equity, access, and inclusion

  • Ongoing departmental activities support access to library resources, via metadata and digitization

  • This year, we will partner with other departments and committees to engage in inclusive metadata practices across TULUP