The University of Toronto Libraries is currently reviewing technology to support its Collections U of T service. Collections U of T provides search and browse access to 375 digital collections (and over 203,000 digital objects) at the University of Toronto Libraries. Digital objects typically include special collections material from the university as well as faculty digital collections, all with unique metadata requirements. The service is currently supported by IIIF-enabled Islandora, with one Fedora back end and multiple Drupal sites per parent collection (see attached image). Like many institutions making use of Islandora, UTL is now confronted with Drupal 7 end of life and has begun to investigate a migration path forward. This article will summarise the Collections U of T functional requirements and lessons learned from our current technology stack. It will go on to outline our research to date for alternate solutions. The article will review both emerging micro-service solutions, as well as out-of-the-box platforms, to provide an overview of the digital collection technology landscape in 2019. Note that our research is focused on reviewing technology solutions for providing access to digital collections, as preservation services are offered through other services at the University of Toronto Libraries.

By deciding what to digitize in special collections and archives, we choose what narratives to promote, what history to highlight, and what legacies to further. This paper details a new initiative at LSU Libraries to integrate diversity and inclusion goals into digitization policies. After reviewing examples of how digitization can be either beneficial or harmful to individuals represented in the historical record, the author uses Ibram Kendi’s definition of racist policy — that which leads to racial inequalities — as a starting point for exploring how digitization selection can help counteract histories of exclusion.

Our Digital Repository Services department faced a crisis point in late 2017. Our vendor discontinued support for our digital repository software, and an intensive, multi-department, six-month field survey had not turned up any potential replacements that fully met our needs. We began to experiment with a model that, rather than migrating to a new monolithic system, would more closely integrate multiple systems that we had already implemented—ArchivesSpace, Alma, Primo, and MetaArchive—and introduce only one new component, namely Mirador. We determined that this was the quickest way to meet our needs, and began a full migration in spring of 2018. The primary benefit of a microservices-based solution for our collections was the potential for customization; we therefore present our experiences in building and migrating to this system not as a blueprint but as a case study with lessons learned. Our hope is that in sharing our experience, we can help institutions in similar situations determine 1) whether a microservices-based solution is a feasible approach to their problem, 2) which services could and should be integrated and how, and 3) whether the trade-offs inherent in this architectural approach are worth the flexibility it offers.

Archivists specializing in time-based born-digital workflows walk through the technical realities of developing workflows for born-digital video. Through a series of use cases, they will highlight situations wherein video quality, subject matter, file size and stakeholder expectations decisively impact preservation decisions and considerations of “best practice” often need to be reframed as “good enough.”

OCLC Research conducted an International Linked Data Survey for Implementers in 2014 and 2015. Curious about what might have changed since the last survey, and eager to learn about new projects or services that format metadata as linked data or make subsequent uses of it, OCLC Research repeated the survey between 17 April and 25 May 2018.

A total of 143 institutions in 23 countries responded to one or more of the surveys. This analysis covers the 104 linked data projects or services described by the 81 institutions which responded to the 2018 survey—those that publish linked data, consume linked data, or both. This article provides an overview of the linked data projects or services institutions have implemented or are implementing; what data they publish and consume; the reasons given for implementing linked data and the barriers encountered; and some advice given by respondents to those considering implementing a linked data project or service. Differences with previous survey responses are noted, but as the majority of linked projects and services described are either not yet in production or implemented within the last two years, these differences may reflect new trends rather than changes in implementations.

In this paper we present a retrospective of a 2.5 year project to migrate a major digital repository system from one open source software platform to another. After more than a decade on DSpace, Oregon State University’s institutional repository was in dire need of a variety of new functionalities. For reasons described in the paper, we deemed it appropriate to migrate our repository to a Samvera platform. The project faced many of the challenges one would expect (slipping deadlines, messy metadata) and many that one might hope never to experience (exceptional amounts of turnover and uncertainty in personnel, software, and community). We talk through our experiences working through the three major phases of this project, using the structure of the Greek Tragedy as a way to reflect (with Stasimon) on these three phases (Episode). We then conclude the paper with the Exodus, wherein we speak at a high level of the lessons learned in the project including Patience, Process, and Perseverance, and why these are key to technical projects broadly. We hope our migration story will be helpful to developers and repository managers as a map of development hurdles and an aspiration of success.

Cultural institutions such as libraries, archives and museums (LAM) face many challenges with managing digital collections, particularly when it comes to organizing the individual files that make up each collection. While tools such as metadata and collection management systems support identification and arrangement for digital files, administrative control depends significantly on the mere filenaming in use beneath the surface. Anecdotal evidence has shown that many LAM institutions have specialized filenaming schemes in place for their digital collections. This paper includes a literature review of filenaming practices in the LAM community, followed by a description and analysis of survey data regarding filenaming practices in the LAM community. The purpose of the survey was to learn about filenaming conventions in use within LAM organizations who have filenaming policies in place. The data suggests that: similarities and differences exist in filenaming approaches between museums/galleries, archives/special collections, and academic institutions; it is preferred that filenaming be simultaneously meaningful to both humans and computers; and conventions that affect sortability are deemed more important than those that affect readability. The data also indicate several subtopics related to filenaming that would benefit from further study.

Georgetown University Library curates a multitude of open access resources in its institutional repository and digital collections portal, DigitalGeorgetown. Over the last several years, the Library has experimented with methods for making these items increasingly visible in search engine search results. This article describes the Library’s low-barrier approach to applying Schema.org vocabulary to its DSpace institutional repository using microdata, as well as the challenges with and strategies used for assessing this work. The effects of the application of Schema.org microdata to DigitalGeorgetown on Google search results were tracked over time using three different metrics, providing new insights about its impact.

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Geospatial Data Project is a collaboration between twelve member institutions of the consortium and works towards providing discoverability and access to geospatial data, scanned maps, and web mapping services. Usability tests and heuristic evaluations were chosen as methods of evaluation, as they have had a long standing in measuring and managing website engagement and are essential in the process of iterative design. The BTAA project hopes to give back to the community by publishing the results of our usability findings with the hope that it will benefit other portals built with GeoBlacklight.