Merrilee ProffittSenior Program OfficerOCLC Research

23 September 2009

Integrating Unique Materials into the Global Discovery Network

Integrating Unique Materials into the Global Discovery Network

The RLG PartnershipThe RLG Partnership

• Comes together to collaboratively design future services and programs

• Focuses on increasing operational efficiencies, adapting services to new network flows

• Its influence and impact are:…system-wide…trans-national…broadly applicable to libraries, archives &

museums

• It is supported by OCLC Research

About 130 partner institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East and in the Asia-Pacific region.

National libraries, universities, museums, and independent research libraries

RLG Partnership: Diverse PerspectivesRLG Partnership: Diverse Perspectives

Then: Users built workflow around libraries Now: Library must build

services around user workflow

Discovery happens elsewhere Disclosure

Changed CircumstancesChanged Circumstances

Funding•Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)•Mellon Foundation•National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC); National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)Reports, activities

•Library of Congress On the Record recommendations

•ARL Special Collections Working Group•Greene/Meissner report (“More Product, Less Process”)

Motivations that focus our attentionMotivations that focus our attention

Libraries will continue to provide direct access to physical materials but this will be very much focused on the special demands of their local constituencies. “Comprehensive” research collection building will be done by a very small number of institutions while special collections of the special or unique materials of research will be maintained and featured at many institutions. RLG Information Context, 2007

Heeding call to action…

In five years…The only collection development activities involving librarians will be competition over special collections and archives. Taiga Provocative Statements, 2009

From the darkness to the light: effective "disclosure” of archives and special collections

From the darkness to the light: effective "disclosure” of archives and special collections

• Understanding the lay of the land• Data analysis, synthesis, reports

• Making the most of what we already have• New tricks for old data?

• Making smart and prudent decisions about the work ahead• Working groups, events

Understanding the Lay of the LandUnderstanding the Lay of the Land

Characterize the Current State of “Hidden Collections”Characterize the Current State of “Hidden Collections”

• Revisit and update the 2001 Association of Research Libraries survey of special collections libraries• Expand survey population: ARL, IRLA, Oberlin group,

CARL• Obtain logarithmic data on collection size, backlogs,

online access, and others• Add questions to address new concerns: digitization,

born-digital records, descriptive practice, archival management systems, and others

Analyze Archival Descriptive PracticeAnalyze Archival Descriptive Practice

• OCLC holds one million MARC records for archival materials; 48K EAD records; 29K HTML records

• Evaluate actual practice by analyzing these records

• Identify data patterns that reveal unnecessary effort, including those rarely used

• Determine which data seems most useful for discovery

• Recommend ways to increase relevance ranking

Analyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User Success

Analyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User Success

Analyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User Success

Analyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User Success

Analyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User SuccessAnalyze Discovery Environments to Optimize User Success

• Next steps….• Collect logs of successful searches that lead to

archival collections (“find logs”)• Compare and contrast with the results of data

mining MARC records for archival materials in WorldCat

• Combine analysis to make recommendations to optimize metadata creation for discovery

• Are there possibilities for data remediation?

Making the most of what we haveMaking the most of what we have

Possible outcomes of data analysis/user studies/log analysis

• If names are important … find ways to leverage uncontrolled names

• If collection size is important … find ways to normalize extent statement syntax

• If titles are important … make them more user friendly

• If subjects are important … find ways to derive subject terms from narrative descriptions, consider enabling end-user tagging

• Consider relationship between MARC record and finding aid to reduce data duplication, increase efficiency

“Offline” descriptions“Offline” descriptions

• Project to convert paper-based collection descriptions to electronic form to enable network level discovery

• Capitalize on previous intellectual effort• Develop and test minimal cost structures• Not a “best”solution, but a good enough

solution

Moving ahead…Moving ahead…

Develop Model Methodology for Archival Collections AssessmentDevelop Model Methodology for Archival Collections Assessment

• We need to know what we have in order to “expose” what is “hidden”

• …and to be able to plan for preservation, digitization, space management…

• Lack of standard methodology for surveying repository holdings inhibits this

• Sample tools being examined: PACSCL (Philadelphia consortium), Logjam project

Sharing Special CollectionsSharing Special Collections

• Working group: ILL practitioners and curators• Will develop recommended best practices for

streamlining the handling of ILL requests for special collections materials

• Document what is necessary to build sufficient trust between two institutions interested in the physical loan of special collections items

• We need you!

Streamlining Photography and Scanning in Special Collections Streamlining Photography and Scanning in Special Collections

• Working group (we need you!)• Addressing workflow and policy issues arising

from digitizing materials from special collections. • Scan-on-demand workflow • integration of patron-initiated scans with large-scale

digitization / digital library workflow• recommendations for minimum levels of scanning and

metadata• policies for hand-held cameras in reading rooms

Balance in Rights ManagementBalance in Rights Management

• Rights issues are a serious barrier to risk-averse institutions digitizing unpublished materials

• How to encourage institutions to take modest, appropriate risks in order to facilitate greater access to collections?

• Invitational meeting (Spring 2010?), webcast• Working group formed to help shape event,

devise strawman document

Missing MaterialsMissing Materials

• Lost of materials a broadly recognized problem with many stakeholders

• Working group established a set of procedures to “tag” records in WorldCat.org to trigger listing

www.missingmaterials.org

• Easy (and free) to participate• In order to work, institutions must be willing to

disclose information about theft

Now it’s time for you to shed some lightNow it’s time for you to shed some light

• Questions and answers?• Comments?• Your thoughts?

Thank you!

merrilee_proffitt@oclc.org