Mind the [Digital] Gap

Using Web Collections to Fill Collecting Gaps at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Library of Medicine

Maureen McCormick Harlow, National Library of Medicine

Jaime McCurry, Folger Shakespeare Library

Agenda

Maureen & Jaime: Who We Are

The Value of Thematic Collections

Using Thematic Collections to Fill Gaps

Participation & Outreach

Jaime & Maureen

Folger Shakespeare Library

National Library of Medicine

The Value of Thematic Collections

The Value of Thematic Collections

But…

…how can you possibly collect comprehensively on all of those things?

But…

…how can you possibly collect comprehensively on all of those things?

You Can’t!!

Using Thematic Collections to Fill Collecting Gaps

Using Thematic Collections to Fill Collecting Gaps

NDSR@NLM: The Project

Build and Maintain a thematic Web collection:

“Disorders of the Developing and Aging Brain: Autism and Alzheimer’s on the Web”

64 Seeds evenly split, covering 6-7 perspectives: – Current Understanding

– Caretakers (first-person resources, primarily blogs of caretakers)

– Patients/Sufferers (also first-person, also primarily blogs)

– Research

– Causes

– Treatment

– Prevention (for Alzheimer’s only)

NDSR@NLM: The Model

Thematic Collections as “Two Sides of the Same Coin”: Teen pregnancy and infertility Scoliosis and Osteoarthritis Diabetes Type 1 and Diabetes Type 2 Eating disorders and obesity

Diagnoses made during development and in old age.

NDSR@FSL: The Project

1) Test and document local workflows for web archive collection creation, collection expansion, and collection

quality control:

• Folger Shakespeare Library Websites and Social Media

• Shakespeare Festivals and Theatrical Companies

2) Create a new collection including adding seeds and metadata, running crawls, and performing post-crawl

Quality Assurance routines

NDSR@FSL: Looking Back

The Folger represents less than 13% of institutions conducting Web Archiving projects

As per the 2012 NDSA Web Archiving Survey Results

Shakespeare Festivals and Theatrical Companies

• Print directories could not keep up – 40 North American festivals in 1983* to over 300 websites currently in

the Folger collection

• Collection compliments Folger organization and user interests – Active Theatre program and loyal audience

*Goodland, Katharine, and John O’Connor. A Director of Shakespeare in Performance 1970-1990. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

NDSR@FSL: Participation and Outreach

STAKEHOLDERS Collection

Development Committee

STAKEHOLDERS Open

Discussion

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT Web Archiving

Community, “Thematic” Community

PROJECT INVOLVEMENT Collaboration OUR AUDIENCE

Open Discussion

NDSR@FSL: Moving Forward…

Shakespeare in the Media

Prominent (Modern) Shakespearean Actors

and Actresses

Maureen & Jaime Web Archives!