Creation of LSE Digital Library

Ed FayDigital Library Manager

e.fay@lse.ac.uk@digitalfay

Creating LSE Digital Library

Creating LSE Digital LibraryWhy

CollectionsMission and strategy

Making the caseCollections auditOptions appraisalProposal

ImplementationDevelopment programmeRoles and responsibilities

Questions

BORN-DIGITAL ARCHIVES

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

PUBLIC LECTURES

WEB HARVESTING

DIGITISATION

OFFICIAL PUBS FUTURE…

?

Local £

Digital

• Research outputs (publications, data)• Digitisation• Public lectures• Web harvesting (websites, blogs, tweets)

• Archives (institutional, personal)• Theses• Official publications

• Journals• Books• Newspapers• Statistics / data

Physical

• Archives (institutional, personal)• Theses• Official publications

• Monographs• Journals• Pamphlets• Newspapers• Statistics• Microfilm

LSE Library Collections

Preservation responsibilityLocal £

Digital • LSE Digital Library• Consortia

• LOCKSS• Portico

Physical• Archives Services

• Print Collections

• Print Collections

• Consortium• UKRR

Research outputs repository

* New additions per month

Digital archives

* New hybrid or digital collections per year

Library space

* Metres added per year

Mission | Strategy

“Build and preserve distinctive collections to support research and learning, and represent a record of thought in the social sciences”

“Develop our digital library so that we are able to acquire, preserve and provide access to digital collections which

match the strength of our print collections”

“…information repository services to support new forms of scholarly communication and enable the School to manage, disseminate and preserve these intellectual assets”

Making the case• Collections audit

• Format diversity, volume/growth• Risk assessment (threats to our strategic objectives)• User and functional requirements (ingest, preservation, access)

• Options appraisal (‘market survey’)• Community best practice• Repository architectures

• Proposal• Articulating value• Solution: working practices, skills, infrastructure• Development roadmap

Collections audit

Collections audit• Known knowns

o Existing collections (legacy digitisation, research pubs)o Known capacity requirements

• Known unknownso Future collections (archive deposits, official publications)o Projected capacity requirements

• Unknown unknownso Possible collections (new digitisation projects, institutional

digital assets, research data)o Unpredictable capacity planning

Risk assessmentDigital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk

Assessment (DRAMBORA)http://repositoryaudit.eu/

Risk categories:• Collection degradation or loss• Reduced availability of content to users• Loss of trust or reputation

Risk causes, lack of:• Unified collection management/preservation activity• Staff time and skills• Technical infrastructure, investment in development

Insufficient backups

Risk assessment

Loss of trust or

reputation

Activity overlooked or

under resourced

Media degradation

or obsolescenc

e Loss of essential

characteristics

Infrastructure cannot support

requirements

Failure of authenticity,

integrity, provenance

Inadequate staff skills

Cannot implement

preservation plans

Risk assessment

Options appraisal• Comparator analysis / best practice

o Site visits (4)o Cambridge, Hull, Oxford, Wellcome

o Desk research/interviews (7)o Exeter, SOAS, UCL, York, Kultur, MIDESS, Paradigm

• Functional requirements …… tested open-source repository software

o 24 requirements in 7 categories, approximating to OAIS

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/fay

Proposal• Approach

o Local implementation of skills, infrastructure for digital preservationo Open-source technologies (repository and preservation tools)

• Resourcingo Existing team: digital library manager, metadata technician, systems

administrator, collection representatives (academic services, archives)o New posts: digital library developer, digital archivist, library assistant

• Implementationo Phased development of staff skills, technical infrastructureo Preservation first, then management, then accesso (this isn’t quite what happened…)

Proposal

What we planned…

Start with preservation.

Then think about management.

Then (maybe) access.

Even (perhaps) for actual users.

What we did…

Started with access.

Then (actually, now) preservation.

But, it worked…

The Iceberg Model of Digital Libraries

interfaces

collections/objects

workflows

systems

storage

digital preservation

The Iceberg Model of Digital Libraries

interfaces

collections/objects

workflows

systems

storage

digital preservation

Implementation

Implementation

Who? Bib Services, ArchivesWhat? Existing systems/interfacesHow? Skills in place, resources in place

Implementation

Implementation

Who? Collection Preservation, ArchivesWhat? Open source tools, new interfaceHow? Need training, resources in place

Implementation

Implementation

Who? Collection PreservationWhat? Open source tools, new interfaceHow? Need training, resources in place

Implementation

Implementation

Who? Library ITWhat? Storage, backupsHow? Need training, resource priority

Implementation

Implementation Who? External consultants, DL teamWhat? IA/UX/designHow? Need skills, need resourcing

Implementation

Roles and responsibilities• Innovation vs service development

o Core skills and focuso Embedding operational capacity

• Communicationo Cross-library (collections vs techies)o Confident in requirements…o…interesting IT challengeso Long process of engagement

Roles and responsibilities

Archive Services Collection developmentDescriptionPreservation

Digital Library TeamPolicySkills / expertiseInnovation / projects

Academic ServicesCollection developmentInformation skills training

Collection ServicesPreservationDescriptionInfrastructure

Senior Management• Strategy• Resources

Archive Services • Collection development• Description• Preservation

Digital Library Team• Policy• Skills / expertise• Innovation / projects

Academic Services• Collection development• Information skills training

Collection Services• Preservation• Description• Infrastructure

Skills

Experts: policy, change managementPractitioners: workflows, quality assuranceNon-specialists: aware

Skills gap analysis

Activity(description)

Role(job title)

Skills(y/n/training)

Resource(y/n/%)

Notes

SPRUCEa project to inspire, guide, support and enable UK HEIs to

address preservation gaps; and to use the knowledge gathered from that support work to articulate a compelling business case for digital preservation

• Events: digital preservation solutions• Embedding: grants to continue work• Business case: benefits, skills gaps

http://dpconline.org/advocacy/spruce

DICE

Digital Communications Enhancement

Training materials to raise awareness of digital preservation in researcher community and library training providers

Start Early | Explain It | Store It Safely | Share It

http://lsedice.wordpress.com

PhoneBooth

Delivering Library-owned maps and manuscripts to mobile devices

Charles Booth maps and notebooks (1886-1903)

http://jiscphonebooth.wordpress.com

Questions?

me: twitter.com/digitalfay or e.fay@lse.ac.uk

LSE Digital Library: digital.library.lse.ac.uk

SPRUCE: dpconline.org/advocacy/spruce

PhoneBooth: lse.ac.uk/PhoneBooth

DICE: lsedice.wordpress.com

Image creditsEgosiliqua malusymphonicus Guts © Christopher Locke

(used with permission) http://heartlessmachine.com/

Iceberg (Public Domain) Wuzurhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iceberg.svg

Simple Globe (CC-BY-SA) Tokyoshiphttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simple_Globe.svg

8” floppy disk (Public Domain) Pamporoffhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:8%60%60_floppy_disk.jpg

Feed icon (GPL) Free Software Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Feed-icon.svg

Twitter logo © Twitterhttps://twitter.com/about/resources/logos

Crowned Portcullis © UK Parliamenthttp://www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/the-crowned-portcullis/

OAIS Functional Entities © CCSDShttp://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1.pdf

National Research Libraries logo © [unknown]

[Various Gnome icons] (GPL) Gnome icon artists

All other images (CC-BY-NC-SA) LSE Library