2022 Presentation and Lightning Talk Descriptions
June 1, 2022
Presentation 1: Laying the Foundation: How a Pandemic Project Solidified a Commitment to Accessibility
Presenters: Elyse Fox and Michelle Compo from Sacramento State
Description: In the wake of campus closures in March 2020, Sacramento State quickly scaled an accessibility project focused on remediating retrospectively digitized theses, to a full-scale accessibility remediation project that provided remote work opportunities for 45 student assistants and 4 staff members whose work did not transition as easily to a remote work environment. With the return to campus, we faced the challenge of how to continue our almost 2-year commitment to making our ETD collection accessible. Despite the incredible amount of student hours devoted to this project between March 2020-August 2021, only 1/3rd of our ETD collection had been reviewed and made accessible. This brought into question the long-term feasibility of performing library mediated accessibility remediation. To address this burden, in Spring 2021 we began working more closely with the Office of Graduate Studies, creating accessible content guidelines that could be incorporated into their submission process. We incorporated accessibility literature into the ETD submission guidelines, and created a LibGuide with more detailed instructions. In this presentation I will address: the true costs of accessible content in our ETD collection; the opportunity to leverage student assistants to perform remediation work; discuss measures we’ve taken to incorporate accessibility concerns into the creation of student scholarship, as well as the impact of these initial steps; and what’s next in continuing to nurture a scholarly culture that presents research with accessibility needs in mind.
Presentation 2: Making ETDs accessible
Presenters: Amy Dyess and Ayana Ford from CSUSM
Description: As part of the ETD submission process at CSUSM, the library has created a unique program to ensure all submitted ETDs are accessible and American Disability Act compliant. Having created a pilot project in Spring 2019 and fully accepted the program Spring 2020, CSUSM University library offers to make all ETDs accessible for students who submit to the program. Making files accessible for students encourages student success by relieving them of learning a highly technical process during their final semester. Providing ADA compliance at the outset ensures that our repository is more accessible.
During the presentation, we will outline our Accessibility program detailing our processes for contacting students, tracking files, and remediating submissions within the constraints of the ETD submission process and timeline. We contact students early in the semester via a Cougar Course and send multiple email reminders about the Accessibility program. Students must submit a draft of their thesis or project to the library by the ADA deadline which is generally three weeks before the ETD submission deadline. Library staff and student assistants remediate files and communicate with students to resolve issues and will process several versions of the file before sending the student the final and accessible file to upload and complete the ETD process. Since beginning in Spring of 2019, we have made over 840 files accessible in the program and have a participation rate of over 80%.
Presentation 3: How We Implemented a Digital Repository Program for Stanislaus State’s University Library’s Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).
Presenters: Mary Weppler-Van Diver and Guillermo Merez from CSU Stanislaus
Description: Project Description: Through an initial assessment of the paper and digital finding aids for the Special Collections and University Archives, it was determined that the following was necessary in order to facilitate discoverability, accessibility, and digital preservation: 1. An archives management platform for managing the metadata for finding aids, archival objects, digital objects, subjects, agents, and new accessions. 2. A web server for storing digital archive files. Once files are uploaded to the web server, the files are then linked as digital object URIs within the digital object metadata of the archives management platform.
Project Schedule for Implementation of ArchivesSpace and Web Server:
• September 2021: Overview of ArchivesSpace and Web Server presentation to Library Dean and Librarians. Project was unanimously approved.
• September-October 2021: Implementation of ArchivesSpace server by Library Information Technology. •October 2021: Begin data input from existing finding aids and archival records in Microsoft Word and Excel into ArchivesSpace.
• Late October 2021: Develop and share out ArchivesSpace user manual with Dean and Library IT. •November 2021: Begin training student workers to use ArchivesSpace to describe collections and add shelf locations.
• December 2021: Introduction of the public interface of ArchivesSpace to Dean & Librarians.
• December 2021: Testing and full implementation of the Solr Web Server.
Presentation 4: Using Anti-Oppressive Description Protocols in Special Collections
Presenters: Leah Sylva and Eva Martinez from San Francisco State
Description: Following the murder of George Floyd, many libraries issued public statements in support of Black lives, stating commitments to evaluate institutional practices through an anti-racist lens. Statements such as these must be followed up with concrete steps to assess and remediate forms of oppression. At SFSU, a working group in Special Collections and Archives drafted Anti-Oppressive Description Protocols to address inequalities and racism in collections and finding aids.
Looking at the structural problem of racism in academic institutions, we identified two questions that need to be regularly visited: Whose materials are preserved and who describes them? Racism is present in archives in the materials collected and those neglected, the way materials have been described in the past, and in our own biases, blind spots, and commitment to archival traditions positioned within a white supremacist framework.
We are using our Anti-Oppressive Description Protocols as a guide when addressing collections containing racist content, assessing legacy finding aids, and writing new ones. Our goal in this process is to accomplish our archival descriptive work in a manner that moves outside the framework of white supremacy, questioning how we support or undermine systems of racism and oppression.
At this workshop we will explain the protocols we have crafted, share case studies of how these guidelines have been implemented, and provide questions for a group discussion.
Presentation 5: Re-envisioning a Library Publishing Program
Presenter: Dana Ospina from Dominguez Hills
Description: The experience of navigating the uncertainty and obstacles brought about by both the pandemic and my encounters with contingency and precarity in library publishing inspired me to reconsider the publishing program I have been developing at CSUDH over the past five years. Guided by a mission to amplify underrepresented voices and modes of publication, and to welcome discursive practices, I seek to extend the program’s reach beyond the boundaries of traditional academic publishing paradigms and to embrace speculative and disruptive practices.
Undergraduate and graduate scholarly production is a part of many library publishing programs: journals, presentation posters, and artifacts of open pedagogical practices are just some of the publication forms that provide library publishing faculty and staff with an opportunity not only to support students in many aspects of the publishing process (i.e. discoverability, access, and preservation), but what of interests and publication models that fall outside conventional scholarly communication parameters?
This presentation briefly introduces some of the paradigms, concepts, and ideas I have explored (e.g., artistic publishing practices, speculation, an embrace of failure) in an effort to envision a library publishing program that is responsive not only to institutional and academic protocols and expectations, but also to the shifting desires, circumstances, and needs of the community it serves and who sustain its relevance.
Presentation 6: Black Deaf Life in California Project
Presenters: Dr. Lissa Ramirez-Stapleton, Elizabeth Altman, Steve Kutay, and Nicole Shibata from Northridge
Description: Led by Dr. Lissa Ramirez-Stapleton of CSUN’s Deaf Studies program, the Black Deaf Life in California project aims to preserve and expand access to stories and educational material about the Black Deaf experience. In 2021, the project received funding from a CSUN Diversity and Equity Innovation grant to conduct 15 oral (ASL) histories of Black Deaf CSUN alumni and Californians and design a complimentary digital exhibit and database hosted on the CSUN Library website. This panel will discuss techniques and reflect on lessons learned from the project team, with a particular focus on conducting and making ASL oral histories available through digital library platforms while maintaining accessibility standards, and working effectively with collaborators outside the library. The panel will include Dr. Lissa Ramirez-Stapleton (PI) and library collaborators, Nicole Shibata (Metadata Librarian), Elizabeth Altman (Web Services Coordinator), and Steve Kutay (Digital Services Librarian).
Presentation 7: Measure Twice, Scan Once: Getting It Right the First Time with Still Image Digitization Standards
Presenters: Erik Beck and Elyse Fox from Sacramento State
Description: We use digitization standards to make sure the images we produce accurately represent their original objects and can be used sustainably as a surrogate for those objects well into the future. But what standards should we use and how do we know if we are meeting them? In this program we will discuss the finer points of still image digitization. We will define photographic parameters like luminance and color accuracy and explain how to use color targets to test for these parameters. We will also discuss different standards that are used across the CSUs and which standards are appropriate for which projects. Attendees of this program will gain an understanding of how to scan items to FADGI standards and how to maintain scanning equipment to ensure consistent performance.
Presentation 8: The benefits of creating collections in ScholarWorks
Presenters: Matt Martin and Toni Panlilio from San Francisco State, Ryan Rush from Cal Poly Pomona
Description: Presenters from San Francisco State University and Cal Poly Pomona will share their perspectives on the benefits of creating collections in the ScholarWorks institutional repository, with a particular focus on increasing engagement with graduate student theses and dissertations. They will begin with a recap of the collections functionality available in DSpace as well as Digital Commons before sharing insights from interactions with members of their campus communities that resulted in requests for comparable features in the Samvera environment. This will lead into a demonstration of the automatic department facet in ScholarWorks and discussion of the shortcomings of that feature for the use cases identified. From there, the presenters will demonstrate how to create parent and child collections in ScholarWorks and discuss different options for organizing collections, such as by department or degree program in the case of theses and dissertations. They will also touch on usability and discoverability considerations as well as opportunities for further refining the metadata associated with the collections work form. Finally, the presentation will conclude with an overview of outreach opportunities once collections are in place, encompassing both direct outreach to specific departments and degree programs as well as more campus-wide communications intended to promote student work.
Presentation 9: "We need it for us by us." Documenting the advocacy and creation of the Black Student Center at California State University San Marcos
Presenters: Sean Visintainer, Ian Chan, and Jennifer Ho from CSUSM
Description: In collaboration with CSUSM’s Black Student Center (BSC), the University Library designed and conducted an oral history project where students conducted interviews with eleven individuals integral to the creation of the BSC, founded in 2017.
The creation of the BSC was a student-led movement which entailed raising awareness about the need of a center; lining up support within the university administration and student government; finding space; and in the early days of the BSC, focusing direction, programming, and related activities to facilitate student success.
In our presentation, we’ll begin with a brief overview of the BSC, telling the story of its founding. We’ll then discuss our project in detail; its design and implementation, including the project team and funding, the student interviewers, and the histories themselves. We’ll discuss the oral history documentation and its ties to student success: the learning outcomes of the student interviewers; the role the oral histories serve in telling the story of the BSC as a foundational space for Black student success; and how the project provides perspectives related to the Black experience at CSUSM. Next, we’ll discuss the digital aims of the project: an online exhibition of the oral histories which will scaffold into a digital collection containing the histories and a snapshot from our archives related to our campus Black experience. Finally, we’ll offer takeaways from the project and discuss refinements, with the aim of creating a sustainable ongoing oral history project documenting CSUSM’s campus and regional communities.
Lightning Talk 1: Making University Executive Memorandums (EM) available
Presenter: Pam Kruger from Chico State
Description: At Chico State, Meriam Library worked with the Office of the President to seek a better way to create access to the University Executive Memorandums (EM). The California State University, Chico, Executive Memoranda (EM) Collection contains searchable digital copies of the EMs issued by the Presidents of CSU, Chico pertaining to campus curriculum and policies. Coverage is 1985 - Current, with some coverage for years prior to 1985. In the past these EMs were hosted on the President's website individually. Searching between EMs was impossible and the ability to research or find related EMs often required the assistance of a staff person in the President's office. The new database is hosted on CONTENTdm and provides full text searching. Every EM now has its own record with standard fields where the unique metadata for each EM is entered. As part of this new process, the EMs now go through our Office of Accessible Technologies and Services for remediation to make them accessible and are saved as PDF/A for highest quality preservation. Here is a link: http://archives.csuchico.edu/digital/collection/p17133coll8
Lightning Talk 2: Together/Apart Covid-19 Memory Archive
Presenter: Jamie Higgins from CSUSM
Description: Presentation by the CSUSM Library Communications Specialist about the marketing and publicity that was done for the Together/Apart Covid-19 Memory Archive and the corresponding Stories and Snapshots virtual exhibit reception. The presentation will highlight how marketing and communications can play an important role in the growth of and engagement with digital repositories. For example, how we worked with University Communications to get articles in the local media, which resulted in additional submissions and broader community engagement.
Websites:
https://together-apart.csusm.edu/ https://together-apart.csusm.edu/omeka-classic/
Lightning Talk 3: Collaborative Engagement in Digital Collection Building: Preserving Black History in the Inland Empire
Presenter: Eric Milenkiewicz from CSU San Bernardino
Description: In this lightning talk I will discuss two complementary digital projects that I’m working on to better document Black history and culture in Inland Southern California. The first is a community-based collaborative initiative between 3 local area universities to capture stories, experiences, and personal narratives from members of the Black communities in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties; here I will focus on collaborative digital collection building efforts. The second project is a related documentation project to locate notable stories, events, milestones, and people from CSUSB’s Black community; here I will center the discussion on student engagement and the process used for surfacing relevant content in digitized university publications.