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Collaborative Librarianship

Volume 12 Issue 1 Article 7

6-7-2020

Context is Key: and Collaboration for Digital Projects

Joy M. Perrin Texas Tech University, [email protected]

Robert G. Weaver Southwest / Library, Texas Tech University, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/collaborativelibrarianship

Part of the Library and Information Science Commons

Recommended Citation Perrin, Joy M. and Weaver, Robert G. (2020) "Context is Key: Library and Archive Collaboration for Digital Projects," Collaborative Librarianship: Vol. 12 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/collaborativelibrarianship/vol12/iss1/7

This Peer Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and by Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Collaborative Librarianship by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key

Peer Reviewed Article

Context is Key: Library and Archive Collaboration for Digital Projects

Joy M. Perrin ([email protected]) Associate , Library Technology and Services, University Library, Texas Tech University

Robert G. Weaver ([email protected]) Assistant , Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, University Library, Texas Tech University

Abstract

Libraries and have different underlying philosophies towards items, , goals, and core processes in their respective fields. With the proliferation of digital and efforts, both kinds of organizations can benefit from working together for the benefit of patrons and researchers. Pre- sented in this article is a of a collaboration between the Texas Tech University Libraries Digital Resources Unit (DRU) and the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library (SWC), an archive of cultural heritage materials.

Keywords: archives, digital libraries, digitization, digital collections

Introduction basic projects. This article is a case study de- scribing how even though archives and libraries’ This article is about working together despite foundational vocabulary surrounding digital competing priorities and vocabularies. As archi- items, metadata, and collections differs, and vist David Gracy II pointed out in 2006, the “In- even though the two groups’ fundamental ap- formation Age has . . . [united] the institutions proach to digital project goals and core pro- and services of libraries and , archives cesses are often disparate, both kinds of organi- and , and profes- zations can find common ground. There are tre- sionals, and preservation administrators and mendous benefits in initially attempting to – or conservators in the fundamental enterprise of even doubling back midstream to – realign un- 1 stewardship of our shared cultural record.” Yet derstanding of these factors during the creation while galleries, libraries, archives, and museums of digital archival collections. Doing so benefits – often bundled together under the acronym not only the organizational partnership, but also "GLAM" – share a mission, they work towards it the discoverability and access experience of pa- in distinct contexts, each with their unique trons. This is the story of collaboration between goals, cultures, and standards. This can cause the Texas Tech University (TTU) Libraries Digi- wildly different understanding of even the most tal Resources Unit (DRU) and TTU’s Southwest

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 68 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key

Collection/Special Collections Library (SWC), and patron needs; and attempts at conceptual an archive of cultural heritage materials, and the cross-education. rocky road to their mutual success. Harvard had been thinking along similar lines. Literature Review In 1998 a team of archivists, funded by CLIR, published a comprehensive series of questions The nature of collaboration on digital projects and criteria for selecting digital materials in Se- involving both libraries and archives is a dec- lecting Research Collections for Digitization.5 Em- ades-old conversation in constant evolution. phasizing patron utility and demand, project Strategies have been proposed and pursued, les- cost, copyright ramifications, and other adminis- sons learned, then forgotten or miscommuni- trative considerations, it provided tools to help cated, rediscovered, proposed again, and re- librarians and archivists alike share their collec- learned. No single multi-institutional report or tions digitally in a patron- and resource-con- case study has halted this pendulum, as will be scious manner. Kristin Brancolini applied this shown in the following literature review, but the Harvard model to the University of Indiana’s case study of Texas Tech’s archivists and librari- Hohenberger Photograph Collection. It worked ans presented in this article propels the ongoing to her satisfaction, proving to her that there discussion forward via its own unique insights. were objective means to ascertain digital poten- tial among an archive’s holdings.6 In 1998 An- Early publications show an understanding of the drew Hampson independently devised a series core concepts underlying archival-library collab- of questions similar to the Harvard model, but oration. In 1998 The (LOC) emphasized cost-benefit analysis, and even elucidated the benefits of a national digital li- more so the digital projects’ copyright implica- brary, stating, “Academics, educators, and li- tions.7 brarians [agreed] about the rationale” for a sys- tem of widespread electronic access to the col- At that time, librarians and archivists were 2 lections of cultural heritage institutions. The So- thinking about the big picture. Yet despite these ciety of American Archivists had seen the inevi- examples, much of the literature produced in the table advent of digital collections the year be- two succeeding decades deplored a gap between fore, emphasizing foundational archival princi- archivists and librarians’ understanding of digi- ples such as maintaining the sanctity of copy- tal collections. Where had the tenets established 3 right. A year later, the Council on Library and in these early years gone? Perhaps librarians and Information Resources (CLIR) articulated ar- archivists had begun to emphasize the trees over chival analog and digital collections’ possession the forest. For example, zeroing in on copyright of a “logical coherence that binds the contents and cost-benefit became normalized. Copyright together” and “a totality that enhances the re- challenges were Sarah Hamid’s primary focus in search value of each individual item beyond her 1998 exploration of the challenges of digital 4 what it would have in isolation.” Context, they collection creation, noting copyright’s inextrica- argued, is essential to a patron-focused digital ble affect on the already subjectively problem- collection. Librarians should internalize that atic process of selection.8 Peter Astle and concept while archivists should, in turn, con- Adrienne Muir also observed that selection of tinue to emphasize it and its unique vocabulary. materials was “driven primarily by copyright re- The building blocks for librarian-archivist col- strictions rather than user demand” in the laboration were in place: a desire to create the ’s public libraries, but, in the content; a nascent understanding of institutional vein of Andrew Hampson, also weighted heav- ily the cost-benefit approach to digitization.9 In

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 69 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key

2008 Alexandra Yarrow, Barbara Clubb, and Jen- 2004 that librarians, archivists and, for good nifer-Lynn Draper, in a plea for greater collabo- measure, museum professionals, have “different ration between libraries and archives, focused organisational [sic] cultures, and lack a common on fiscal and temporal cost, the sharing of re- language,” they “talk at cross-purposes” despite sources, and the benefits of raising the visibility “common goals and visions.” Collaboration is of collaborating institutions.10 If such collabora- absolutely possible, she believed, but even sim- tion was present, their other criteria were taking ple concepts, such as the way they describe their widespread rhetorical precedence. Even massive metadata schema, sometimes proved a major consortial projects, such as a 2011 search by a hindrance.13 Take for example Jane Hutton’s large roster of Minnesota archives for a shared 2008 argument that while libraries directed re- digital asset management platform (DAM), em- sources toward creating digital access points for phasized administrative-level budgetary and in- their own online collections, they would be best tellectual property protection. Although authors served to capitalize on their resources by “[pur- Dora Wagner and Kent Gerber’s work here was suing] metadata standards to support cross- a valuable examination of numerous high-level searching, collaborative projects, and develop- case studies, one is left wondering what the ment of e-resource search software which inte- boots-on-the-ground, collaborative experience grates with the .”14 This is an ex- entailed.11 Were fiscal management, abundant cellent suggestion, and one widely implemented selection tools, and ever-improving technology in the ensuing decade. Yet she was not writing to make holdings accessible leading to more fre- about archival metadata, but rather about the quent collaboration? rapidly expanding market for e-. The lan- guage sounded the same, yet was semantically Over this question there was a – no doubt inad- different. That same year, when Adrian Cun- vertent – butting of expert heads. Conflicting ningham dedicated resources toward educating differences kept obscuring valuable similarities. the of Australia’s staff on dig- Hamid, for example, despite her many invalua- ital archiving, he determined that the Library of ble observations about the challenges facing dig- Congress and CLIRs’ usage of “the phrase digi- ital projects in their early years, seemed to mis- tal archive [had] been misused.” It did not apply understand archival practice: “…content is in- solely to librarians, nor to archivists, but rather herently a subjective, abstract concept that, by to several areas of expertise in both libraries and definition, gains ‘meaningfulness’ only upon ac- archives. The frequent, liberal conflation of “dig- cess to and subsequent analysis through the me- ital archive” between these areas “confuses the dium that contains it.” As a result, “preservation purposes, training, and mission of archives and of the medium is…what archival preservation digital stewards.”15 While he was not directly has always been about in practice if not theory.” addressing Hutton’s assertions, he was observ- This is a curious mischaracterization, ignoring ing the dissonance behind her vocabulary. the principles of contextual understanding of an archival object’s intellectual milieu, irrespective Emily Monks-Leeson observed similar semantic of media, whether analog or digital.12 tensions in 2011, emphasizing that many organi- zations were not distinguishing between archives It is possible that Hamid’s misunderstanding re- and the practice of archiving material.16 Archivist sulted from a terminology gap between librari- Christopher Prom declared that same year: “ar- ans and archivists. Texas Tech’s archivists and chivists lack a systematic understanding of how librarians found this to be true in the case study people interact with descriptive information and documented in this article, but they were, by far, digital objects they create and post online.” He not the first to observe it. Liz Bishoff noted in

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 70 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key proposed archivist-harvested web analytics to practice. Was she correct? Or was siloing the re- overcome this, rather than collaboration with li- sult of perceived or imagined differences, as brarians whose expertise in this area was beg- Bishoff suspected? ging to be leveraged.17 It appeared that Bishoff’s belief in speaking at cross-purposes was in full The more pertinent question has become: does it effect. matter? Despite the abstract scholarly back-and- forth, there have been an increasing number of The thread underlying all of this is the age-old libraries and archives producing successful digi- practice of siloing in the information profession. tal collections. Monks-Leeson admitted that her Robert Martin pled against its growth on behalf collaborators were open to archival context as of the Institute of Museum and Library Services the “unifying representational principle for (IMLS) in 2003, emphasizing the IMLS’s inten- online collections.”22 They were listening to ar- tion to bridge divides by fostering collaboration. chivists, and archivists in turn were helping “Digital has dramati- both sides to understand what tools were neces- cally affected the way we now perceive the dif- sary to succeed. In that vein, Katherine Timms ferences and similarities of such institutions and proposed “creating an integrated access system” have blurred the boundaries between them,” he to overcome perceived differences, but rather explained, concluding that although “now we than fretting about cost, copyright, and other see them as different…in the digital environ- well-trod challenges, she emphasized archives’ ment, the distinctions…are in fact artificial.”18 focus on aggregates of information objects rather Soon after, at the 2005 Research Libraries Group than individual items. Understanding this per- (RLG) Members Forum, most of a day was spent spective, which she saw as slightly different exploring how to break apart silos, with partici- from librarians’ understanding of digital items, pants arguing that collaboration would lead to brought her to propose an “information super- the dissolution of widespread superficial differ- structure” capable of uniting librarians and ar- ences.19 In 2008 Diane Zorich, Gunter Waibel, chivists via a shared understanding of and Ricky Erway produced a report for OCLC metadata.23 Jody DeRidder, Amanda Presnell, that surveyed a host of workshop participants, and Kevin Walker, in an NHPRC grant-funded and determined that how the information ar- effort at the University of Alabama, devised just rived in patrons’ hands was irrelevant to at- such a cross-departmental system to digitize tendees.20 It was Bishoff’s common vision, rather materials and link them to archival finding aids. than disciplinary expertise, that could unite the Just as Timms imagined, they did so by leverag- disciplines in a single practice. ing expertise across special collections, catalog- ing, and metadata services departments: “digital Few more stern disagreements with all of these is a cross-departmental arguments have been written than Deanna Mar- effort, requiring shared goals, constant commu- cum’s. In “Archives, Libraries, and Museums: nication…and respect for one another’s compet- Coming Back Together?” she asserts that all ing priorities.”24 Without collaboration, they three fields lack “common standards for describ- would not have enjoyed any success. ing data…and cataloging holdings” and should “recognize that they serve different communi- Ten years ago, in an article surprisingly similar ties, make different assumptions about service” to “Context is Key,” Nancy Chaffin Hunter, and have had different kinds of education.”21 Kathleen Legg, and Beth Oehlerts – a project ar- Point by point, she reconstituted the rationale chivist, digital projects librarian, and metadata behind siloing, albeit without defending the librarian – took on the task of digitizing and

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 71 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key placing online Colorado State University’s Uni- reduction in IT resources. The fledgling project versity Historic Photograph Collection. Their in- had been forced to a standstill. itial differences – and there were many, ranging from “professional methodologies between li- In response, Library administration decided to braries and archives (such as) the nature of ma- organize and consolidate digitization efforts un- terials collection, approaches to description and der a different umbrella, creating the Digital Li- discovery, and definitions of access” – mangled brary Initiatives Team (DLIT) in 2004 composed their ability to communicate, much less collabo- of faculty and staff from various parts of the or- rate.25 Yet their project did not fail. They found a ganization, including the archives, with a goal of way through. This tale of discovered common digitizing larger portions of available collec- ground is a message worth repeating, bucking tions. However, the rift in mission and goals be- the trend of the literature that repeatedly em- tween the archives and the Library led to the phasized difference over commonality. While SWC’s sudden removal from the TTU Libraries there is no one article, project, or discovery that system in mid-2006. can resolve this for all institutions and for all During this new time outside the TTU Library time, perhaps continued efforts, such as the fol- system, the SWC adopted DSpace to host and lowing description of the collaboration at Texas make accessible its digital collections, chosen Tech University’s libraries, will put more steps principally because it was the most familiar sys- behind us than in front. tem to the SWC’s IT staff, as well as its popular- The Case ity as (IR) software. The system also required minimal effort to design In the late 1990s the SWC and the university Li- and activate; a requirement now that Library re- brary were brought under the same administra- sources were no longer available. Unfortunately, tive roof after decades of independence. Not un- the software was not ideal for archival collec- expectedly, there were occasional misalignments tions, nor for some other types of digital collec- of institutional values, mission, and goals. The tions, precisely because it had been built up to Library is at its core about providing access to support the IR community. information that is already organized and clean. The archives, on the other hand, is in the messy In a digital asset management system for IRs business of organizing the raw material that gets such as DSpace, an “item” can be compared to a transformed into the articles and books that li- floating object that can be rearranged in relation braries later make accessible. While these state- to its peers based on an established need. It is ments were agreed upon by both parties, neither created with the assumption that patrons will side came into the partnership clearly seeing po- search for a topic on a mainstream search engine tential nuances of the others’ perspective. No- – most often Google – and then land on a where was this more prevalent than in the crea- DSpace page. Alternatively, they might search tion and curation of digital collections. for authors and titles within the system itself. Once within the system, patrons can sort items The SWC had a of working on digital by title, issue date, author/creator, or other cri- collections in-house, such as the Austin Wiswall teria. This works well for IRs, where the papers Papers, which had been scanned using basic are discrete pieces of information connected scanning equipment, minimal to no image edit- only by the author or the item’s thematic DSpace ing, and made available on the SWC website via “Community” or “Sub-Community.” Archival HTML.26 But the pace of scanning and coding collections, however, are rigorously arranged the items was slow, compounded by a sudden

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 72 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key and described in intellectually-connected aggre- researcher interest or that covered frequently re- gations of disparate material. Individual leaves searched topics – in order to establish a baseline of paper, photographs, or other items do not ex- workflow for future digital collaboration. From ist as floating objects. The Herculean task of re- such small first steps it was hoped that the man- segregating and individually describing each uscript archivist and DRU librarians could physical item in even the smallest archival col- bridge the repeatedly-widened institutional di- lection in order to create a digital version of the vide. collection was untenable. SWC efforts were therefore few, and contained often minimal or Two initial collections were selected. The first poor metadata. Once again, work came to a was the Austin Wiswall Papers, which, as noted standstill. earlier, had already been scanned and placed on the SWC’s html-encoded primary website, and The Library, now bereft of archival materials, in could therefore swiftly be added to the now- 2008 turned toward digitizing TTU’s large the- shared DSpace system by the Library’s metadata ses and dissertation collection. It pivoted from librarian. The second collection was the United HTML websites to two different digital asset Confederate (Civil War) Veterans systems, CONTENTdm and (UCV).29 Both threw up unexpected roadblocks DSpace. Due to experiences that led TTU librari- that were exacerbated by passing the project ans to assert that CONTENTdm struggled to get around between three of the Library’s metadata data to search engines, the Libraries had in 2005 specialists. moved all of their digital collections to a locally- hosted DSpace instance, and immediately saw The Roadblocks improvements in patron usage of their collec- At first, the collections were described the way tions.27 A short time later, the Library moved that the DRU described and image collec- from the local DSpace instance to one hosted by tions. Metadata was authored for each distinct the Texas (TDL). This move pro- piece of paper in a given archival collection, a vided the Library with a reliable and well-sup- level of description that went beyond what the ported content management system that it soon archivists had, or would ever have, created us- filled with theses, dissertations, and various ing contemporary archival standards. The first book projects. metadata librarian created a modified Dublin By 2012 administrators had facilitated a reunion Core schema to work with the DRU’s model and between the SWC and Library, albeit with no began creating records, only to discover that the small measure of caution on both sides. In the schema did not properly describe all parts of the interim, the Library had streamlined digitization collection. The metadata librarian redesigned project management from a Library-wide team the schema, and the work resumed until another to a dedicated Digital Resources Unit (DRU) item failed to fit the new schema. And so the headed by librarian Joy Perrin. Upon the two or- process started over. It is now apparent that the ganizations’ reunion, SWC archivist repeated false starts stemmed from the DRU’s Robert Weaver was assigned to be the liaison be- incorrect assumptions about what an archival tween the SWC Manuscript Department and the collection is, and how it is meant to be used. DRU.28 Through that intermediation, both The librarians were unaware of the truth that the groups agreed that digitization efforts could re- archivists had learned during the separation, commence, focusing on small, “marquee” collec- and which they neglected to communicate to the tions – physical collections with demonstrated DRU: an item-level schema was inappropriate

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 73 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key because focusing on indexable access to each physical materials’ alignment of physical ar- distinct physical archival item was an untenable rangement and intellectual context. Despite re- proposition. For example, the DRU tried to de- peated meetings, the librarians did not under- scribe every leaf of correspondence with the de- stand why the product, which had taken a lot of tails of who had written it, to whom they had resources to create, was not satisfying expecta- sent it, when they had sent it, and so forth, with tions as had all of the Library’s other digital col- the goal of ensuring that search engines would lection projects. To mitigate this, the SWC’s be better able to index the item. This goal was a Technical Processing/Bibliographic Services direct result of an earlier Library study about unit – comprised primarily of cataloging faculty how search engines interact with content man- and staff – joined the efforts. They reviewed agement systems. This led to the supposition item records created by the DRU, found the that the goal of all digitization projects was to breadth of metadata fell short of their own make individual items discoverable through standards, and began to go back through the mainstream search engines. digital items to add further item-level detail in the hope that it would provide, through DSpace The SWC, had it known about this assumption, site searches, a mimicry of a physical collection’s might have challenged it. Archivists initially en- organization. tered into the partnership with a focus on digit- izing and publishing only “marquee” collec- The time investment required to create item- tions. They wanted to increase the discoverabil- level descriptions, and having that description ity and accessibility options for their existing ac- redone by SWC catalogers, inevitably bogged ademic research base. Generating items for the the process down. Although scanning had be- general public, however beneficial now in hind- gun in early 2012, the DRU metadata librarians sight, was an ancillary effect at best, and ignored and SWC catalogers did not finish uploading at worst. Hence the selection of the Confederate and creating item level metadata for the UCV Service Records within the United Confederate collection until mid-2013. By that time, the SWC (Civil War) Veterans Records (UCV). It had not had provided several other collections to the only been used widely by genealogical research- DRU, such as the American Civil Liberties Un- ers, but 2012 through 2015 – the years during ion (Lubbock Chapter) Records and the Bidal which the collection would be scanned and pub- Aguero Papers.30 Like the UCV Records, they lished – coincided with the 150th anniversary of represented topics of popular interest, respec- the US Civil War. tively: political activism and civil liberties; and Latino history viewed through the life and ca- As scanning and uploading moved forward, the reer of a regionally prominent Latino politician, project was transferred to another librarian, who activist, and publisher. While these was given the directive of focusing on upload- collections provided a wider picture of the ing items more quickly using a simplified Dub- SWC’s scope and provided otherwise lin Core metadata schema. While the project be- difficult-to-access materials to researchers, they gan to speed up, the pace was still slow from the were not as nationally significant as the UCV perspective of SWC archivists. Worse, the item- Records. Peppering small, easily-digitized and level metadata approach was producing items described archival collections such as these in without contextual value. When the archivists among large-scale projects such as the UCV be- interacted with the digital collection, they saw a came the SWC’s de facto policy. The pace of de- random presentation of various pages pulled scription provided no room to do more. Little from an archival box, not a re-creation of the thought was given as yet to how the dissonance

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 74 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key in metadata philosophies might be reconciled digital collection’s page, including linking indi- beyond throwing more warm bodies at it. vidual folders listed in this replica to their corresponding digital item’s URI in hopes At this point, therefore, the Library and SWC’s of creating a more intuitive user experience. relationship was less collaboration and more, at best, a cooperation in which the archive sup- The group applied this approach to all new col- plied materials for the Library to run through a lections going forward, and also began revising digital collection pipeline, with both parties the pre-existing, item-level digital collections to looking on dissatisfied. The librarians did not this standard. Metadata creation time improved understand the archive’s concerns, and the ar- because librarians were no longer creating a full chivists did not understand the system enough Dublin Core metadata record for each item. to articulate a solution. And so for several years, They could, and still do, use the archive’s collec- those efforts continued unchanged. tion-level metadata to describe each folder, irre- spective of content. Archival context, always The Growth of a Collaboration present in the finding aid, now flowed directly into the digital collection environment.31 As an In January 2016 a small team of three librarians added enhancement, the SWC’s Encoded Ar- and two archivists convened on their own initia- chival Description (EAD) finding aids, available tive to rethink the problem. Archivists described online as part of a statewide consortium called their collections’ primary audience: academic re- Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO), were searchers. Therefore digital collections should re-coded so that each folder listed in the TARO mimic the researcher experience in the SWC finding aid connected to its digitized folder on reading room, where a patron could sit down SWC’s DSpace.32 Now, no matter whether a re- with a box and leaf through well-organized fold- searcher discovers the SWC via TARO or ers. It should also replicate the organization of DSpace, they have an identical user experience; the archival finding aid, since that was the pri- one made possible only through years of false mary method for researchers to navigate collec- starts, miscommunication, and a collaborative tions. Optimizing items for search engine index- breakthrough between professionals of varying ing, once explained by the librarians, was in the expertise but, in hindsight, almost infinite pa- SWC’s view secondary to maintaining the or- tience. ganization that allowed researchers to make sense of archival material in context. They asked Collections started moving swiftly through the if, instead of treating each physical piece of pa- new process. Figure 1 shows the total number of per as a digital object, the DRU could devise a items created by year for the collection through method to treat the archival folder as the principal December 2017. By 2019, the digital archive had digital object. grown to over fifty collections containing almost 15,000 archival folders. Highlights include Dr. Communication is the lynchpin of successful Tetsuya ‘Ted’ Theodore Fujita’s entire set of Sat- collaboration. And the simple question, asked ellite and Mesometeorological Report Project only after nearly four years of hard work, (SMRP) Reports, including those that first pro- opened the floodgates. The DRU proposed ag- posed the Fujita Scale, or F-scale, for measuring gregating individually scanned items from fold- tornadic intensity; the massive Gertrude C. ers into a single pdf. The SWC eagerly agreed to Suppe Hispanic Church Music Collection; the this experiment. To supplement this shift, an ar- near-entirety of the League of Women Voters of chivist and a metadata librarian would replicate Texas organizational records in anticipation of archival finding aids in HTML on each DSpace the upcoming centennial of the 19th Amendment

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 75 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key to the US Constitution; and a complete survey of all able-bodied, Civil War-era men who were in- terred in Texas.33 Each digitized collection is also linked to its counterpart finding aid on TARO.

Figure 1. Count of total items created in different years for the SWC/SCL DSpace.

Items Created by Year 4000

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Lessons Learned ability to interact. And so librarians insisted upon their metadata and digital collection phi- The quantity of digital collections and innova- losophies and experience. The revelation that tive methods the group developed to create they had unintentionally held the development them and make them discoverable, while inval- of the collections back by holding on to goals uable, was not where the real success of this six- and values from other digital collections projects year odyssey lay. Clearly, the project would shocked them into a broader perspective on dig- have progressed more smoothly had the Library ital collection management and, more im- and SWC first communicated clearly and at portantly, collaborative practice in the infor- great length, identifying goals and researching mation profession. The archivists were no less desired and potential audiences before the first culpable, insisting that time-tested archival tech- item was scanned. But there had long been fric- niques that had only been applied to physical tion between the Library and SWC, and while materials should translate one-to-one in the digi- much of it was ancillary to the goals of this pro- tal sphere. ject’s participants it nonetheless defined their

Collaborative Librarianship 12(1): 68-79 (2019) 76 Perrin & Weaver: Context is Key

Yet from the outset, both groups had assumed and often fail to cast aside mountains of hard their goals were shared. Communication was work, even once they know that further work in nowhere present. For example, it was not until that vein might be detrimental to the project or an absurd distance into the project that both the institution. Scrapping earlier efforts makes those librarians and archivists realized that they had efforts feel irrelevant. But by setting aside pride been using almost identical vocabulary, but with to collaboratively stop and assess the untenable very different definitions. A librarian’s digital situation, then changing gears by reshuffling “collection” was not like an archivist’s physical and combining thousands of digital items across collection of folders and boxes. Discrete “items,” dozens of DSpace subcommunities, these librari- as understood by digital librarians using ans and archivists discovered that those fears DSpace, infrequently correlated with archivists’ were groundless. Now, with both parties understanding of an archival item and its robust equipped to effectively collaborate, the benefits intellectual context. Future projects will be more of these lessons are incalculable. easily managed by creating a shared, living glos- sary identifying key terms for all parties and Conclusion their possible translations across disciplines. Libraries and archives are finding common Early on, metadata librarians and SWC cata- ground with digital libraries, making it ever logers discovered that exceedingly thorough more reasonable to collaborate and reduce costs metadata cannot always account for the exigen- by using shared resources. The Texas Digital Li- cies of a digitized archival collection’s broader brary DSpace Users Group recently held a spe- intellectual context. The archivists were slow to cial meeting where they asked how various grasp the fluid nature of metadata philosophy, groups in Texas were using DSpace for archival creation, and interpretation that was becoming collections. Answers varied widely, but with ever-more obvious to other categories of infor- large-scale digitization efforts from Google and mation professionals. Simultaneously, they be- others covering the typically more accessible moaned DSpace’s tenuous ability to accommo- base of library projects, questions such as TDL’s date visually the structure of physical archival suggest that the true value that digital libraries collections, while at the same time forgetting the have may lie in digitizing the unique treasures platform’s capabilities for innovation, however that only archives hold. However, much work limited. All ongoing and planned projects now needs to be done before effective collaborations include a thorough exploration of the capabili- can truly happen. Everyone needs to understand ties of potential platforms with broad room to their partners’ philosophy and vocabulary. Eve- innovate within their boundaries. ryone needs to agree to clear shared goals and direction. And most importantly, both sides To the credit of all of the project’s collaborators, should be willing to see things from others’ per- they accepted one of the most difficult truths a spective. dedicated professional can face: the sunk cost fallacy. Many librarians and archivists, includ- ing the collaborators described here, struggle

1David B. Gracy II, “Welcome to the Premier Is- (Summer 2006): 295, http://muse.jhu.edu/jour- sue,” Libraries & the Cultural Record 41, no. 3 nals/libraries_and_cul- ture/vO41/41.3gracy.html

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http://tefkos.comminfo.rut- 2The Library of Congress, The National Digital Li- gers.edu/Courses/Zadar/Readings/Yar- brary Program: A Library for All Americans (The row%20library%20coopera- Library of Congress, February 1995), 5. tion%20IFLA%20reprt%202008.pdf

3Society of American Archivists (SAA), Basic 11Dora Wagner and Kent Gerber, “Building a Principles for Managing Intellectual Property in the Shared Digital Collection: The Experience of the Digital Environment: An Archival Perspective (Au- Cooperating Libraries in Consortium,” College & gust 1997), http://www2.archivists.org/state- Undergraduate Libraries, 18, no. 2/3 (2011): 272- ments/basic-principles-for-managing-intellec- 290. tual-property-in-the-digital-environment-an-ar- chiva 12Hamid, “Constructing a Global Time Cap- sule.” 4Stephen E. Ostrow, Digitizing Pictorial Collec- tions for the , (Washington, DC: Council 13Liz Bishoff, “The Collaboration Imperative: If on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), Librarians Want to Lead in Creating the Digital 1998), www.clir.org/pubs/reports/os- Future, They Need to Learn How to Work with trow/pub71.html Their Colleagues in Museums and Archives,” Li- 5Dan Hazen, Jeffrey Horrell, and Jan Merrill- brary Journal 129, no. 1 (January 2004): 34. Oldham, Selecting Research Collections for Digiti- 14Jane Hutton, “Academic Libraries as Digital zation (CLIR, 1998). Gateways: Linking Students to the Burgeoning 6Kristine R. Brancolini, “Selecting Research Col- Wealth of Open Online Collections” Journal of Li- lections for Digitization: Applying the Harvard brary Administration 48, no. 3/4 (2007): 495-507, Model,” Library Trends 48, no. 4 (Spring 2000): http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930820802289615 783-798. 15Adrian Cunningham “/Digital 7Andrew Hampson, “Managing a Digitisation Archiving: A View from the National Archives Project,” Managing Information 5, no. 10 (Decem- of Australia,” American Archivist 71 no. 2 (2008): ber 1998), 5, 25-32. 531.

8Sarah Hamid, “Constructing a Global Time 16Emily Monks-Leeson, “Archives on the inter- Capsule: Challenges in the net: representative contexts and of Society’s Cultural Memory Archive,” Infor- from repository to website,” American Archivist mation Technology and Libraries 17 (1998), 207-211. 74 no. 1 (2011): 38-57.

9Peter J. Astle and Adrienne Muir, “Digitization 17Christopher Prom, “Using Web Analytics to and Preservation in Public Libraries and Ar- Improve Online Access to Archival Resources” chives,” Journal of Librarianship and Information American Archivist 74 no. 1 (2011): 158-184, Science 34, no. 2 (2002): 67‐79, https://doi- https://www.jstor.org/stable/23079005 org.lib- 18Robert S. Martin, “Cooperation and Change: e2.lib.ttu.edu/10.1177/096100060203400202 Archives, Libraries and Museums in the United 10Alexandra Yarrow, Barbara Clubb, and Jen- States,” IFLA Conference Proceedings (2003): 1-10. nifer-Lynn Draper, Public Libraries, Archives and 192005 RLG Members Forum, “Libraries, Ar- Museums: Trends in Collaboration and Cooperation chives, & Museums: Three-Ring Circus, One Big (The Hague: International Federation of Library Show?” (St. Paul Minnesota, July 12, 2005). Associations and Institutions, 2008),

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Envisioning Our Preferred Future: New Services, 20Diane Zorich, Gunter Waibel, and Ricky Er- Jobs, and Directions, vol. 8 (Rowman & Littlefield, way, “Beyond the Silos of the LAMs: Collabora- 2016), 241-256; https://www.depts.ttu.edu/li- tion among Libraries, Archives and Museums,” brary/collections/theses-dissertations/; Joy M. Report produced by OCLC programs and re- Perrin, Le Yang, Shelley Barba, and Heidi Win- search (2008), http://www.oclc.org.lib- kler, “All that Glitters Isn’t Gold: The e2.lib.ttu.edu/programs/reports/2008-05.pdf Complexities of Use Statistics as an Assessment Tool for Digital Libraries,” The Electronic Library 21 Deanna Marcum, “Archives, Libraries, Muse- 35, no. 1 (2017): 185-197. ums: Coming Back Together?” Information & Culture 49, no. 1 (2014): 74-89. 28Other key members of the partnership in- cluded librarians Le Yang, Shelley Barba, and 22 Monks-Leeson, Archives on the internet, 38-39. SWC Archivist Monte Monroe.

23 Katherine Timmes, “New Partnerships for Old 29United Confederate (Civil War) Veteran Rec- Sibling Rivals: The Development of Integrated ords, 1863-1967, SWC, http://hdl.han- Access Systems for the Holdings of Archives, Li- dle.net/10605/45428 braries, and Museums,” Archivaria 68 (Fall 2009): 67-95. 30American Civil Liberties Union, Lubbock Chapter, Records, 1963-1994 and undated, SWC, 24 Jody DeRidder, Amanda Presnell, and Kevin http://hdl.handle.net/10605/255066; Bidal Walker, “Leveraging Encoded Archival Descrip- Aguero Papers, 1949-1988 and undated, SWC, tion for Access to Digital Content: A Cost and http://hdl.handle.net/10605/89757 Usability Analysis,” American Archivist 75, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2012): 143-170. 31Matthew McEniry, “Digital Archiving DIY: EAD-XML Finding Aids Made Quickly (and 25 Nancy Chaffin Hunter, Kathleen Legg, and Cheaply),” presentation at the Society of South- Beth Oehlerts, “Two Librarians, an Archivist, west Archivists, Annual Meeting (May 2017). and 13,000 Images: Collaborating to Build a Dig- ital Collection,” Library Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2010): 32For an example, see the Bidal Aguero Papers; 81-103. Robert G. Weaver, “Stick to the Script: Auto- mated Creation of XML for EAD Finding Aids,” 26 Austin Wiswall Papers, 1659-1957, Southwest Journal of Archival Organization 16, no.4 (Fall Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas 2019): 163-177. Tech University (hereafter SWC), http://hdl.handle.net/10605/49524 33All SWC digitized archival collections may be found at https://swco-ir.tdl.org/ 27Joy M. Perrin, “Lessons Learned: A Case Study in Digital Collection Missteps and Recovery,” in

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