IMLS grants and Open Repositories conference

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IMLS Grants Highlighted at Open Repositories Conference

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grants showcased
innovative repository-based projects at the Fourth International
Open Repositories Conference (OR2009) in Atlanta May 18-21, 2009.
The meeting focuses on open-source repository platforms to manage
and archive digital data from a variety of environments (education,
research, science, cultural heritage) and contexts (national,
regional, institutional, project, lab, personal).  Ultimately, the
goal of these repositories is to support the creation and management
of digital content, to enable its use and re-use, to interconnect
information, and to ensure its long-term preservation and archiving.

Among presentations by former and current IMLS grantees were the
following:

    Michael Witt, from Purdue University presented an IMLS National
    Leadership Grant (NLG) project, "Investigating Data Curation
    Profiles Across Multiple Research Disciplines." He shared
    preliminary findings of this investigation, with a focus on
    scholars' data curation needs and how these could help shape the
    functional requirements for a data repository.
    <URL:http://d2c2.lib.purdue.edu/projects.php?project9>

    Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean for Library Digital Programs
    and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center
    at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University,
    referenced his current work with an NLG project "Digital
    Archiving of Astronomical Data to Support Publication and
    Long-term Preservation," and how it influences work soon to be
    funded by the NSF Datanet program.
    <URL:http://ldp.library.jhu.edu/dkc>

    Elizabeth Yakel, assistant professor at the University of
    Michigan, described research she is conducting with fellow
    investigator Soo Young Rieh, for the NLG project, "Institutional
    Repositories: Ensuring Continued Access to Learning Objects."
    The comparative case study of five institutional repositories
    (IR) explores the internal and external factors that contribute
    to an institutional repository's success, and considers how
    these repositories help libraries achieve long-term goals of
    service to academic communities.
    <URL:http://miracle.si.umich.edu/index.html>

    Bill Parod, Karen Miller, and Claire Stewart shared Northwestern
    University Library's work building a digital repository on the
    FEDORA technical architecture, as part of the NLG project, "From
    the Zanzibar Slave Market to Election Campaigning in
    Pre-Independent Kenya: Digital Access to 100 Years of East
    African Life and Culture."
    <URL:http://www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/winterton>

    Work being performed under the NLG project, "The Texas ETD
    Repository: Promoting our Scholarship and Preserving Our Legacy"
    was presented in two sessions: Alexey Maslov of the Texas A&M
    University Libraries described tools for harvesting and
    federating content in the statewide electronic theses and
    dissertation repository; and Scott Phillips, also from the Texas
    A&M University Libraries, presented on Vireo, a submission and
    workflow tool developed for the Texas ETD project.
    <URL:http://www.tdl.org/grants/imls/repository/>

    William Reilly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
    described work conducted under an NLG project, "Future-Proofing
    Architectural Computer-Aided Design (FACADE)." This project
    created an object model for CAD digital content, built numerous
    applications to help capture or create information necessary for
    long-term curation and archiving of CAD content, devised
    techniques for processing CAD collections at large scale, and
    designed compelling visualization and discovery user interfaces
    for stored content.
    <URL:http://facade.mit.edu/>

In addition to these conference presentations, IMLS grantees
highlighted other projects during the conference poster session,
including working from the Apiary Project at the University of North
Texas <URL:http://www.apiaryproject.org/content/apiary-home>.
Building open repositories is a topic of international interest.
More than half of the 326 attendees traveled from 23 foreign
countries to the Georgia Institute of Technology Hotel and
Conference Center. More information about the OR2009 conference,
which IMLS co-sponsored, is available online at

    <URL:https://or09.library.gatech.edu/>


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:5
                  Distributed: Thursday, June 11, 2009
                        Message Id: cdl-23-5-011
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