Showing posts with label DPLA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DPLA. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

MWDL's Year in Review!



What a year it's been! We started the year off big in January by welcoming Teresa K. Hebron as our fantastic new Metadata Librarian. Over the next several months we bade farewell to Avalon Snell and Jon Wiggins, and said hello to Arash Tadjiki and Keegan Dohm who became the new Web Software Developer and Metadata Assistant. We have formed taskforces, hosted conferences, traveled the world, seen usage globally, transferred to the new website, welcomed new members, and ingested thousands and thousands of new records.

On that last note, we are proud to announce...


MWDL Went Platinum this Year! 


That’s right, we crossed the 1 million record threshold. With the recent completion of DPLA's November harvest, we also have a 1 million-plus item representation in DPLA as well! 


The illustrious platinum record fictitiously awarded to MWDL after reaching 1 million records.

We’d like to thank our institutional members for their strong support and diverse content, and all our new and old team members who have striven to make Mountain West Digital Library the best it could be. We'd also like to give a special shout-out to all the people using MWDL! Check out their most popular searches for 2018 in the wordcloud below.


This wordcloud shows the top 25 search terms on mwdl.org during 2018.

With so much new content (and exciting outreach programs in the works), the 2019 wordcloud may take on a totally different shape.


We had a huge meeting over the internet!


Just last week, on Dec 14th, we held the MWDL Winter Hubs meeting. The meeting minutes are located here. Some highlights include info on the recent DPLA updates and Changes, lightning quick institutional updates, and status updates from Bulk Digitization (Specifications and metadata), Outreach, MAP revision, and Digital Preservation taskforces. For those interested, a Zoom recording is available as well.  

And a real-world conference in July!


J. Willard Marriott Library at University of Utah hosted the MWDL Summer Conference on July 10-11. It was wonderful seeing so many people from members and the general community for two packed days of presentations, updates, bingo, library tours and networking. 

In case you weren't able to join us, the proceedings will be online soon and we look forward to seeing you at the next meeting!


Shiny new promotional materials!


The front (left) and back (right) of MWDL's newest postcard.


Keegan Dohm, our Metadata Assistant, recently designed a striking new postcard for our promotional materials. With the new design and added features like space for writing, we think it turned out great! Of course, we've also added the new features to the backs of our old post cards. Feel free to let us know what you think and if you want to use this or other media, you can find them at the bottom of our get involved page.


Starting Off 2019 in Style!


Our student employees Arash Tadjiki and Keegan Dohm are working to set up a new MWDL Blog and Publishing site to be unveiled in 2019. The publishing portion of the site will host the publications presented at this year's summer conference and the blog section will replace this one. So get ready for a sleeker blog site with a totally new slate of posts and outreach!

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Where in the world is MWDL (being used)?


Have you ever wondered where MWDL users are? We naturally think of our own local user communities comprising students, researchers, genealogists, and the general public, but were you curious where else MWDL users might be located? 

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) recently launched a new analytics dashboard for hubs. In addition to a variety of typical usage statistics like website use times, click-through stats, and counts of views from different sources, they also offer a view of users by location! This view displays the "[l]ocations of users who viewed or clicked through at least one of your items on the DPLA website. Equivalent to "location" or "geo network" in Google Analytics."

In August 2018, MWDL items in DPLA had views all across the United States:

August 2018 US users
Unsurprisingly, we had a large number of users in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West (with the highest number in California with 274!), but also across the rest of the United States. How does this compare with views globally in August?

August 2018 World users


Wow! While the numbers are certainly less concentrated, MWDL items in DPLA got views from places as diverse as Argentina (6 users) to Japan (24 users). 

If we look at 2018 year-to-date users, we can see users in a majority of countries: 

2018 YTD World users
Who wants to travel to Greenland, Papua New Guinea or Madagascar to help fill in a blank? Happy travels!

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Back-to-school News Roundup!

Arash Tadjiki -- Our new Web Developer.

Arash, thinking about web development.
We're excited to welcome Arash to the Mountain West team and back to the Marriott library. Arash worked at the Marriott Library in one of the computer support groups during his undergrad in CS. He recently returned to the University of Utah to start a Masters Degree in Entertainment Arts and Engineering (aka Video Game Design), and will work with us as a web software developer while he completes his program.



Article in Code4Lib Journal


Our very own Teresa Hebron, has published an article in Code4Lib about the MWDL metadata audit tool! In the article, Teresa discusses problems encountered during the successful project to adapt the Metadata Audit tools to work with the configuration of the OAI-PMH provision from Oregon Digital's Samvera repository. You can read it here!


MAP Revision Taskforce


Following the MWDL Summer Conference in July and building on the excellent MWDL Application Profile review done by the Bulk Digitization Task Force, the MWDL Metadata Application Profile (MAP) Revision Taskforce formed and began meeting in early August.

The MWDL MAP was last revised in 2011, so the taskforce has undertaken a comparison of MAPs from other digital libraries as well as DPLA and will be issuing a survey in the coming weeks to assess member needs. Be on the look out! Thanks to all the members of the taskforce:

Members:

Emily Boss (University of Nevada, Reno)
Lisa Chaufty (University of Utah, McKay Music Library)
Marina Georgieva (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
Teresa Hebron (Mountain West Digital Library)
Becky McKown (Brigham Young University)
Darnelle Melvin (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
Anna L Neatrour (University of Utah, Marriott Library)
Char Newbold (Utah State Library)
Cory Nimer (Brigham Young University)
Andrea Payant (Utah State University)
Gina Strack (Utah State Archives)
Rachel Jane Wittmann (University of Utah, Marriott Library)
Liz Woolcott (Utah State University)



Hooplaza 

(From Left) Kinza Masood [MWDL Director], Teresa Hebron [MWDL Metadata Librarian], Arash Tadjiki [MWDL Web Developer], Keegan Dohm [MWDL Metadata Assistant]

MWDL staff talked to over 100 participants at Marriott Library's annual fall welcome event. The whole MWDL team attended to represent Mountain West to the University of Utah student body. With candy, a clown game, and the combined charisma of a top-notch team we spoke with more than one hundred participants and saw MWDL alum Rebekah Cummings showcase some outstanding balloon sculpture skills.


Utah History Conference

Call for papers and award nominations for Utah's Annual State History Conference on Sept 27-28, 2018.
MWDL will be on site Sept 28 for the 66th Annual Utah History Conference in West Valley City, UT. We will have a table from 8am-4:30pm. During this year's conference, speakers will explore the ways that transportation and movement of ideas, people and goods has influenced the social and physical landscapes of the state over time. Check it out here.

DPLA

We have completed our August harvest with a total of over 975K records! Congrats all for hard work. Keep an eye out for the big 1000K announcement when we hit a million records. Can digital libraries go platinum? If so, we'll be there soon!

Monday, July 30, 2018

July News Round-up


With July coming rapidly to a close, we have lots of milestones and events to celebrate in the MWDL community! July is National Ice Cream Month, so grab a cone and cool off with this news update.


MWDL Summer Conference


J. Willard Marriott Library at University of Utah hosted the MWDL Summer Conference on July 10-11. It was wonderful seeing so many people from members and the general community for two packed days of presentations, updates, bingo, library tours and networking. 

In case you weren't able to join us, the proceedings will be online soon and we look forward to seeing you at the next meeting!

DPLA's Executive Director, John Bracken, gave a live video update on July 11 facilitated by MWDL's Director, Kinza Masood

Taskforces forming


Two MWDL taskforces are forming: Training, with Liz Woolcott of Utah State University as chair, and Metadata Application Profile, with Teresa Hebron of MWDL as chair. 

Thanks to all who volunteered to participate and we're excited to work on these projects!

Collection harvesting


Throughout June and July, we welcomed new collections from several members:

Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Salt Lake Community College
Utah State Archives

Thanks for these contributions! If you have new collections you'd like to have harvested, please let us know by filling out the harvest request form on our website.

Gearing up for fall


Please let us know if you have collections or events you'd like us to help promote in advance of the fall semester. Back to school is right around the corner!

DPLA


The next DPLA harvest of MWDL will be in the week of August 27.

Utah State Library job posting


If you're currently seeking a job or considering a change, head over to the Utah State Jobs page and look up Job No. 16456, Library Resources Manager, at the Utah State Library! 

Complete Job Description and online application at: https://statejobs.utah.gov

Stay cool and we'll see you soon!