Showing posts with label meetings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meetings. 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!

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!

Thursday, May 31, 2018

May News Round-up


How is it already almost June? Rolling stones gather no moss, and MWDL is rolling right along! Here are a few noteworthy items.


Save the Date: MWDL Annual Meeting


The MWDL Annual Hubs and Member meeting will be taking place at J. Willard Marriott Library (University of Utah) Tuesday July 10 and Wednesday July 11. Mark your calendars and we hope to see you in Salt Lake City! July 10 will be the All Hubs Meeting and July 11 will be the Digitization Committee Meeting.  


We are also opening up July 11th for other members in the community that are interested in learning about digitization best practices, future directions, and local and regional digital repositories, with formal registration (coming soon).



University of Utah reharvest


We're pleased to announce that all collections hosted by University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library have been reharvested by MWDL from their Solphal digital asset management system. This is the first reharvest since Solphal went live in 2017, totaling 504, 296 items as of May 31. Congratulations! 


New collections


We've welcomed many new collections from a variety of members in late spring 2018, including:

Boise State University
Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Oregon Digital
Orem (UT) Public Library
Utah State Archives
Utah State University


DPLA Harvest


DPLA harvests from MWDL on a quarterly basis (February/May/August/November), and we are nearly done with May's harvest. I'll send an update when the most recent harvest is complete. 


Where in the world is MWDL?


Our intrepid Metadata Assistant, Keegan Dohm, is studying abroad this summer in Kyrgyzstan! Keegan was awarded a three-month scholarship to live in the country in support of his Russian language minor. Congrats Keegan, and we'll see you back at the ranch in August!



That's all for now, and we look forward to seeing many of you in July for the annual meeting! Happy almost-summer!