Category Archives: oa.imls

D-CRAFT 2019-2023 – Digital Library Federation Content Reuse Working Group

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“D-CRAFT will be an open access, collaboratively-developed toolkit. The project team, in close collaboration with project consultants and its advisory group, will develop a resource that will:

Provide an overview of available assessment tools, best practices, and a code of ethics for measuring the reuse of digital assets, facilitating both standardization and impact measurement in the digital library field.
Identify sustainable and vetted assessment methods that can be applied to a broad array of digital collections
Promote exemplary stewardship of library and museum digital collections
Allow libraries, data archives, and other cultural heritage and knowledge organizations to better understand the ways users engage with, reuse, and transform digital library materials.
Standardize approaches and best practices for communicating the economic, educational, scholarly, scientific, social, and cultural impact of digital collections, and support the use of evidence-based approaches to build inclusive user-centered platforms and systems…”

Open Science for Librarians

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“The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Library, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as part of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, aims to create 14 lessons that invite librarians to increase their aptitudes in the principles and practices of Open Science. Led by the UCLA Library Data Science Center, this project will incentivize two sequential one year cohorts of authors to develop and refine lessons through summer workshops. As part of this project, the UCLA Library Data Science Center is pleased to announce the call for proposals to develop lessons for librarians focused on open science methods and principles. Read the Full Call for Proposals …”

Scholarly Communication Assessment Forum | April 2022 | Sacramento State University, US

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Summary: “In 2019, Sacramento State University and San Jose State University were awarded an IMLS National Forum grant to assess scholarly communication programs at M1 Carnegie classified public institutions. With new technologies and paradigms for creating and sharing work, scholars across all fields have seen changes in research output, dissemination and preservation of the scholarly record, emergent publishing models, and the measurement of scholarly impact. Libraries have broadly defined their efforts to address these concerns as “scholarly communication” services. During the past two decades, academic libraries have begun to further invest in scholarly communication through the allocation of staffing and resources and even establishing institutional repositories. However, quantifying the actual outcome or impact of these scholarly communication activities remains elusive, beyond output measures such as simple counts of consultations, workshop attendance, or by repository downloads or growth. This grant, the “Scholarly Communication Assessment Forum,” or “SCAF”, investigated best practices and made recommendations for better tracking academic libraries’ engagement in supporting the research lifecycle.”

PALNI and PALCI Partner to Remove Barriers to Hyku Adoption with IMLS Grant Award

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“The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded $248,050 to the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) in partnership with The Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation (PALCI) for Hyku for Consortia: Removing Barriers to Adoption as part of the National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program. IMLS received 172 applications requesting more than $47 million in funding and selected 39 applicants to receive awards during this grant cycle. With this award, the partners will increase the flexibility, accessibility, and usability of Hyku, the multi-tenant repository platform system.  

Repositories are a critical piece of library infrastructure, enabling access to many types of digital materials created by an institution’s students, faculty, staff, and researchers. Libraries, cultural heritage institutions, and other organizations also use repositories to provide access to digitized special collections….”

Libraries partners on IMLS grant for open education project | NC State University Libraries

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“The NC State University Libraries, the Roger Williams University Libraries, and the Open Education Network (OEN) have received a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Roger Williams University is the lead on the project.

The two libraries will use the two-year, $96,540 IMLS planning grant to develop a “Blueprint for Equitable Open Educational Practices (OEP).” The grant will also support a pilot training program in partnership with the OEN that prepares librarians and faculty to be partners in the adoption of these practices. …”

Transforming Library Services for Computational Research with Text Data: Environmental Scan, Stakeholder Perspectives, and Recommendations for Libraries – ACRL Insider

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“ACRL announces the publication of a new white paper, Transforming Library Services for Computational Research with Text Data: Environmental Scan, Stakeholder Perspectives, and Recommendations for Libraries, from authors Megan Senseney, Eleanor Dickson Koehl, Beth Sandore Namachchivaya, and Bertram Ludäscher.

This report from the IMLS National Forum on Data Mining Research Using In-Copyright and Limited-Access Text Datasets seeks to build a shared understanding of the issues and challenges associated with the legal and socio-technical logistics of conducting computational research with text data. It captures preparatory activities leading up to the forum and its outcomes to (1) provide academic librarians with a set of recommendations for action and (2) establish a research agenda for the LIS community….”

Texas Art Project: Digitized Microfilmed Archives | University of Houston Libraries

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“Thanks to a Texas State Library and Archives Commission TexTreasures grant funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), over 100 reels of microfilmed archives documenting women and underrepresented communities in Texas visual arts will be digitized and made accessible online.

The Texas Art Project is an extensive collection of visual arts history preserved at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) library. Between 1978 and 1985, MFAH contacted artists, galleries, and arts organizations across Texas to document unique manuscript papers and research materials on microfilm, as part of the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art (AAA). The project yielded nearly 700 reels, a subset of which featured materials from women artists, artists of color, and galleries that hosted them. This subset is the focus of the TexTreasures grant which allowed University of Houston Libraries Special Collections and MFAH to collaborate on the digitization of approximately 150,000 images, previously available only in a limited, localized capacity in microfilm at MFAH. Digitized images of materials such as correspondence, exhibition catalogs, reviews, and publications will become openly available online with multiple points of access, thereby facilitating scholarship and research using unique primary sources….”

It’s No Secret – Millions of Books Are Openly in the Public… | HathiTrust Digital Library

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“Since 2008 the HathiTrust Copyright Review Program has been researching hundreds of thousands of books to find ones that are in the public domain and can be opened for view in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Over the past 11 years, 168 people across North America have worked together for a common goal: the ability to share public domain works from our libraries. As of September 2019, the HathiTrust Copyright Review Program has performed copyright reviews on 506,989 US publications; of those, 302,915 (59.7%) have been determined to be in the public domain in the United States. The opening of these works in HathiTrust has brought the total of openly available volumes to 6,540,522.

The Copyright Review Program, now an operational program of HathiTrust, began as a grant-funded ambition of the University of Michigan Library, under the leadership of Melissa Levine. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded three consecutive grants enabling the University of Michigan Library and grant collaborators to build a copyright review management system. The program is still going strong eleven years later, resulting in hundreds of publications determined to be in the public domain each week.

One way the Copyright Review Program determines the copyright status of items in the HathiTrust corpus is to determine whether they were properly renewed. In the United States, the copyright in works published between 1924 and 1964 had to be renewed about 28 years after the item was published; works could move into the public domain when their initial term of protection expired. The Stanford Copyright Renewal Database was one of the first to host monograph renewal records in an open access database, but much of the initial copyright registration information remains difficult to search. …”

KU Libraries receive Institute of Museum and Library Services grant | Libraries

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“The University of Kansas Libraries, along with North Carolina State University Libraries and Illinois School of Information Sciences, are pleased to announce a $247,128 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

KU Libraries and their partners will develop, populate and pilot the Scholarly Communications Notebook (SCN) — an open educational resource index and repository. The SCN will serve as the location for an active, inclusive, empowered community of practice for teaching scholarly communications to early-career librarians. …”

View of Open Data Meets Digital Curation: An Investigation of Practices and Needs

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Abstract:  In the United States, research funded by the government produces a significant portion of data. US law mandates that these data should be freely available to the public through ‘public access’, which is defined as fully discoverable and usable by the public. The U.S. government executive branch supported the public access requirements by issuing an Executive Directive titled ‘Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded ScientificResearch’ that required federal agencies with annual research and development expenditures of more than $100 million to create public access plans by 22 August 2013. The directive applied to 19 federal agencies, some with multiple divisions. Additional direction for this initiative was provided by the Executive Order ‘Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information’  which was accompanied by a memorandum with specific guidelines for information management andinstructions to find ways to reduce compliance costs through interagency cooperation.In late 2013, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to conduct a project to help IMLS and its constituents understand the implications of the US federal public access mandate and howneeds and gaps in digital curation can best be addressed. Our project has three research components: (1) a structured content analysis of federal agency plans supporting public  access to data and publications, identifying both commonalities and differences among plans; (2) case studies (interviews and analysis of project deliverables) of seven projects previously funded by IMLS to identify lessons about skills, capabilities and institutional arrangements that can facilitate data curation activities; and (3) a gap analysis of continuing education and readiness assessment of the workforce. Research and cultural institutions urgently need to rethink the professional identities of those responsible for collecting, organizing, and preserving data for future use. This paper reports on a project to help inform further investments.

OA policy from US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) (April 2014)

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“Wide dissemination of the results of IMLS-funded projects advances the body of knowledge and professional practice in museum, library, and information services. For this reason, IMLS encourages creators of works resulting from IMLS funding to share their work whenever possible through forums such as institutional or disciplinary repositories, open-access journals, or other media. All work products resulting from IMLS funding should be distributed for free or at cost unless IMLS has given you written approval for another arrangement. IMLS expects you to ensure that final peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from research conducted under an award are made available in a manner that permits the public to access, read, download, and analyze the work without charge…. If you collect and analyze data as part of an IMLS funded project, IMLS expects you to deposit data resulting from IMLS-funded research in a broadly accessible repository that allows the public to use the data without charge no later than the date upon which you submit your final 13 report to IMLS. You should deposit the data in a machine-readable, non-proprietary digital format to maximize search, retrieval, and analysis….”

Open Parks Network

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“Since 2010, Clemson University and the National Park Service have collaborated on the Open Parks Network, an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded project that has resulted in the digitization of over 350,000 cultural heritage objects and 1.5 million pages of gray literature housed in the libraries, museums, and archives of our nation’s parks, historic sites, and other protected areas. More than 20 national parks and other protected sites are represented in these diverse collections, as well as 2 state park systems and 3 university libraries. The Open Parks Network provides public access to high-resolution, downloadable files….”

The Santa Barbara Statement on Collections as Data • Always Already Computational – Collections as Data

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  1. “Collections as data development is a work in progress. Work in progress status can be seen as a virtue. Iteration implies productive friction across a range of perspectives geared toward encouraging computational use of collections, development of internal and external collaborations, and alignment between traditional and emerging services.

  2. Collections as data development aims to encourage computational use of digitized and born digital collections. By conceiving of, packaging, and making collections available as data, cultural heritage institutions work to expand the set of possible opportunities for engaging collections.

  3. Ethical commitments guide collections as data development. Ethical commitments are made in light of historic and contemporary inequities represented in collection scope, description, and access. Commitments should be documented and readily accessible to those engaging with collections. Commitments should serve to respect the rights and needs of the communities who create collections as well as the communities that use those collections.

  4. Collections as data stewards aim to lower barriers to use. A range of accessible instructional materials and documentation should be developed to support collections as data use. These materials should be scoped to varying levels of technical expertise. Materials should also be scoped to a range of disciplinary, professional, creative, artistic, and educational contexts.

  5. The needs of specific communities inform collections as data development. Concrete strategies should be pursued to engage community need. Multiple approaches to data development and access are encouraged.

  6. Shared collections as data documentation helps others find a path to doing the work. In order for a range of individuals and institutions to engage collections as data work it must be possible to access documentation that demonstrates how the work is done. Documentation should be publicly accessible by default. Draft documentation is better than no documentation. Examples of documentation include workflows and code.

  7. Whenever possible, collections as data should be made openly accessible. Terms of use should align with efforts like Creative Commons, RightsStatements.org, and Traditional Knowledge licenses where appropriate.

  8. Collections as data development works toward interoperability. Working toward interoperability entails alignment with emerging and/or established community standards and infrastructure. Working toward interoperability eases integration with centralized as well as distributed infrastructure. Interoperability facilitates collections as data discovery, access, and use.

  9. Collections as data stewards work to support the integrity of collections. Claims based on collections as data depend on their integrity. Integrity is safeguarded by fault-tolerant systems and data provenance. Provenance reflects how data were created, and modified as well as the scope, and intended use of the data.

  10. Collections as data may encompass or be derived from collections. Data as well as the data that describe those data are considered within scope ( e.g. images, audio, video – as well as – metadata, finding aids, catalogs). Data resulting from the analysis of those data are also included.”

Biodiversity Heritage Library – Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature

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“Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature, which is funded generously by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), will significantly increase online access to biodiversity material by positioning BHL as an on-ramp for biodiversity content providers that would like to contribute to the national digital library infrastructure through the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The grant proposes to address challenges facing content providers—including insufficient amounts of content, indexing of scientific names, and metadata creation—and make necessary digital infrastructure enhancements by creating an innovative model for open access to data and to support collaboration among these institutions. The project would meet the goals of the IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program by increasing access to digital services, expanding the range and types of digital content available, improving discoverability, and supporting open access….The project runs from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2017 and will be conducted by the New York Botanical Garden in partnership with Harvard University, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries….”