Using Digital Collections for Reference and Research

Objectives• Understand the hierarchy of online

collections and where they are created • Use this hierarchy to effectively search for

collections• Utilize a wide range of online tools to

discover digital collections• Familiarize your users with collections that

address their specific needs

Day one• Discovering digital collections• Who creates them • What types of collections/items can

be found• Examples of digital collections

What is a “digital collection?” --It’s more than just some scanned stuff

“…organizations provide the resources--including the specialized staff--to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of, and ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities”

– Council on Library and Information Resources

Discussion: Share about digital collections you have used

• Share any digital collections you have used for reference or research—either for yourself or for a library user…

• What was the question/area of research?• What digital collection(s) did you use?• What was found to provide a solution/answer?

Organizationally speaking…• National initiatives • Consortia • State library organizations • Individual

libraries/museums/archives• Individuals/corporations

Major areas of focus for reference and information services

• History –National, Local, Regional– Manuscripts

• Maps • Newspapers• Photographs• Music/Media• Art and objects • Books• Scholarly literature• Learning objects

National initiatives US: • Digital Public Library of America

– dp.la• Library of Congress, American

Memory – http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.ht

ml

Side convo: the World• Europeana (EU sister to dp.la)

– http://www.europeana.eu/

• Eurodocs – http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main

_Page

Regional• Documenting the American South

– http://docsouth.unc.edu/

• Mountain West Digital Library– http://mwdl.org/

» Sometimes done by individual institutions, sometimes done cooperatively

Consortia• The Sheet Music Consortium

– http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/

• The HBCU Alliance Digital Collections– http://contentdm.auctr.edu/cdm/

State agencies• Florida Memory

– http://www.floridamemory.com/

• Kentuckiana – http://kdl.kyvl.org/

Individual libraries, archives, museums

• Cornell University • http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/

• The Getty Research Institute • http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/digital_collect

ions/

• David Rumsey Map Collection• http://www.davidrumsey.com/

Major areas of focus for reference and information services

• History –National, Local, Regional– Manuscripts

• Maps • Newspapers• Photographs• Music/Media• Art and objects • Books• Scholarly literature• Learning objects

History/manuscripts• Hundreds of sites address history

and contain manuscripts

• Tomorrow, we will view finding aids to help us narrow our search

Maps• Perry Castaneda Collection (UT-

Austin) – http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

• Boston Public Library Rosenthal Collection – http://maps.bpl.org/

Newspapers• State library or anchor university collections are

often significant• Utah, University of Utah• http://digitalnewspapers.org/

• The National Newspaper Project created “Chronicling America”

• http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Photographs• Digital Photo Gallery at NYPL

– http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187

Music and Media • Library of Congress, American Sheet Music

– http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/

• Archive.org, Live Music Archive – http://archive.org/details/etree

• Alan Lomax Collection – http://research.culturalequity.org/home-

audio.jsp

Intellectual media• Supreme Court Media

– www.oyez.org

• Historic Speeches• Vincent Voice Library, University of Michigan

– http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/

• Historic Company Information, Columbia University– http://library.columbia.edu/locations/business/

corpreports.html

Art and objects• Archives of American Art (SI) • http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/online

• Getty Research Institute Digital Collections• https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/digita

l_collections/

• Art Institute of Chicago • http://www.artic.edu/research/archival-coll

ections

Side convo: The Getty• The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has made 250

art and conservation books available for free! – http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/new-virtual-library-off

ers-over-250-art-books-for-free-download/

• ““it is now the mark—and social responsibility—of world-class institutions to develop and share free cultural and educational resources.”

» James Cuno, from the Getty, quoting the NMC Horizon Report

More books• International Children’s Digital

Library – http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

• Making of America (Cornell, Univ of Michigan)

• http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/

– We will explore finding aids for free electronic book resources tomorrow

Scholarly resources• Open Access

– PubMed Central• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

• Historical journals and magazines– Google Magazines

• Hidden slightly within Google Books

Learning objects • Merlot

– www.merlot.org

• Connexions Learning Object Repository, Rice University

– http://cnx.org/

Day one, activity one• We have reviewed the major creators

for and the major types of objects in digital collections

• Use this hierarchy to help you find an interesting collection

Day one, activity one• Explore the web page of a state

library/archive, university, or other entity

• Look around and see if they have any digital collections

• Get ready to share what you find. You will type your answer into the general chat

Day one, activity one• Share in the general chat:

– The site you explored – Did they have digital collections?– If so, what types of items did the digital

collection(s) contain? (photos, documents, manuscripts, etc.)

End of day one: thank you!Questions?• Professional

Development• 1.800.999.855

8• Web:

lyrasis.org•e-mail: russell.palmer@lyrasis.org

Welcome back!: Day two Discover digital collections more

broadly Answer questions and guide users in

research

Discovering digital collections: tools

• General tools• Tools for finding more specific collections

DPLA• The DPLA provides digital content

from regional “hubs,” organizations who channel provide access on their own, but also allow their items to be searched on DPLA.

• Hubs: • http://dp.la/partners

Internet Archive• Provides access to audio, video, books

manuscripts, university archives/records

• LYRASIS provides cultural heritage institutions with a mass digitization option, with All images digitized via the Mass Digitization Collaboration must be made freely available online, either through the Internet Archive or a similar website

• https://archive.org/details/lyrasis

OCLC• WorldCat

– www.worldcat.org

• OCLC ArchiveGrid– http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/

• CONENTdm Collection of Collections– http://collections.contentdm.oclc.org/

Discover (digital) collections geographically

• University of Idaho• http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/special-

collections/Other.Repositories.html

• “A listing of over 5,000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar…”

Other finding tools– Columbia University, Guide to Archives and Manuscripts Online– http://library.columbia.edu/subject-guides/

archives_manuscripts.html

– Internet Public Library– http://www.ipl.org/

– Infomine (UC-Riverside) – http://infomine.ucr.edu/

– University of California, Berkeley Reference Links– http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/links.html

– Eresources Locator, Library of Congress – http://eresources.loc.gov/

How can Google help?• Thinking about Google in terms of collections

– Scholar/Books/Magazines/Images

• Searching by a specific domain (.org, .gov, .edu, .us)

• Searching for collections

• Searching for finding aids

Open Access• Books

– Directory of Open Access Books– Hathi Trust– http://www.hathitrust.org/

• Scholarly research– High Wire Press– http://highwire.stanford.edu/

• Institutional repositories (IR’s) – SmarTech, Georgia Tech– https://smartech.gatech.edu/– Directory of OA Repositories– http://www.opendoar.org/countrylist.php

Evaluating and using digital collections: what to look for

• List of what is in the collection• Differentiation between what is available digitally,

and what physical items are represented by a finding aid

• Search box/advanced search box• Other browsing features/indexing:

– Geographic– Subject index– Author/creator index

Activity two: helping the library user

• Using the digital collection you chose for the kick off activity today:

• Share in the general chat: • The digital collection name• Then share a helpful feature that the site has to

make using it simpler• Examples: • Browse (title, geographic, subject), clarity of date

coverage, clarity of material type(s), a timeline, visual search, etc.

• How does this make the collection easier for you (and your user) to use?

Assisting library users• http://www.archives.gov/research/start/plan-visit.html

• Summary—what we need to know from library users: – The topic, and what types of collections might relate to it

(and we, of course, help with that)– What agencies, (Companies? Organizations?) offices, or

individuals were involved and what time period you are interested in

– What kinds of records (textual, maps, photographs, electronic, etc.) you are looking for

Activity three• I’m a library user, I need you to identify some

digital collections that might help me• Here is what I know• I need documents from three different American

inventors who worked between 1700-1900• I am interested in letters, manuscripts, texts, art

objects, drawings, or photographs• Identify one collection that will help me• Suggestions:

Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Otis

Thank You for Attending!Questions?• Professional

Development• 1.800.999.855

8• Web:

lyrasis.org•e-mail: russell.palmer@lyrasis.org