Digital Initiatives and Sustainability at Colorado State University Libraries

Dawn PaschalJanet BishopMarch 19, 2009

Part I:Transitioning from Print to Digital and Beyond: a

Revolution in CSU Libraries’ Services

Print vs. Digital ResourcesLibrary Materials Retained in Hard

Copy

•Books•Serials and periodicals•Government documents•Archival materials

▫Papers, letters, correspondence, photographs, corporate records, etc.

•Non-book formats (microforms, videos, CDs)

Print vs. Digital ResourcesLibrary Materials in Digital

Formats

•E-books•E-serials and journals•Full-text scholarly, journal, magazine, and

newspaper articles in databases•Government documents•Video recordings•Locally created digital collections

Traditional Information Management Systems and Links

•Library catalog, Prospector▫Links to e-books, e-serials, full-text in databases,

government documents, web pages

Digital Information Management Systems and Links

•Digital repository▫9,846 digital objects online

Most created in-house

•Archival finding aids▫Link to digital objects in repository

•Web pages▫Link to digital objects in repository

CSU’s Digital Repository

• DigiTool – institutional repository of campus research, scholarship

▫ Research, scholarship, and creative works (published and unpublished) of CSU faculty and students

▫ Digital collections created from the Libraries’ archival holdings to support teaching and research

▫ Select archival materials, generated by CSU entities such colleges and departments, that document the history and intellectual life of CSU

Faculty publications

CSU Journals

Conference Presentations

Electronic dissertation (metadata and thumbnail)

Awarded Undergraduate Research

Items from the University Archives and Special

Collections

Most Important Benefits of a Digital Repository

• Increased impact of faculty and student research through open access and dissemination

• Collect, store, manage, distribute, preserve the intellectual products of the university in one central place

• Provides context to the university’s research• Heightens visibility of faculty, the department, the

institution▫ Recruiting tool▫ Demonstrates what investors are getting for their $$$

• Preserves digital research and assets for long-term access and use

• Provides permanent, stable URLs to digital materials

Impact• Thesis: The Development of the Fort Collins Mormon

Community During the Twentieth Century (Fall 2000)

• Digital version ingested March 2008: 106 downloads as of yesterday!

• 2 print copies went to library stacks in June 2001▫6 checkouts▫2 in-house views▫All within the last 2 years

Carpe Diem

“… digital technologies have opened the door to an additional and broader range of dissemination possibilities and have generated entirely new forms of content that must be shared.”*

• Recommendation: The Libraries and CSU leaders and faculty should discuss including the digital repository as a key element in the university’s research distribution policy/strategy.

*The University’s Role in the Dissemination of Research and Scholarship—A Call to Action: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/disseminating-research-feb09.pdf

What Can We Digitize?

•Materials in the public domain•CSU owns copyright•Copyright owner gives permission• Items free of donor restrictions• Items free of legal, cultural, social, ethical

concerns• Items with releases

▫Oral histories, videos▫Photographs

What Should We Digitize?

•Consider together:▫What is most important?▫What is most useful?▫What is most at-risk?

•Examples:▫University Historic Photograph Collection▫Germans from Russia Collection

Digitization Facts and Figures

• The Libraries has been involved in digital initiatives since 2000; now have almost 10,000 digital objects online

• Average time to scan 1 b&w image with text: 4 min.

• Average time for quality control: 4 min.

• To create and OCR a 100-page B/W PDF: 8 min. if no clean-up required

• Metadata for discovery, retrieval, management: 23 min. per digital object

Digitization Facts and Figures

• Staffing: Activities split between 4 departments▫Faculty – 5 FTE ▫Admin Pros, Classified staff – 4 FTE▫Students - 2 FTE▫Grant funded – 0.5 FTE

• Two committees provide oversight, draft policies, communication, etc.:▫Repositories Matrix Team (7 faculty, 5%)▫Digital Project Management Plan Working Group (4

faculty, 5 staff 5%)

Digital Project Workflow Complexity

• Selection and copyright research• Condition assessment• Metadata planning• Scanning• Metadata Creation• File processing• Ingest files and metadata in digital repository• Web site design as appropriate• Quality control checks

How Do We Sustain and Expand Our Digital Initiatives?

•Staffing issues•No established standards for digital preservation•No standard for how digital repositories should

function•No certifying agency to audit digital repositories• Best we have now: guidelines in Trustworthy

Repositories Audit and Certification: Criteria and Checklist (National Archives and Records Administration and Research Libraries Group)

How Do We Sustain and Expand Our Digital Initiatives?

• Storage costs keep coming down, but:▫About $8,000 per year for a terabyte (1,000 gigabytes)

of storage space to keep archival TIFF files online $8.00 a gigabyte = 6-10 images = ca. 80¢-$1.20 per

image Includes back-up and recovery costs if necessary

(equipment, staff time)▫Other costs: computing power, data center

management, repository itself ($20,000 annually for the latter)

How Do We Sustain and Expand Our Digital Initiatives?

• Ability to preserve material in useable format in perpetuity▫ Changing technologies▫ Migration▫ Emulation

• Preventing file corruption

• What should our policies be?▫ What file formats should we accept?

Part II Local Collections and the Digital

Landscape: Initiatives, Activities, and Issues of Sustainability

Primary Archival Collections @ CSU: Water Resources Archive and Colorado Agricultural

Archive

• Water Resources Archive (WRA)▫ Only one of two named water resources archives in the US.▫ Used by engineers, lawyers, policy makers in the profession—as well as CSU

students and scholars.▫ Examples: Papers of Delph E. Carpenter, Papers of Maurice Albertson, Records

of the CWRRI

• Colorado Agricultural Archive (CAA)▫ Documents the Land Grant mission of CSU as well as the agrarian history of

Colorado. ▫ Tie-ins with the Western Stock Show (Denver), 4-H, Experiment Station, and

agricultural, forestry, and farming organizations throughout region.▫ Examples: Records of the Colorado Cooperative Extension, Records of the Rocky

Mountain Famers Union, Records of the Great Western Sugar Company

Items from the Water Resources Archive: the Papers of Delph E. Carpenter and the Papers of Ralph Parshall

Items from the Colorado Agricultural Archive:The Records of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union

Primary Archival Collections @ CSU: University Archive

• University Archive (UA )—Photographs and Topical Collections/Oral Histories▫ Examples: University Historic Photograph Collection, Records of the Sidney

Heitman Germans from Russia in Colorado Study Project, Senior Scholars Oral History Project (Funded by Provost)

• University Archive (UA)—Departmental Research and Papers▫ Examples: Theses and Dissertations, Papers of Holmes Rolston, Papers of

Theodosia Ammons, Records of the Forestry and Natural Resources College, Records of the Peace Corps (International Programs), Papers of Bernard E. Rollin

• University Archive (UA)—Administrative and Functional Records ▫ Examples: Records of the Office of the President, Records of the State Board of

Agriculture, Records of the Board of Governors, Records of the Alumni Association and Alumni

• Houses more than 2,000 linear ft. of manuscripts, photographs, records and artifacts of CSU—as well as nearly 22,000 volumes of the University’s published materials.

• Preserves the papers and records of CSU in order to support research and scholarship, as well as ensure Institutional Memory.

Images from the University Archive: University Historic Photograph Collection

Primary Special Collections @ CSU• International Poster Collection (International significance; 16,000 posters from

around the world—themes include social awareness, AIDS, peace)

• Garst Wildlife Collection (National significance; Popular with K-12; Garsts have given $25,000 over ten years—endowment has accrued money and is now almost $29K)

• Monfort-Runyan Music Collection (18th and 19th Century rare music books and scores; Mrs. Myra Monfort and Professor Bill Runyan have pledged $200,000 over four years to build the collection)

• Special Collection items have been used in student instruction for classes from the disciplines of history, art, music, education, engineering, and sociology

Collection Use and Patron Statistics2008 v. 2007

Patron statistics show an increase in the following areas:

General Archives Patrons (Moderate Increase)

• Walk-in Visitors: 621 in 2008/565 in 2007• Phone Call Questions: 211 in 2008/183 in 2007• By-Appointment Patrons: 199 in 2008/142 in 2007

Topical Collection Patrons (Extreme Increase)

• Water Resources Archive: 156 in 2008/19 in 2007• Colorado Agricultural Archive: 150 in 2008/64 in 2007• University Publications: 274 in 2008/99 in 2007• Historic Photographs Pulled/Reference Requests: 1,153 in 2008/42 in

2007

On Archives and Archivists…• Archivists work on creating physical and intellectual order for their

collections. • Archivists decide what collections are important to accession according to

institutional mission, activities, and the archival value of the materials.

• Archivists work to preserve materials while, at the same time, work to make items better accessible to patrons.

• Archival materials can be in print or digital format. Any one collection can include a variety of material types.

• An archival collection can range from one file folder to hundreds of boxes of items.

• A good archive is always dynamic, fluid, and grows in a purposeful manner.

Types of Materials in our Local Collections:“Permanent” (Archival)

• Correspondence• Minutes• Institutional Publications• Reports and Self-Studies• Photographs• Diaries, Journals, and Daybooks• Theses and Dissertations • Maps and Blueprints• Films • Artifacts• Scrapbooks• Program Development Files• Speeches• Faculty Papers and Teaching Videos• MSS• Select Policy Decision Files and Policy Statements• Oral Histories• Organizational Charts Many of these types of documents are now

being digitized for our Digital Repository…

“Academic libraries have an opportunity to make their unique collections available to the world in unprecedented ways. In fact, the digitization of unique print collections may emerge as one of the primary missions of academic libraries in the 21st century.”

-Association of College and Research Libraries,“Top Ten Assumptions for the Future of Academic Libraries and Librarians” ACRL Research Committee, 2007

Digital Initiatives with the WRA and CAA• Water Resources Archive (WRA)

▫ Western Waters Digital Library Collaborative NEH Grant, Phase II, $338,844 (Utah, BYU, Washington State, Berkeley Water Center Archives)

▫ CWCB digitization grant, Phase I and II, $20,000 and $25,000

• Colorado Agricultural Archive (CAA)▫ Digitization of Cooperative Extension County Field

Scrapbooks/Reports▫ Ag Experiment Station technical bulletins and reports▫ Great Western Sugar Company, digitization of rare recruitment

film strips and photographs of migrant laborers and sugar beet harvesting techniques

Digital Initiatives with the University Archive Collections

• University Archive (UA )—Photographs and Topical Collections/Oral Histories▫ University Historic Photograph Collection—13,000 items digitized; proposed

Web 2.0 social networking applications to site▫ Germans from Russia—Foundation for some of the strategic outreach initiatives

and proposed digitization projects between Saratov State University, Russia, and CSU (VPSOP)

▫ Senior Scholars Oral History Project—Phase II of project; funded by Provost

• University Archive (UA)—Departmental Research and Papers▫ Theses and Dissertations (ETD Pilot Project)▫ Ag Experiment Station Technical Bulletins and Reports▫ Papers and videos of Temple Grandin▫ CSU Conference Proceedings (Forest Biomass)▫ CSU Centers and Research Institutes (some correspond with traditional print

collections)

• University Archive (UA)—Administrative and Functional Records ▫ Systematic ingest of Board of Governors born-digital minutes, agendas, and

collateral materials into the Digital Repository from 2004

Sustainability Issues: Staffing2009 v. 2008

May 1, 2008Staff=8

• 3 “Project Archivists” (temporary 1.00 FTE Administrative Professional)

• 1 .5 FTE Faculty• 2 1.00 FTE Faculty• 1 .4 FTE State Classified• 1 1.00 FTE State Classified

May 1, 2009Staff=4

• 2 1.00 FTE Faculty• 1 .4 FTE State Classified• 1 1.00 FTE State Classified

Does not include Coordinator, work-study students, or volunteers...

Case Study: University Historic Photograph Collection Patron Requests Demonstrate Intellectual Capital of

Materials

• “Collegian” student reporters and photographers• Professors Janet Ore (History), Gerry Giroy (School of Education), and Jim Banning

(School of Education)• College of Electrical Engineering• Alumni author John Hirn (CSU football photos)• CSU Interior design students• Front Range Community College professor• Los Angeles-based costume designer• Director of Development for “Water Tables” fundraising event• President’s Council• CSU Alumni

Case Study: University Historic Photograph Collection

Patron Requests Demonstrate Intellectual Capital of Materials

• 2008 statistics show 1,153 UHPC photographs pulled for patrons as opposed to 42 the previous year (2007)

This week alone (March 16-20, 2009):• 500 photos have been requested by the College

of Electrical Engineering and Dr. Charles Britton

• We have had 47 ad hoc (on demand) requests for digitization of UHPC items

Sustainability Issues: Processed v. Unprocessed Collections (November 2008 statistics)

• University Archive—135 collections total▫ 14 UA collections are completely processed (10.37%) 

• Colorado Agricultural Archive—44 collections total▫ 21 CAA collections are completely processed (48%)

   • Water Resources Archive—52 collections total

▫ 41 WRA collections are completely processed (79%)

• Manuscript Collection—28 collections total▫ 4 MSS collections are completely processed (14%) 

As noted earlier: A collection can consist of one folder to hundreds of boxes. Example: Cooperative Extension Collection was 329 boxes before processing.

Sustainability Issues : Variables in Processing TimeApproximated Processing Rates per Linear Foot

Variant from Library of Virginia study, Archives and Records Division, late 1980s

• Pre-1900 Personal Papers: 6-8.7 days• Post-1900 Personal Papers: 4.3 days• Pre-1900 Government and Business Records: 3-4 days• Post-1900 Business Records: 1.5 days• Pre-1900 “Mixed” collections (includes photographs): 6.8-7 days• Post-1900 “Mixed” collections: 4 days

Assumptions:• Seasoned archivists processing collections• Collections relatively ordered and not a jumble• Some sense of provenance and identifying features• Archivists focused solely on processing during 6-7 hour day; activities did

not include reference, outreach, or instruction• Does not include preparation of items for digitization—metadata

spreadsheets, condition assessment, etc.

Sustainability Issues: Space• Two locations for Archives and Special Collections:

Morgan Library and the Archives Annex (Lake Street) .

• Morgan Library is the traditional location for materials. Now holds smaller archival collections and Special Collection books and artifacts.

• Up-campus space at Morgan is at storage capacity. There are 14,986 Special Collection volumes housed there, as well as over 1,950 linear feet of archival materials. (2,000 Special Collection volumes are at the Annex.)

• The Archives Annex was opened in February of 2004.

• The Archives Annex has 8,352 linear feet of shelving. 3,404 feet of shelving was available at the end of 2008 (Annex is 59.25% full).

A Related Challenge: Administrative and Departmental Records Management

State of Colorado Records Retention Requirements (Schedule 8)

• Schedule 8 is the official Colorado State Archives Records Retention Schedule for Community Colleges, State Colleges and Universities

• It gives requirements for retention of non-permanent and permanent (archival) records through a list of “timetables”

• It was approved by the Colorado State Attorney General’s office and State Auditor

• It is accessible online at:http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/rm/rmman/sch8.htm

Schedule 8 is designed to…

▫ Give state agencies uniform guidelines for the retention and disposition of records

▫ Ensure each agency retains, for as long as necessary, records needed for legal, administrative, fiscal, research, historical and other requirements

▫ Promote the cost-effective management of records and information (space=money)

▫ Provide the legal standards to dispose of obsolete records and information. (Records Management 101: You don’t want to—and don’t need to—save everything)

▫ Ensure that permanent/archival materials are retained

At Colorado State University we do not yet have a systematic procedure set in place for our departments to follow Schedule 8…

50 Years On: What Will Become of CSU’s Legacy, Institutional Memory,

and Intellectual Capital?• What’s important for our institution in terms of legacy and scholarship?

Where do we want to be in 10, 30, and 50 years? What things do we want others to know and learn about us?

• Is the preservation of CSU’s Institutional Memory and the intellectual capital of CSU’s unique materials an institutional imperative? Is the preservation of these items just “Morgan Library’s responsibility”?

• What is the scholarly potential of uniquely local collections such as our Water Resources Archive, Agricultural Archive, Germans from Russia collection, and Historic Photograph collection? What is the legacy of our faculty research and papers in our University Archive?

• What are our responsibilities regarding Schedule 8 and the systematic retention of non-permanent and permanent University records?