MLibrary Lightning Talks 2013

From ml2sig

Past events: MLibrary Lightning Talks 2012, MLibrary Lightning Talks 2011

[edit] 2013 Summer Edition

Tuesday, August 6th

2 PM to 3:30 PM

Bert's Study Lounge

Shapiro Library Lobby

Come and learn about the exciting work that your MLibrary colleagues have been doing in these rapid five-minute presentations. A lightning talk is a brief presentation that quickly informs the audience about a specific topic. In this case, each talk will be just 5 minutes long, and will focus on an area of interest or innovation within the MLibrary community.

Light refreshments will be served.

Topics and presenters:

• Rediscovering the Henry Vignaud Map Collection Through Omeka - Erin Platte (Stephen S. Clark Library) - "In 1923-4 the University of Michigan acquired the personal library of the American diplomat, Henry Vignaud, who lived in Paris during the turn of the 20th century. Vignaud was not only a diplomat but also an avid scholar and author, who compiled an extensive library of materials. Last summer I did an internship with Tim Utter at the Clark library, and the majority of my work was focused on a project to re-discover the provenance of a series of Vignaud’s maps. My project dealt with a group of maps, which were printed in Amsterdam during the 17th century by the famous cartographic families of Hondius and Jansson. Tim and I worked with approximately 200 maps from broken atlases and analysed their physical characteristics and organized them into four distinct groups, “atlases,” based upon their similarities. Our research led us to discover a rare atlas from 1630 and approximately forty maps which appear to be previously unknown and undocumented states."

• There’s No Crying in Cataloging: How We Cataloged 1,700 Screenplays and Lived to Tell About It - Jennifer Talley (Technical Services) - The Donald Hall Collection, Screen Arts and Culture's departmental library, moved into its new space in North Quad in 2011 with over 4,000 unprocessed monographs. The majority of these items were screenplays in manuscript form, many never before cataloged. Few screenplay collections are cataloged down to the item level, but as the Donald Hall Collection was created to support the screenwriting program it was vital to ensure ease of access to every item in the collection. Making this largely unknown collection accessible involved adapting current cataloging practices to fit both the items themselves and the objectives of the department. The Print Cataloging Unit adapted as well in order to effectively manage this challenge, eventually sending catalogers to the material rather than vice versa. Beginning in early 2011 and wrapping up in the summer of 2013, we added nearly 3,500 unique records to Mirlyn representing everything from silent movie title cards to last year’s Hollywood blockbusters, and dramas of the Golden Age of Television to the soapiest of 1980s daytime TV.

• Metadata, Sound, and Images in the Online Exhibit "Translating Homer: from Papyri to Alexander Pope" - Pablo Alvarez (Special Collections Library) - The exhibit was originally on display in the Audubon Room of the Hatcher Library from August 9 to October 7 2012. A version of this exhibit will be available in Omeka, an open source content management system for online digital collections. This talk will briefly describe how Omeka can enhance the viewer's experience by including certain features such as YouTube videos, high-resolution zooming, additional images from other institutions, and comprehensive metadata designed to encourage further research. Finally, this presentation will also illustrate how online exhibits can be a platform for collaboration with faculty and students.

• Michigan Journals and Google Analytics - Rebecca Welzenbach (Michigan Publishing) - Michigan Publishing produces around 25 open access, online journals. For several years, we have been using Google Analytics (GA) to track how our journals are found and used on the web. Within the last year, Michigan Publishing staff have customized our GA to track specific metrics that are particularly meaningful to us as publishers and editors. We're just starting to learn how to use this data effectively, and to help our journal editors do the same. I'll share a bit of what we're doing now with GA, a bit about what we've learned and what questions still remain, and how we hope to make use of this information in the future.

• The characterization of Arabic papers in the UMLibrary's Islamic Manuscripts Collection - Evyn Kropf & Cathleen Baker (Area Programs; Preservation and Conservation) - "Evyn and Cathy have been researching the characteristics of the papers found in a number of Arabic manuscripts to describe them more accurately and to throw more light on aspects of the materials and techniques used in their manufacture. In addition to examining the books, they also arranged to use analytical equipment in the earth science and chemistry departments on campus. A year ago, they presented their initial findings at The Islamic Manuscripts Association's annual meeting and recently their article was published in the Journal of Islamic Manuscripts. In the history of papermaking, the research of Islamic papers is a burgeoning area of research, and their work is proving to be an important contribution.

• A Collaborative Effort: Working with the Asia Library to Better Preserve Their Collections - Ikumi Crocoll (Preservation & Conservation) - I am a current student of the School of Information and a University Library Associate (ULA) of the Special Collections Library and the Department of Preservation & Conservation. One of my current projects as a ULA is working with the Asia Library’s collection to create a report on the current preservation state of its materials and on what further preservation needs should be met if possible. This project highlights the collaborative nature of what Preservation does, as I have had to reach out to various staff from the Asia Library, Facilities, and the Buhr Shelving Facility. Other highlights have included taking measurements of environmental conditions, inspecting insect damage, discovering books that may be from the 17th century in the Buhr Stacks, and learning about the makeup of East Asian books. It is the hope that the report will give the Asia Library practical advice on ways to help their collections survive over time.

INTERMISSION

• Challenges in Implementing E-Books for Interlibrary Loan - Merrie Fuller & Ralph Johnson (MLibrary Document Delivery) - Loaning a book to a patron at another institution is physically and legally simple. Loaning an e-book is much more difficult if not impossible. Systems do not allow it; licenses restrict it. Can you print the e-book and send a hard-copy? This is neither green nor efficient. Can you download the e-book and send it? License limit this like crazy, while current technology makes what we are allowed to do inefficient and requires much staff time and attention. We will demonstrate obstacles with a variety of vendors, and discuss how collection management strategies that rely on interlibrary loan will be impacted by e-books in the future.

• Demystifying 3D Printing - Shawn O'Grady (Digital Media Commons) - The advancement of computer-based design technologies has made the development of complex designs easier for students and educators, but the skills needed to realize it in physical form would be a tremendous distraction from the design process effectively limiting the number of revisions made and even whether certain concepts are considered. 3D Printing (3DP), a low cost form of Additive Manufacturing, works towards reducing the disconnect between digital design and the building of physical prototypes by allowing the student to “print” their 3D object.

• ChemReader Project and faculty-librarian collaboration in research - Ye Li (Research/Science, Engineering and Data) - Collaborating with faculty members on cheminformatics projects such as the ChemReader project poses opportunities for Ye to apply her expertise in both Chemistry and Information Science. The goal of the ChemReader project is to develop an automated system annotating chemical databases by recognizing chemical structure diagrams in research articles and linking the articles to chemical entries in the database. The software tool, ChemReader, has been developed in the labs of Professor Kazuhiro Saitou and Professor Gustavo Rosania. Currently, Ye is collaborating with the two labs to improve the performance of ChemReader with a collection of biomedical research articles and analyze the collection statistically to reveal how chemicals are referred to in biomedical literature. In the lightening talk, Ye will also briefly discuss librarians' unique role in facilitating interdisciplinary and collaborative research on campus.

• A Citation Analysis of the Literature used in Kinesiology - Marija Freeland (User Information and Discovery Services) - Four of us are examining the citations in a number of kinesiology journals as well as the citations in Kinesiology faculty publications to answer questions about the information sources used by researchers in kinesiology. We are looking at the format of items cited, the age, the publishers, where the items were published and other such questions. We also want to find out how these citation patterns differ among the four sections of Kinesiology and whether the citation patterns in the journal articles differ from the citation patterns among the UM Kinesiology faculty.

• “Who’s Doing Portfolios?” : Learning About Our Portfolio Population Through an Annual Census - Carrie Luke (Technology Integration Group) - Attendees will learn how the MPortfolio team developed and disseminated a census to more systematically learn about portfolio work on our campus with the goal of building community, promoting collaboration, and sharing resources. Some aggregate census results and questions will also be shared.