Library Faculty/Staff Scholarship and Research
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/11
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Item Sustainable Data Management for the Solar Decathlon(2019-02-08) Cossard, Patricia Kosco; Durden, David; Molyneaux-Francis, MichaelUniversity of Maryland Libraries are taking the lead in archiving and curating data sets for the UMD Solar Decathlon Team Maryland (2002, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2017 and Solar Decathlon Europe 2019). A 2017 report from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Insights on Technology Innovation - A Review of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition Entries 2002-2015 (Simon, 2017) found that over time, the technologies developed, demonstrated and perfected for the competition series have become more commonplace in industry. While more than 500 books, thesis, reports and articles have been written about the individual competitions in its sixteen years of existence, to date there has been no systematic archiving of the research, scholarly and creative work created by these competitions. Patricia Cossard and David Durden (DSS) are working with the U.S. Department of Energy (all competition deliverables/documents have recently been transferred from NREL to DOE with no developed maintenance plan), the OECD's International Energy Agency (the Solar Decathlon Knowledge Base (SDKB), and Team Maryland to develop a data management standard and best practices for international dissemination to all teams and agencies, past, present and future.Item The Cost of Keeping It: Towards Effective Cost-Modeling for Digital Preservation at the University of Maryland(2018-09) Dohe, Kate; Durden, DavidWith the introduction of tools like the DLF’s Digitization Cost Calculator, forecasting and fundraising for digitization projects can be achieved with transparency and clarity. However, estimating and articulating the considerable long-term expenses of digital preservation lags behind. The surfeit of digital materials entering cultural heritage institutions introduce significant costs that rapidly outstrip the costs of digitization, and these costs are challenging to represent clearly at the outset of a project–either due to obscure technical details, the array of pricing options for storage and preservation systems, and the impossibility of predicting the price of "keeping it forever." In our library, we are in the early stages of developing a cost model for digital preservation systems loosely aligned to the costs of systems and activities within the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation framework. This work is intended to articulate the ongoing costs of desirable and essential digital curation activities to digital project stakeholders, as well as administrators–with the ultimate goal of sustainable funding for responsible digital preservation. Our "Digital Preservation Cost Calculator" has been successfully used to estimate project expenditures in preparation for grant applications and philanthropic financing requests.We are exploring prospective features that can transition this tool from a local budgeting tool to a full-fledged digital preservation application. This paper will introduce our use case and requirements, current development challenges, and propose a prospective roadmap and options for community engagementItem Peer to peer: Using a discussion group to introduce staff and faculty to emerging technologies(2018-05-03) Koivisto, Joseph; Durden, DavidAwareness of new and emerging technologies is vital to the continuing education of library staff and faculty in settings ranging from public libraries to national research libraries. However, the complex nature of new technologies and limitations of prior tech literacy can prove to be a stumbling block for even highly motivated library workers. While the challenges of investigating new technologies may seem insurmountable, the implementation of group-oriented knowledge sharing methodologies can greatly reduce barriers to learning while also creating a constructivist setting in which library workers can learn together. At the University of Maryland Libraries, a staff- and faculty-led discussion group has taken on this challenge by administering monthly sessions where staff, faculty, and students are welcome to join conversations about new and emerging trends in technologies and libraries. By hosting staff specialists and volunteer speakers, sessions present difficult technology topics in a comfortable, open format. Furthermore, tool demonstrations allow attendees to discovery new applications and platforms that may have meaningful impacts on their day-to-day work. This poster presents a brief history of the Emerging Technologies Discussion Group, highlighting the variety of topics presented over the seven years of its existence. Additionally, this poster presents the benefits of such a low-stress, low-barrier group format. Lastly, the poster provides useful tips for those interested in starting a similar group, including topics such as important administrative considerations and suggested formats for discussion- and tool-oriented events.Item A Tale of Two Repositories: How Data Sources Affect Data Narratives(2017-10-12) Durden, David; Koivisto, JosephInstitutional, archival, and cultural heritage collections often rely upon quantitative measures to defend their continued existence and value. For digital repositories, interpreting and collecting user interaction data is a complex process that involves using third-party tools (such as Google Analytics) and local indices to collect and report use statistics. Data from one source, however, does not often corroborate data from another. These discrepancies are presented graphically to demonstrate the often unreliable relationships between sources and narratives.