Fay LSE Digital Library manager given at the ALISS AGM May 2013

1. ALISS AGM
22 May 2013
Ed Fay, Digital Library Manager
e.fay@lse.ac.uk | @digitalfay
Archives in an Online World
Creating LSE Digital Library

2. Archives in an Online World
Digitisation
Webb/Shaw/Beaver (collaborations, user testing)
Visualisation: Women’s Library Timeline
Mobile: PhoneBooth / Women’s Walks
Born-digital collecting
Content sources: official pubs, deposited archives, LSE lectures/website (extending
work of institutional repositories which are well established)
Opportunities offered by websites/blogs/tweets
Archives: organisational vs personal
Forensic workflow
LSE Digital Library
User experience
Beyond our (digital) walls
Planning/Infrastructure
Skills

3. What sort of ‘stuff’?
Digitised—historic collections
• Manuscripts, pamphlets, photographs
• Maps, audio/video recordings
Born-digital—current/future collections
• Research outputs (publications, data, theses)
• Institutional assets (public events, records)
• Web harvesting (tweets, blogs, social media)
• Digital archives (organisational and personal)
• Official publications (governments, IGOs)

5. Beatrice Webb diary

6. Beatrice Webb diary

7. Beatrice Webb diary

8. G.B. Shaw photographic collection

9. G.B. Shaw photographic collection

10. The Women’s Library timeline

11. PhoneBooth
http://phone.booth.lse.ac.uk/
• Charles Booth: systematic investigation of living
and working conditions in London, 1886-1903
– Maps, Descriptive of London Poverty 1898-9
– Police notebooks: eye-witness, street-by-street observations

12. PhoneBooth
http://phone.booth.lse.ac.uk/

13. PhoneBooth
http://phone.booth.lse.ac.uk/

14. Beaver (LSE Student Newspaper)

15. Pamphlets vs Blogs

16. Web harvesting

17. Web harvesting

18. Web harvesting

19. LSE Public Events
• Born-digital recordings from 2006-present
o c.1,400 events, all with audio recordings
o c.400 with video recordings as well
• (Also digitisation of c.1,900 analogue tapes—
VHS, C90, etc.—1980s-2000s)

20. Official publications
• UK parliament, quangos, regulatory bodies
• US/Canadian federal, Commonwealth
• IGOs: UN, EU, IMF, World Trade/Health…
• Parliamentary
papers, debates, legislation, treaties, document
series, official histories, statistics, annual
reports, development plans, policy
documents, research reports
And what about…
• NGOs, campaign groups, public debate…

21. Research outputs
• Publications
• Data

22. Digital archives (legacy media)
Forensic imaging
60 collections (hybrid and digital archives), total size 70GB
14,829 files, average 247 files per collection
USB stick
Power
source
USB connection
to computer

23. Digital archives (legacy media)
Forensic imaging
60 collections (hybrid and digital archives), total size 70GB
14,829 files, average 247 files per collection
USB stick
Power
source
USB connection
to computer

24. Quick pause…

26. UX: mind-map
• Benefits
– Support research/teaching
– Increase use of collections
– Build profile of LSE/Library
• Users
students (UG/PGT/PGR), staff
(academic/research/teaching/support), vis
itors, alumni, external
students, family/local historians, members
of public, commercial users, media, school
teachers, other information
pros, biographers, depositors/donors, pros
pective staff/students, funders, picture
researchers, competitors
• Content, collections
– Knowns (now)
– Unknowns (future)

27. UX: mind-map
• Functional
– Focus on content
– Collate and share
– Quick and advanced search
– Categories for browsing
– Lots of entry points
• Technical
– Preservation
• Operational
– Audience discovery
– Controlled admin burden
• Creative
– Brand, reputation/authority

28. UX: information architecture

29. UX: interaction design

30. UX: visual design
• Mood boards
– Reference material, design examples
– ‘Modern Editorial’, ‘Real-world’, ‘Cutting-edge function’
• Design concept
– Mock-ups of 2-3 homepages
• Review/amends
– Stakeholder interaction

31. Strong branding
Brief welcome
Routes in for
different users
Subtle colour coding
Always-there
quick search
Regularly
updated
collections
showcase
Promotional
features and
content
Latest news

32. Filter and drill
down on the left
Central interface
to the library
Ability to see
different views
Space for further
visualisations in
the future
Focuses the mind
on the data

33. Beyond our walls

34. Beyond our walls: content licensing
Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-SA)
“share, remix, reuse”
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/collections/digital/strategy_policy/content_licensing.aspx

35. Beyond our walls: content licensing
Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-SA)
“share, remix, reuse”
• Attribution
– Maintain link to the authoritative source
• Non-commercial
– Protect our investment in digitisation
– Potential for partnerships, licensing (not a priority)
• Share-alike
– Encourage openness from others

36. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

37. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

38. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

39. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

40. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

41. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

42. Beyond our walls: 3rd party platforms

43. Mission | Strategy
“Build and preserve distinctive collections to support
research and learning, and represent a record of
thought in the social sciences”
“Develop our digital library so that we are able to
acquire, preserve and provide access to digital collections
which match the strength of our print collections”
“…information repository services to support new forms of
scholarly communication and enable the School to
manage, disseminate and preserve these intellectual assets”
LSE Library Vision and Strategy
http://issuu.com/lselibrary/docs/libraryvision_and_strategy

44. Local £
Digital
• Research outputs (publications, data)
• Digitisation
• Public lectures
• Web harvesting (websites, blogs, tweets)
• Archives (institutional, personal)
• Theses
• Official publications
• Journals
• Books
• Newspapers
• Statistics / data
Physical
• Archives (institutional, personal)
• Theses
• Official publications
• Monographs
• Journals
• Pamphlets
• Newspapers
• Statistics
• Microfilm
LSE Library Collections

45. Preservation responsibility
Local £
Digital • LSE Digital Library
• Consortia
• LOCKSS
• Portico
Physical
• Archives Services
• Print Collections
• Print Collections
• Consortium
• UKRR

46. Digital collections
• Increasing volume and diversity
o Text, image, audio/video, Web/social, data
Institutional repository: additions per month Archives: new hybrid or digital additions per year

47. Digital collections
• Increasing volume and diversity
o Text, image, audio/video, Web/social, data
Physical collections: metres added per year

48. Phased implementation of
technical infrastructure, staff skills
Prioritisation

49. Phased implementation of
technical infrastructure, staff skills
Prioritisation

50. LSEDL: roles and responsibilities
Academic Services
• User/depositor liaison
• Collection development
• Info skills training
Archive Services
• User/depositor liaison
• Archival description
Collection Services
• Ingest/preservation
• Resource discovery
• Infrastructure (IT)
Digital Library Team
• Innovation (dev/UX)
• Policy
Senior Management
• Strategy
• Resources

51. LSEDL: roles and responsibilities
Academic Services
• User/depositor liaison
• Collection development
• Info skills training
Archive Services
• User/depositor liaison
• Archival description
Collection Services
• Ingest/preservation
• Resource discovery
• Infrastructure (IT)
Digital Library Team
• Innovation (dev/UX)
• Policy
Senior Management
• Strategy
• Resources
New posts
New skills
New systems

52. Final thoughts
• Digital collections are inevitable.
• Opportunities exist to make historic
collections available in new ways and
to extend or build new collections.
• Ultimately, this is about embedding
digital practices throughout the
Library organisation.

53. Ed Fay, Digital Library Manager
e.fay@lse.ac.uk | @digitalfay
?