Does your library have unique public-domain or copyright-cleared materials you would like to see digitized and accessible online? By outsourcing the digitization to the Internet Archive, your library’s content can be discoverable and accessible not only through the Internet Archive’s site (archive.org) but also through the Theological Commons (commons.ptsem.edu), a free online digital library developed and hosted by Princeton Seminary that provides searching and display for materials on theology and religion from over 150 research libraries. This session will lay out the procedures, costs, and benefits associated with digitization through the Internet Archive, as well as how your content can be incorporated into the Theological Commons through no additional effort on your part. Digital collections that have already been created using this model will be demonstrated and described, with time for questions and discussion.
Director of Digital Initiatives, Princeton Theological Seminary Library
I'm a library administrator and project manager who still codes as much as possible. I enjoy working with a small, agile, cross-functional team using XML, XQuery and XSLT to develop web applications for search and display of digital library collections, including helping build the... Read More →
This session focuses on the use of Amazon's innovative web services (AWS) in libraries. The presentation is framed as an argument that embracing this suite of services from Amazon, increasingly the core of its business, will help librarians understand Amazon to be more of a savior than a threat to academic libraries, as it is often understood. Included are demonstrations of how libraries can leverage the relatively affordable offerings of Amazon Web Services, including S3, Glacier storage, EC2 web servers, to solve the challenges libraries face in the digital age. The argument is based on the experience of the Pitts Theology Library’s implementation of AWS for web development, archival storage, and digital information literacy instruction. The hands-on session will show librarians how AWS can help them not only offload information technology needs, but to drive down costs, increase the flexibility of their digital assets, and foster their on-staff skills of software development.
When the Franciscan School of Theology (FST) relocated the school to Oceanside, CA, the American Academy of Franciscan History (AAFH) and two containers of books that belonged to the organization relocated as well. Over the next two summers the librarian organized and managed an inventory project to weed these 13,000 books. The goal was to catalog and integrate retainable material into the new FST Library. During the inventorying we came across several boxes of extremely rare ephemeral material from South America, originally collected and bound by Antonine Tibesar, long-time director of the AAFH. Ultimately, the librarian and the AAFH agreed that these roughly 600 objects should be preserved digitally and made available to potential users.
This presentation will discuss this digitization project from inventory to access. It will cover the finer points of the inventory process and procedure, the history and condition of the material that was recovered from the containers, how and why we digitized it, how we acquired grant funding for the project, and how we plan to make the digitized collection accessible.
Come and see the new ATLA digital library and hear more about the new digital projects program and what it means for ATLA and its members. This presentation will discuss the rollout of ATLA’s digital library, built on a Hydra/Sufiya platform, as well as outline the structure of the new digital projects program including the membership benefits and services of this new program. The session will include plenty of time for discussion and Q&A.