The Digital Collections Files

Digital Content & Collections (DCC) relies on content and subject experts to bring us new digital collections. This year, 16 digital collections were created or significantly enhanced. Here you will find links to videos and articles by the subject experts speaking in their own words about the digital collections they were involved in and why they found it so important to engage in this work with us. Thank you to all of the people involved in each of these digital collections!

Like many attempts at revisiting older materials, working with a couple dozen volumes of dental pamphlets started very simply but ended up being an interesting opportunity to explore the challenges of making the diverse range of materials held in libraries accessible to patrons in a digital environment. And while improving metadata may not sound glamorous, having sufficient metadata for users to be able to find what they are looking for is essential for the utility of digital libraries.

What started with a bit of wondering and conversation within our unit of the Library led to my reaching out to Princeton University with a request but no expectations of having that request fulfilled. Individuals at Princeton, however, considered the request and agreed to provide us with the single issue of The American Jewess that we needed to complete the full run of the periodical within our digital collection. Especially in these stressful times, we are delighted to bring you a positive story, one of collaboration and generosity across institutions, while also sharing the now-complete digital collection itself.

The University Library’s digital collections, encompassing more than 300 collections with over a million items, are now discoverable through the library’s Articles discovery tool, powered by Summon. Read on to learn about searching this trove of images and text, and how to add it to your library’s Summon instance.

Over the past fiscal year (July 2018 - June 2019) the Digital Content & Collections (DCC) department has collaborated with stakeholders within libraries, museums, and more, across campus and beyond, to create the following new digital collections, adding to the full list of nearly 300 digital collections found online at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/. Thank you to all of our stakeholders involved in each collection, the Library Copyright Office for their role in every new digital collection, and the many individuals within Library Information Technology who also assisted in the creation of these collections!

This project's intent was to catalog, digitize, and present a selection of bird's-eye prints of American cities held by the Clements Library. The library started collecting bird's-eye views in earnest during the tenure of current director, J. Kevin Graffagnino. Looking for an innovative and unique way to display these views, Corey Schmidt, under the supervision of the Curator of Graphics Material, Clayton Lewis, began working to build an interactive display for these views. Schmidt worked with a mapping system called Leaflet. Leaflet is an open-source, interactive display (JavaScript library) for maps and geographic data. Because the Image Bank already contained the metadata for each view, Schmidt wrote a program that searched through the Image Bank API and retrieved this data, which was then used with Leaflet's map display to create the map found on their online exhibit.

Over the past year, Library Information Technology - specifically Digital Content & Collections, Digital Library Applications, and Design & Discovery - has been collaborating with the Bentley Historical Library to assess and update the interfaces for some of their digital collections. The results have improved usability, allowed us to document lessons learned that can be applied to the new digital platform that we are building for our digital collections, and forged deeper ties with a great ally, the Bentley Historical Library and its staff.

The Digital Content & Collections department begins an ambitious audit/assessment of our 280+ digital collections. This is the second in a blog series about the endeavor, noting how we started with a pilot group of collections to assess and the lessons learned.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Our Next-Gen Digital Collection System is a musical with music and lyrics by...oh no wait, it's the story of two departments within Library Information Technology filling gaps and solving problems with a minimum of outlay to maximal effect. And maybe one or two funny things that happened. On the way.

The Digital Content & Collections department begins an ambitious full audit of our 280+ digital collections. In this first in a blog series about the endeavor, I note why we are doing this, how we surveyed the digital landscape, how we cemented alliances with others who will help us along the way, and where we're heading next.