Register for the Conference

Full Conference Program

Introducing our Keynote Speaker:

K.J. Rawson is the Associate Professor of English and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Co-Director of NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks at Northeastern University. Before coming to Northeastern, he was the Associate Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross, and prior to that a Lecturer in the Division of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky. He earned his Ph.D. in 2010 from Syracuse University in the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric program, then their Master’s degree in 2005 from the University of Colorado, Boulder in English Literature, and his Bachelor's degree in 2003 from Cornell University in English Literature.

K.J. works at the intersections of the Digital Humanities and Rhetoric, LGBTQ+, and Feminist Studies. By focusing on archives as key sites of cultural power, he studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in brick-and-mortar and digital spaces. Rawson is also the founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning collection of trans-related historical materials, and he chairs the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an LGBTQ+ linked data vocabulary.

Dr. Vanessa M. Holden (She/Her) is an associate professor of History and serves as director of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky (UKY). She is also the director of the Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative. Dr. Holden’s book, Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (University of Illinois Press), winner of the 2021 James Broussard Best First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). Her writing has been published in Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, Perspectives on History, Process: A Blog for American History, and The Rumpus. Dr. Dr. Holden serves as a faculty adviser on a number of public history and digital humanities projects including Freedom on the Move and The Digital Access Project (DAP). Follow her on Twitter @drvholden.

Kopana Terry is a preservationist, photographer, musician, producer, oral historian and archivist/librarian. She is the Oral History Archivist for the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and the Curator of Newspapers for the Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program at the University of Kentucky Libraries. From 2007-2013, she managed the National Digital Newspaper Program for Kentucky and she created meta|morphosis: film-to-digital lecture series for global newspaper and microfilm digitization training. In 2023, as NDNP Principal Investigator, UK Libraries was awarded its 5th NEH NDNP grant. Kopana holds a BA in Fine Art [Photography], Master of Library and Information Science [Preservation and Archives], and presently working on her master's degree in Historic Preservation (MHP) with an emphasis on Changes of Place by Natural Disaster in Appalachia.

Jennifer Bartlett has worked in both academic and public libraries for over 20 years in reference services, access services, and management and administration, including the position of interim associate dean for teaching, learning, and research at the University of Kentucky Libraries in Lexington, Kentucky from 2016 to 2020. Currently an oral history librarian at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at UK Libraries, Jennifer is responsible for oral history reference and research requests, workflow, and instruction, and is active in projects involving oral history, knowledge management, and digital humanities. She is the co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Practical Academic Librarianship, and is the editor of Kentucky Libraries, the journal of the Kentucky Library Association. She is also co-editor of Libraries That Learn: Keys to Managing Organizational Knowledge (ALA Editions, 2019), and the author of Knowledge Management: A Practical Guide for Librarians (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Collective Community Action & Fundraising

The building for the Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) is a former synagogue built in the 1950s. At over 70 years old, it has its wear and tear. The front doors were in dire straits, and LA&M needed to raise money fast or they would have to close for safety concerns. Within half a day, LA&M raised over $6,000 dollars from community members across the country, and a local bar and fetish shop matched the remaining $6,000 needed to refurbish the doors. Now LA&M is on its way to more developments, but it could not happen without a rallying community.

Gary Wasdin joined the Leather Archives & Museum in January 2018, bringing with him over thirty years of senior management experience in libraries, nonprofits and the corporate sector. He most recently worked as a Senior Consultant with DJA Consulting, partnering with academic and public libraries on issues such as strategic planning, organizational development and inclusion.

Gary’s work in libraries has focused on making collections and services more accessible. His professional work includes positions at New York Public Library, Omaha (NE) Public Library, King County (WA) Public Library, the University of Alabama, and Wesleyan University.

Gary has served as an adjunct faculty member in the library science programs at Southern Connecticut State University, St. John’s University and Pratt Institute. He holds an MLS and an MA in English from Southern CT State University, and a BA in theater from Augusta (GA) College.

Image used from The Leather Journal 

Digital Commonwealth Repository Systems Update by Eben English

The annual Repository Systems Update provides an overview of new collections and features added to DigitalCommonwealth.org over the past year. This talk will cover usage statistics and technology trends (and analyze what they mean for digital collection development efforts), as well as a review of the previous year's most popular content. It will also feature a behind-the-scenes look at the work of the Boston Public Library's Digital Services team, including major digitization projects and the ongoing development of the open-source digital asset management system supporting access and preservation of vital historical materials.

Educational Fellow Presentation by Lara DeRose

Lara DeRose will be presenting on her fellowship experience with Digital Commonwealth. She will share ideas, techniques, and strategies to engage educators and to develop robust and relevant resources showcasing digitized primary sources.

Lara DeRose is currently in the final stages of her Fellowship with Digital Commonwealth. She has been an educator in Massachusetts public schools for the past twenty years. Her roles include history teacher, curriculum leader, technology trainer, and instructional coach. During her Fellowship she has worked to expand and enhance educator usage of Digital Commonwealth Collections.

Newspaper Digitization: It’s a Hot Topic. Who knew?

Newspaper digitization poses some big questions – from selecting what newspapers to scan to figuring out what standards to follow. And once they are digitized, how do I get them online and connect users to the content? Join our panel presentation including Kerry Huller (Library of Congress), Jake Sadow (Boston Public Library), Kelley Ewing (Library of Virginia), and Stewart Plein (West Virginia University Libraries) to hear how newspaper digitization has been tackled through federal and state partnerships, as well as local endeavors, and find out how we’ve targeted our outreach efforts. 

Kerry Huller has been a Digital Conversion Specialist in the Serial and Government Publications Division at the Library of Congress since 2019, where she works on newspaper digitization projects for the National Digital Newspaper Program, as well as other in-house projects. She joined the Library in 2017 as a technician to assist with digitization projects in various divisions. Previously, Kerry worked on digital library projects at the National Agricultural Library and the University of Maryland, College Park. She holds a BFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology, and worked for several years as a newspaper photographer before making a career shift, and later obtaining a MLS at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Kelley Ewing has worked with the Virginia Newspaper Program (VNP) at the Library of Virginia for over 25 years. Since its creation in 1993 as part of the NEH initiative the United States Newspaper Program, the VNP has worked to locate, inventory, catalog, microfilm, conserve and digitize newspapers published throughout the commonwealth. Along with cataloging the newspaper collections of the largest repositories in the state, Kelley and her colleagues traveled to every city and county in Virginia, visiting libraries, colleges and universities, museums, historical societies, and publishing offices in the pursuit of previously undiscovered newspapers. She holds an MA in History from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Jake Sadow is the Statewide Digitization Program Supervisor for the Boston Public Library. He project manages the Statewide Digitization Program, serving as a liaison between Massachusetts-based cultural heritage institutions and digitization staff at the Boston Public Library. He has worked with over 500 institutions to get their cultural heritage collections online, including libraries, museums, historical societies and universities. He also acts as an educator, raising awareness among library and information professionals of issues in digitization and promoting conversations between institutions to address those issues.

Stewart Plein is the Curator of Rare Books and Printed Resources in the West Virginia & Regional History Center, the special collections unit of West Virginia University. She is also the Director for the West Virginia National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP), a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Library of Congress.  She received her Masters of Library Science from the University of South Carolina, her bachelor’s degree from Emory & Henry College, and certifications in Rare Book Librarianship from the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, and The History of the Book in the Early Modern Period: 1450 to 1800, from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. 

Usability, Findability: Connecting People to Collections

Having a collection is great, but what can we do with it? Collections are meant to be shared with the public, and it can be a challenge to make people engage with them. This panel will highlight examples of how their institutions developed and work with specific collections and process of connecting them to communities.

Joanne Parandjuk heads the Digital Library at Florida Atlantic University Libraries where digital collections are curated from rare and unique Special Collection and University Archive materials. She makes digital collections accessible using FL-Islandora, an open-source platform provided through a shared statewide service of Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC). The FAU Digital Library also collects digitally born content created across campus, manages the University’s electronic theses and dissertations collection, and uses the Open Journal System to publish student and faculty journals. Currently, she is curating the Marvin & Sybil Weiner Spirit of America Collection which is comparable in scope and content to the collections of the American Antiquarian Society and Library Company of Philadelphia. Joanne is interested in information architecture and artificial intelligence as they relate to digital libraries.

Sunghae Ress is the Digital Projects Librarian at Florida Atlantic University, She builds digital collections from Special Collections and University Archives, creates metadata to improve discovery and access. Her areas of specialization include digital curation, digital publishing services, and engaging in collaborative projects to enhance digital library collections and services.

Yale University - Digital Special Collections and Access, a new unit at Yale University Library, has a guiding principle of providing sustainable, ethical, and repeatable access to high-quality digital content. As such, access to digital collections content must be integrated into a broader stewardship model for all digital content in the library’s collections. This level of intentionality is important, as digital collections access is an ongoing commitment, not just a short-term goal. Practical implementations of this stewardship principle include the ongoing development of digital collections access systems to facilitate sourcing collection files from the library’s digital preservation system and metadata from authoritative descriptive systems of record. By moving forward with development through the lens of intentional digital stewardship, Yale University Library can ensure perpetual access to digital collections content. This presentation will outline current efforts and plans to enhance stewardship policy and practice, as a foundation for digital collections access at Yale.

Summer Shetenhelm is the Digital Access Services Librarian at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. She is responsible for managing Yale Library’s Digital Collections System (DCS), including planning and coordinating feature development and supporting users of the system. Her research interests include system sustainability, online access, and equitable labor in GLAMR institutions.

Jonathan Manton is Director of Digital Special Collections and Access, for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, at Yale University. In this role he leads a recently established unit that provides leadership, services and strategic direction that facilitates access to digitized and born digital special collections content across Yale Library. Jonathan’s previous roles include Associate Director for Special Collections at the Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. In this role he oversaw Music Special Collections (including Historical Sound Recordings and Oral History of American Music) at Yale, including arrangement and description, preservation, digitization, access, research services, and exhibits. Before joining Yale, Jonathan was Sound Archives Librarian at Stanford University's Archive of Recorded Sound.

Jonathan serves on the Executive Committee of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) consortium.

Jonathan received his MSc in Information and Library Management from the School of Computing, Engineering, and Information Sciences at the University of Northumbria, UK and MMus in Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Arts from the University of East Anglia, UK.