MLA pre-conference • May 8, 2012

DCU Center • Worcester, MA

6^th Digital Commonwealth Annual Conference: Digital Possibilities

9:00-9:15 Welcome by  Kristi Chadwick, Digital Commonwealth President

9:15-10:15 Opening Keynote

Sustainable Digital Programs

Anne Sauer, Director and University Archivist, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University

10:15-10:30 break

10:30-11:30 Breakout sessions

Digital Public Library of America

Maura Marx, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University

Maura is a former member of the Digital Commonwealth Executive Committee and is Executive Director of the Open Knowledge Commons (OKC), a nonprofit organization that works with libraries to help create the broadest possible public access to knowledge. OKC's efforts have been dedicated to bringing the printed materials in libraries online. This year Maura's work is focused on helping to form a national strategy for a public access digital library.

She received a B.A. in German from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in Italian from Middlebury College and an MSLIS from Simmons College.

Getting Started with the Digital Commonwealth

Kristi Chadwick, Director, Emily Williston Library and President, Digital Commonwealth

FY2012 Open Program LSTA Grant Statewide Digitization Services

Tom Blake, Digital Imaging Manager, Boston Public Library
Danny Pucci, Boston Public Library

Digital Preservation for the Masses: using Archivematica and DSpace as solutions for small-sized institutions.

Joe Fisher, Database Management Librarian, UMASS Lowell

Trusted Digital Preservation is a huge challenge for any institution, let alone those that lack technical expertise and infrastructure. Archivematica is an open-source software product designed specifically to provide digital preservation services to the underprivileged. DSpace can also provide a relatively easy and inexpensive solution as well. This session will offer an overview of certification requirements for Trusted Digital Repositories, why it’s important and how it’s achieved, followed by examinations of Archivematica and DSpace, covering installation and administration procedures and how well each fulfills essential digital preservation requirements.      

11:30-12 Vendor exhibits

12:00-12:45 lunch

12:45-1:30 Digital Commonwealth news, updates and new projects

1:45-2:45 Breakout sessions

Boston TV News Digital Library

Karen Cariani, Director WGBH Media Library and Archives

Tom Blake, Digital Imaging Production Manager, Boston Public Library

The Boston Local Television News Project is a collaboration between WGBH, the Boston Public Library, Northeast Historic Film and Cambridge Community Television and aims to bring to life local news stories produced in and about Boston from the early 1960’s to 2000.

Virtual Archives

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Preservation Specialist, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Let's digitize this collection!  It's easy, right?  Wrong! What is involved in

making a decision as to what collections to digitize and what are the steps and

issues that one needs to address to prepare a collection of documents, photographs,

broadsides, ephemera, etc. to be digitized?  This session will provide the

participants with an overview of many of the issues that need to be considered, if

not implemented, to prepare your collections for digitization.

Digital Storytelling

Alexandra Deschamps, Instructional Design/Faculty Support Coordinator, UMASS-Amherst

JC Sawyer, Instructional Design/Faculty Support Coordinator, UMASS-Amherst

Digital stories are short, 3-10 minute videos that incorporate imagery, sound, music, and

spoken word to tell a short narrative. Digital storytelling is popular for telling personal stories they are often compelling and emotionally engaging. Digital stories can also run a spectrum of topics; popular ways to include digital storytelling in the curriculum include assigning students to create instructional videos, reflective pieces, interviews with experts, or narratives collected from a population group of interest.  UMASS-Amherst Department of Academic Support staff will show how to use digital storytelling with faculty, student and library resources

2:45-3:00 break

3:00-4:00 Breakout sessions

Introduction to Metadata

Dodie Gaudet, Consultant

Introduction to creating metadata for digital objects with Dublin Core

Dodie is adjunct faculty for Simmons College GSLIS and a library consultant.  She previously was the consultant for bibliographic and technical services for CMRLS and a cataloger for Donoghue Group.

Grant Projects

Julie Bartlett Nelson, Archivist, Forbes Library, Northampton

Colleen Previte, Archivist, Framingham State University

Becky Plimpton, Director, Joshua Hyde Library

In FY 2011, Digital Commonwealth gave 5 grants to small intuitions with funds provided by  the Wilson Foundation.  See and hear about the projects produced by Framingham State University, Lincoln Public Library, Joshua Hyde Library in Sturbridge, Sturgis Library in Barnstable, and a joint project of the Meekins Library and Williamsburg Historical Society. 

Newspaper Digitization Project

Betsy McKelvey, Digital Collections Librarian, Boston College