11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. 

Morning Session 1: Data-Driven Information Services

Session moderator: Dr. Ingrid Hsieh-Yee
Great Room B
A Data-Driven Workflow Model for Collection Management & Dissemination
Michael Krause and Dan McMahon, Defense Technical Information Center
Bibliometrics, the application of quantitative research and modeling methods to document databases and libraries, offers interesting and potentially fruitful avenues of research. In particular, popularity modeling can serve as a gateway to proactive project management and dissemination policy. In this presentation, we will cover preliminary bibliometric methods aiming to bolster online document dissemination policy at the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). Descriptive, inferential and predictive statistics, as applied to library management, are discussed, and a data-driven workflow for the acquisition, archival and dissemination of new documents and research is presented. The benefits of quantitative structures in library science are accessible, worthwhile and exciting. DTIC’s bibliometric approach to document dissemination could serve as a model for other library science institutions to deploy predictive modeling to better serve their customers.

Sustainable Data Management for the Solar Decathlon
Patricia Cossard, David Mitchell Durden and Michael Molyneaux-Francis, University of Maryland Libraries
University of Maryland Libraries are taking the lead in archiving and curating data sets for the UMD Solar Decathlon Team Maryland (2002, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2017 and Solar Decathlon Europe 2019). A 2017 report from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Insights on Technology Innovation - A Review of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition Entries 2002-2015 (Simon, 2017) found that over time, the technologies developed, demonstrated and perfected for the competition series have become more commonplace in industry. While more than 500 books, thesis, reports and articles have been written about the individual competitions in its sixteen years of existence, to date there has been no systematic archiving of the research, scholarly and creative work created by these competitions. Patricia Cossard and David Durden (DSS) are working with the U.S. Department of Energy (all competition deliverables/documents have recently been transferred from NREL to DOE with no developed maintenance plan), the OECD's International Energy Agency (the Solar Decathlon Knowledge Base (SDKB), and Team Maryland to develop a data management standard and best practices for international dissemination to all teams and agencies, past, present and future.

Knowledge Sharing from Space to Village: The SERVIR Service Catalog
Carlos Quintela and Anthony Panella, Chemonics
SERVIR is a joint initiative of NASA and USAID that helps countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas use satellite data to address critical challenges in food security, natural resources, weather and natural disasters. In 2017 SERVIR adopted a service planning approach, through which comprehensive packages of online applications, access to data and capacity building became the foundation for helping decision makers use geospatial information to improve planning and response to local challenges. As the project’s network of over 100 scientists and development practitioners adopted the new approach, it became clear that the project’s website and knowledge management systems would need to be revised. Over the next year, SERVIR took a critical look at its existing databases and catalogs to assess how they were or were not meeting user needs, and developed a new online platform, the SERVIR Service Catalog, to compile access to all relevant resources in a single location.

SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Description): Cooperative Description and Collaboration for All
Dina Herbert and Jerry Simmons, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
The presenters will introduce SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context), a search platform for discovering descriptions of archives and special collections, within the context of the collections’ creators, derived from archival authority records, traditional archival finding aids and descriptive catalog entries harvested from repositories worldwide. As a path to understanding the relationship between archival and special collections creators through a dataset of millions of creator descriptions, SNAC harnesses the power of Encoded Archival Context-Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) to 1) describe the record creators; 2) describe the creator’s relationships with other records creators; and 3) link the creator descriptions with record descriptions, primarily EAD (Encoded Archival Description) finding aids, regardless of holding repository or physical location, thereby resolving the challenge of “archival diaspora.” The demonstration will examine descriptions of creator entities and archives collections held in the American Catholic History Research Center at CUA, and the data links between them, discovered via SNAC.

Morning Session 2: Information Organization

Session moderator: Dr. Young Choi
Great Room C

Name Authority Records: A Primer for Scholars and Researchers
Ian Fairclough, George Mason University
Name authority work is integral to documenting and properly identifying scholarly activity. Often thought about as merely an aspect of cataloging, name authority records are increasingly of value to researchers. Scholars might consider ORCID, a rival project, to address all research requirements. But ORCID and other projects cannot substitute for proper identification of “who did what” with respect to authorship in a manner that only name authority work can achieve. In recent years the scope of coverage of information documented in name authority records has become increasingly diverse, and details of such data have been parsed out in numerous ways, readying them for use with linked data. Drawing from extensive personal experience, the presenter will demonstrate how communication with scholars via email and consultation of pertinent Internet resources has resulted in improvements for all.

Archiving the Ephemeral: Cataloging the Performing Arts (and Other Performative Things) with FRBR
Regina Carra, Mark Morris Dance Group
Performing arts institutions and artists face a unique challenge when archiving their history. Although archival records can attest to a performance having taken place, these holdings cannot entirely recreate a past performance for the audience or performing artist. This presentation will discuss a FRBR-inspired approach to structuring performing arts digital archives. Using the Mark Morris Dance Group Archives as a case, this presentation will show how this cataloging strategy can combine documentation with institutional, artistic and embodied knowledge to create a more extensive and approachable representation of performing arts history. For information professionals that do not work in the performing arts, this presentation may inspire new ideas for how archivists can represent and expose performative cultural characteristics that are silent or only quietly represented by the media-centered approach to digital archive cataloging and display.

Creating article-level metadata for print-only serials from Africa
Erin Freas-Smith, Library of Congress
The Library of Congress has one of the largest historical collections of African academic print journals in the world. Despite this substantive collection, many academic researchers do not know of the primary source materials contained within these print journals, or they don’t have time to delve into the collection fully. In order to conduct research, they would need to order entire runs of each publication with the hope that an individual issue has the information they seek. In an effort to bring this metadata to light and increase usage of these resources, the Africa Section of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate at the Library of Congress embarked upon a pilot project this past summer to explore the value and practicality of creating article-level metadata for our collection of print-only African journals. This talk will be an overview of the technical process of the pilot project, as well as discussion on the lessons learned and next steps.

Morning Session 3: Innovative Technological Applications

Session moderator: Dr. Sung Un Kim
Conference Rooms 321-323

Learnings from Artificial Intelligence Applied to Digital Preservation
Paul Severn and Juan Romero, LIBNOVA
Artificial intelligence is reshaping many areas of our lives, and library and information sciences are not outside this influence. LIBNOVA is a major world player in digital preservation; its technology is being used in many national and university libraries and archives around the world. Three years ago, LIBNOVA began exploring artificial intelligence and, after their initial findings, received a European Union grant to research further. The presenters will share with the audience some insights about artificial intelligence, neural networks and deep learning technologies, and provide and update on their research results and notes on the disruptive changes that will be triggered as this emerging technology is applied to libraries, archives and knowledge management fields in general.

Affordances and Constraints of Information Technologies in Young People’s Makerspace Activities
Xiaofeng Li, Rutgers University
Within the past few years, makerspaces have increased in popularity in library communities. While libraries investigate expensive technologies such as 3D printers and digital devices, little is known about the affordances and constraints of them in patrons’ makerspace participations. This study gives voice to a group of young people (sixth to eleventh grades) who are active participants in two library makerspaces, with an aim to explore the affordances and constraints of a set of information technologies in young people’s makerspace activities. A total of 21 young people were recruited. Data collection methods included field observations, individual interviews, photovoice and focus groups. Rounds of inductive open coding and focused coding were conducted. Implications for information professionals will also be discussed.

Through Our Users’ Eyes: Usability Testing Tips and Tools
Alyssa Valenti, Raritan Valley Community College
How can you ensure that your website is accessible, has something for everyone, and that all of those people are able to use it? Usability testing! This presentation will share results and lessons learned from a usability testing project at Raritan Valley Community College, which was intended to simplify and de-clutter our library website. I discovered that our users struggled with library jargon, were confused by the organization of some content, and that certain visual elements were meaningless to the users. At the conclusion of the usability testing, the library web design team ranked necessary changes from catastrophic to cosmetic, ranging in enhancements from font, background color and adding explanations about library tools to increasing the presence of our chat widget. I will discuss how I planned the study, conducted the testing and implemented the recommendations for change.