Digital Library Center Blog | UF

The Robert Goldwater Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a resource blog and earlier this week they blogged about the UF Digital Collections and the Between the Beads Exhibit!

Here’s another great title with a correspondingly excellent illustration from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature Digital Collection in UFDC:

The American Historical Association has a recent blog post over the problems caused by the lack of access to certain newspapers during transition from “Paper of Record” to Google’s news archives. The blog post notes:

Regrettably, this proves yet again Roy Rosenzweig’s warning to the profession six years ago about the “the fragility of evidence in the digital era.” While it may be beyond our capacity to adjust copyright laws and the behavior of large corporations (however well meaning), as a profession we can and perhaps should develop new habits for working with digital materials—by copying down information when we see it online, and not becoming overly dependent on any one data source or having illusions about its permanence.

Seeing the problems from the Paper of Record transitioning to Google as a call to “develop new habits for working with digital materials—by copying down information when we see it online, and not becoming overly dependent on any one data source or having illusions about its permanence,” is essentially a call to develop personal copies of existing archives and it’s a poor solution to the larger problem.*

In this particular instance, there are several concerns related to technology, trust, and the public good. For technology, the transition is a normal instance of downtime (which is still normal for any technology related transition, and its normalcy is why so many of the tech folks were amazed at the speed and elegance of the most recent Whitehouse.gov transition that overcame the normal problems). However, technical issues are a parallel to the very real potential for loss if digital records are not supported and the very real problem of lost access if digital records are not supported as a need for the public good. One of the respondents to the blog post notes that perhaps newspapers should be moved into the public domain, which is a concern because copyright is often an obstacle to access, but even papers in the public domain still need financial support to ensure access to them whether in digital or physical form.

Even after covering the initial costs for requesting permissions, digitization, and hosting, new costs emerge. For instance, the University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) has grown by leaps and bounds in the past two years and now has over 664,269 pages of Florida newspapers alone. These newspapers include historic newspapers and current newspapers. The Digital Library Center has successfully requested and received permissions to digitize over 60 current newspapers, newspapers that in many cases were microfilmed and that are now being digitized for online access and longterm preservation (and we’re also slowly digitizing earlier years from the microfilm and will continue to do so until all of the microfilm holdings are digital).

All of the collections in UFDC, including the Florida Digital Newspaper Library, continue to grow and that growth encourages a growth in usage that, in turn, requires UFDC have more resources to support the higher usage rates. In March 2009, UFDC had 618,148 unique hits and that many hits along with the knowledge that the hits are only going to increase means that the UF Libraries have to implement additional programming to ensure the server memory usage can handle the increased load without problems for users. Other digital collections will have similar needs as they grow, and that will require support from users and the public.

Rather than attempting to copy existing resources (which would reduce the resource to a single item photocopy instead of a point within the full context and content of the database), the emphasis should be on building and supporting trusted digital archives to ensure access. The Florida Digital Newspaper Library presents one of many models, housing historic and current newspapers for open online access for all in perpetuity (and it was luck enough to build the digital model from that same model for microfilm, allowing it to utilize the existing support infrastructure that was already available).  Many archives already offer the same promises for access in perpetuity, albeit for physical access to items not yet digital, and those archives will need support to ensure they place the same importance on access and preservation for their digital collections.

Digital collections and archives need support for new and existing digital collections to build and sustain the infrastructure needed to ensure open access in perpetuity. As La Asociación Mexicana de Historia Económica (AMHE) explains in their protest to the lack of access to Mexican newspapers, the newspapers on Paper of Record are essential reference materials for research. The removal of access–even if only a delay for technical reasons–does harm. The public needs to have trust in their archival institutions, and ensuring access to physical and digital archives is a necessity to build and maintain that trust.

*{Copying single items or even attempting to copy masses of materials without infrastructure is still like photocopying. The materials would not be structured (or minimally so) and would not benefit from organization and identification. If a physical archive was in danger and photocopying was the only option, then photocopying the resource makes sense. This is not to say that photocopying is a bad solution in all cases–researches regularly photocopy materials from archives and those photocopies are then copied and shared and, in some cases, those are the only available copies for access. Photocopying is a poor solution to the overall problem, but for researchers who need access to the materials right now and who cannot wait for a new trusted archive to built over years of advocacy and funding, photocopying style solutions are wise temporary options. Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine maintains copies of many web sites and pages for just this reason.}

The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) has a lesson plan competition to develop lesson plans and educational resources that connect the wonderful primary resources in dLOC directly to classrooms.

Submissions for the lesson plan competition are due April 20, so there’s still time to get submissions in!

Full details are on the dLOC website, but some additional information is below for convenience.

Teaching US and World History with Caribbean Primary Resources: A Lesson Plan Competition

Spring, 2009

Join us in our mission to promote Caribbean studies in K-12 education. The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is working with diverse partners to provide free, online access to Caribbean documents. Now we would like to develop an open access repository of ready to use lesson plans to help busy teachers incorporate these resources into the classroom.

Eligibility:

This competition is open to university, public and private school teachers, home school educators, and university students pursuing degrees in Education.

How to participate:

1. Review the dLOC collections at www.dloc.com in search of connections between the materials and your curriculum.
2. Review the submission guidelines and prepare a lesson plan for the competition
3. Test the lesson in a classroom
4. Complete the Competition Write-up and submit by April 20, 2009
5. Applications will be reviewed and award recipients notified by May 18, 2009

Awards:

1. Two (2) First Prizes of $1000 each

2. Four (4) Second Prizes of $500 each

3. Five (5) Third Prizes of $200 each

4. Unspecified number of Honorable Mentions (no award)

Details:

The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is building a cooperative open access, online resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean to provide scholars, students, and citizens around the world with access to Caribbean cultural, historical and scientific materials. The Caribbean comprises a diverse mix of cultures, histories and peoples, and developing innovative approaches to teach students about the interactions between the Caribbean and the United States will encourage greater understanding of the interconnected nature of the world and its history.

To promote the development, sharing and application of lesson plans that will facilitate the use of these newly accessible resources in K-12 education, dLOC is offering an opportunity for University, public and private school teachers, university students pursuing degrees in Education, and home school educators to submit lesson plans based on material(s) found at the project’s website (www.dloc.com). The lessons should engage students in a meaningful examination of the resource and link the resource(s) with its historical context (see the rules for more information). We will accept lesson plans in the three current languages in dLOC: English, French and Spanish.

A team of qualified reviewers will judge the lesson plans, and will award:

Two (2) First Prizes of $1000 each

Four (4) Second Prizes of $500 each

Five (5) Third Prizes of $200 each

Unspecified number of Honorable Mentions (no monetary award)

The lesson plans that receive recognition from our judging panel will be made available on dLOC’s website with full credit of authorship given to the teacher and recognition of his/her school.

All applications must be sent electronically to dloc@fiu.edu before April 20, 2009 to be considered for this competition. We welcome lesson plan submissions after the deadline for possible inclusion in the Teacher Resources section of the project website. Award recipients will be notified via email by May 18, 2009 .

Contest Rules:

I. Participation – We welcome lesson plan submissions from any subject area incorporating content from dLOC from University, public and private school teachers, university students pursuing degrees in Education, and home school educators.

II. Deadline — All submissions must be submitted electronically and received by March 16, 2009 for consideration.

III. Content – The lesson plan should focus on one or more of the resources available through dLOC and provide activities that facilitate the critical examination of the resource while placing the lesson in its Caribbean, United States, and World (if appropriate) historical context.

IV. Submission Guidelines:

Please label each section with the number and titles below. Submit the lesson plans in 12 point Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri fonts, single spaced, in either MS Word or pdf format. Please sign, scan and send with your application the Certification statement. If you have questions or concerns, contact the project coordinator at dloc@fiu.edu.

1. Cover Page — home and school contact information, including home address and phone number, and school name, address and phone number, and particpant’s email address.

2. Title and Overview – Provide a brief (100 word) summary of the lesson plan.

3. Lesson Goals and Objectives – 10 points

Identify the concepts and/or skills addressed in the lesson. Reference the National and/or State Standards that the lesson meets (please clearly identify the source of the standard).

4. Historical Background – 10 points

Provide a brief summary (500 – 1500 words) of the historical background related to the lesson. Place this summary in the context of the Caribbean, the United States and the World.

5. Target Audience – 10 points

List the grade levels and subject areas that are appropriate for the lesson.

6. Required Materials – 10 points

Include the references for the dLOC resources (at least one) as well as any other materials required to complete the lesson.

7. Teaching Activities – 30 points

Outline the activities and the time required so that the lesson can be easily implemented by another teacher.

8. Grading Assessments – 10 points

Address at least one strategy for assessing the student’s learning that results from this lesson.

9. Measured Impact of Lesson Plan– 10 points

Include a one page report that addresses your (or another teacher’s) experience implementing the lesson in the classroom.

UFDC continues to make improvements and UFDC now supports in-page PDF views. While UFDC has always supported PDFs as downloads, but the new PDF in page display follows our project goals of housing as much data as possible in as many ways as possible provided they meet user needs and can be added/extended without increasing difficulty in adding other enhancements.

UFDC’s new embedded PDF view can be seen with this item and any of the 26,000 PDFs already online in UFDC.

The goal is for all items in UFDC and for all of UFDC to be modular and sliceable– to see everything in as many ways, usable formats, and recombinations possible–and this is one more step (along with a few others) to take us closer to that goal.

The Library of Congress has announced that they’re now loading videos to YouTube. They’ve already loaded a ton of videos and they plan to load many more, seeing YouTube as a parallel to their successful and ongoing Flickr project. Check out their wonderful and ever-increasing number of videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress.

Everyone benefits from greater access and greater opportunities for serendipity. Imagine all the people who will be browsing or searching YouTube for one video and finding others from the Library of Congress! This is a great learning, teaching, and sharing opportunity and that’s also why the UF Libraries also have YouTube and Flickr accounts. Even as a drastically smaller contributor, it’s nice to be participating in the same wonderful process with the massive and monumental Library of Congress.

Thanks go to the Library of Congress for working so diligently to preserve and make materials accessible. Also, thanks go to the Library of Congress for further validating the use of “fun” technologies/services like YouTube and Flickr for real work and as part of the work of libraries everywhere that work to make information, learning, thinking, and the entire process of inquiry fun!