february2012

Director’s Message: New opportunities for collaboration through DPN

TDL Colleagues:

TDL Director Mark McFarland

I was pleased to be able to discuss the TDL Strategic Plan with many of you at our TDL Forum conference call earlier in February, and I hope all of you will take the time to read the plan and listen to the recording of the call (see story on page 2 for details).

As we continue with our implementation of the TDL Strategic Plan, we have a valuable opportunity before us to advance our mission and goals through participation in a new nationwide collaboration focused on digital preservation.

Because of TDL’s previous work in developing a preservation infrastructure, TDL was invited to join the efforts of the Digital Preservation Network (DPN, or Deepen), a coalition of 29 leading digital library organizations that includes the University of Virginia, HathiTrust, and Stanford University Libraries, among others. We put this opportunity before our Executive Committee, who approved our participation in the project, believing that it is a perfect fit with our values and strategic direction.

Since then we have begun active participation with DPN, which is still in the planning stage. The goal of DPN is to create a scalable and sustainable preservation infrastructure that is complementary to existing collection and preservation efforts. DPN proposes to set up “triads” of preservation nodes into which participating members can push content to be preserved in a dark archive, and it will federate existing repository structures to accomplish this.

The DPN launch team is meeting regularly, and TDL will continue to update you on this exciting initiative as it continues to mature. For now, you can find additional information about the DPN project at this link: http://www.dpn.org/.

We are pleased to continue our work in digital preservation alongside DPN, and we look forward to contributing to and benefitting from the effort as we move forward.

Sincerely,

Mark McFarland

TDL Director

Register now for TCDL 2012; Call for Proposals deadline is March 25

Registration is now open for the 2012 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries will be held May 24-25, 2012, at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin, Texas.

The goal of TCDL 2012 is to bring together those working on library-related digital projects — including outreach librarians, repository managers, cataloguers, technical staff, and others — in order to build a practical, usable and sustainable model for digital libraries. Recognizing the importance of collaboration, access, and relationship-building to the success of libraries, the primary theme for this year’s conference is “Connections: Connecting with Our Users through Digital Services.”

An early registration rate for TCDL 2012 is available until April 23.

Early Registration: $75
Late Registration (after April 23): $125
Student Registration: $50

The registration fee includes all main conference events and materials, as well as breakfast on each day of the conference and a reception on the evening of May 24.

Call for Proposals

The conference committee is seeking proposals for presentations and posters for TCDL 2012. The deadline for submissions is March 25.

To register for TCDL 2012 and view the Call for Proposals, or for other information about the conference, please visit the TCDL 2012 website at http://conferences.tdl.org/TCDL/TCDL2012/.

TDL Strategic Plan document, recording available online

image of networked world TDL members and the public are invited to read the TDL Strategic Plan for 2011-2014, which is available on the TDL website at http://main-migrate.tdl.org/strategic-plan.

On February 15, TDL director Mark McFarland hosted the monthly TDL Forum phone call to discuss the main elements of the Plan and to take questions from members.

A recording of that presentation is available online.

Any questions or comments about the Plan can be directed to info@tdl.org.

Next TDL Forum — March 21

The next TDL Forum phone call will be held on Wednesday, March 21 at 10:30 AM.

The Forum provides an opportunity to hear about TDL activities and to ask questions and engage with staff and each other on a regular basis.

Information about joining the call is available on the TDL website at http://main.tdl.org/events/forum/.

Tech Teams Update

The Tech Teams Update highlights the work of the TDL technical staff, which includes software development, systems administration, systems integration and analysis, and technical support staff.

The TDL technical team upgraded all active, TDL-hosted Vireo installations to Vireo 1.2.1.

– The newest version of Vireo primarily fixes an issue with the birth year field in the student submission section; it will handle entry errors in the birth year field more elegantly and allow administrators to edit the field.

– The latest version of Vireo has been released to SourceForge and is available for download.

Software development staff continued work on Vireo 1.8, which will upgrade the version of DSpace underlying Vireo to version 1.8. Additionally, with this iteration, TDL will begin to match the version name for Vireo with the DSpace version it relies on.
In December and January, the TDL technical staff resolved 38 support requests that came through the TDL Helpdesk and other channels. Many of these requests were the result of Vireo testing. Other support tickets included several requests for new TDL services, including a conference website, two new WordPress sites, and several OJS journals.

TDL Training Program announces Spring 2012 schedule

All classes are FREE for members, but registration is required. You can register for the classes below at this link:

March 14, 2012 – Online Conference Management with OCS

Location: Texas A&M University-Kingsville, James C. Jernigan Library, Room 123

March 15,2012 – Creating & Managing Electronic Journals with Open Journal Systems

Location: Texas A&M University-Kingsville, James C. Jernigan Library, Room 123

April 10, 2012 – Intro to DSpace Training

Location: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Library, Room E2.310A

April 11, 2012 – ETD submission and Management with Vireo (Introduction)

Location: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Library, Room E2.310A

For more information about the TDL Training Program please visit the TDL website.

TDL attends the Texas ETD Association Conference in Denton

The 2012 Texas ETD Association Conference was held February 23-24 at the University of North Texas in Denton.

On February 23-24, TDL program coordinator Ryan Steans and web writer Kristi Park attended the annual conference of the Texas ETD Association to present an update on development and usage of the Vireo ETD Submission and Management System.

The conference, held at the University of North Texas in Denton, featured presentations and posters related to university programs to collect and publish electronic theses and dissertations. Topics covered in conference presentations included challenges in publishing and preserving ETDs, copyright issues related to ETDs, and publisher attitudes toward theses and dissertations published openly on the web.

About a dozen institutions were represented at the conference including TDL members Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas State, UT Austin, and Texas Tech.

TDL’s poster presentation provided an update on Vireo development plans, as well as information about schools currently using the software. The poster is viewable on the TDL website.

More information about the conference and the Texas ETD Association can be found on the TxETDA website at http://txetda.wordpress.com/.