Congratulations to the 2016 TDL Award recipients!
- Excellence in Digital Libraries Award — LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections and the University of Texas at Austin Libraries (Theresa Polk, Melanie Cofield, Brandon Cornell, Jon Gibson, Jose Gonzalez Roa, and Ethan Persoff)
For their development of a the Latin American Digital Initiatives repository, a post-custodial approach to international archival collaboration with three Central American archives to digitally preserve and provide broad online access to collections that document human rights in the region, particularly from the perspective of race, ethnicity, or social exclusion. Additional staff across Technology Innovation & Strategy; Digital Curation Services; Cataloging and Metadata Services; and LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections contributed essential work in support of this project.
- Innovative Outreach Award – Baylor University Libraries Digital Projects Group (Darryl Stuhr, Eric Ames, Stephen Bolech, and Allyson Riley)
For their success with their approach to social media, managing and curating social media accounts for specific purposes and different audiences. The team uses numerous social media outlets that function together to promote more than 70 publicly accessible collections to disparate and wide-ranging audiences of users. Some examples include: @GWTruettSermons; @BUDailyHistory; Digitized and Randomized (tumblr); Baylor Libraries Digital Collections (Facebook); The BU Libraries Digital Collections Blog; and Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections (flickr).
- Leadership in Digital Libraries Award – Cathy Nelson Hartman, former Associate Dean of Libraries at the University of North Texas
For her tireless work spanning two decades to develop, promote, and preserve digital content both regionally and nationally. Her many accomplishments include: access and preservation of the Texas Register and other important Texas state electronic records; development of The Portal to Texas History, a collaborative effort among Texas libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, and educators to present Texas history materials online; and at the national level, two ground-breaking initiatives, the CyberCemetary and the End-of-Term Presidential web harvests of the .gov domain. As a recognized leader in digital preservation, Ms. Hartman was elected to the board of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and served as Chair of that board in 2013. She has received other awards, including a “Documents to the People Award” by the American Library Association and being named a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the Library of Congress. Ms. Hartman has received numerous grants, contributed to the scholarship of the field with papers, chapters in books, and presentations; and nurtured future digital librarians by hiring many students from UNT’s College of Information. Cathy Nelson Hartman’s exemplary service as a leader and visionary have forever changed the information landscape, and brought positive recognition to the University of North Texas at the state, national, and international level.
- Scholarly Communications Award – Sarah Potvin, Digital Scholarship Librarian at Texas A&M University
For her work as Chair of the Texas Digital Library Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Working Group, leading them in the major revision and publication of the Texas Digital Library Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Although written with Vireo in mind, these guidelines are platform agnostic and applicable for any repository submission and storage system. Consequently, these Guidelines have the potential to direct future TDL and national efforts to enhance the management, discoverability, and reuse of electronic theses and dissertations. Ms. Potvin’s rich metadata expertise, her research and literature review efforts, and her ability to manage the group and process efficiently, transparently, and collaboratively enabled the Working Group to create this much needed revision of ETD metadata guidelines.
- Texas Digital Library Service Award – Santi Thompson, Head of Digital Repository Services at the University of Houston
For his significant work in a variety of activities that have contributed to the growth and success of the Texas Digital Library, including membership in the original TDL Awards Committee, which entailed the development of the award categories, as well as defining the application and award process and then soliciting and reviewing the first award nominations; a leadership role in the previously mentioned revision of the Texas Digital Library Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for Electronic Theses and Dissertations; his role as a member of the TDL Data Management Working Group; and his current role as Chair of the Dataverse Implementation Working Group.
- Trailblazer Award – University of North Texas Libraries’ Portal to Texas History and the San Antonio Central Public Library’s Texana/Genealogy Department (Jake Mangum, University of North Texas and Matt DeWaelsche, San Antonio Public Library)
For their collaborative work in developing the African-American Funeral Program Collection, now available from The Portal to Texas History. The San Antonio Public Library has been collecting African American funeral programs since 2005. Historically, families produced these funeral programs in lieu of published obituaries. Consequently, these funeral programs contain family information that is otherwise lost over time. Since 2012 the 3,779 items that have been digitized have been used 281,926 times, 14,400 of which were in March 2016 alone.