NYLA Scholarly Communications Unconference

Recap of the Scholarly Communication Unconference held at NYLA, 11/2/2016

1.    Peter D. Barvoets, SUNY Cobleskill
What I learned in getting almost 100 students to publish their presentations from the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference (SURC 2016)

Main takeaway – sent email permissions 5 days before event, was at conference with laptop to capture presentations as students registered.

2.    Amy Schuler, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Providing research data management training for students
Main takeaway – summer research institute for undergraduates. Teaches data management. Great presentation.

3.    Jeremiah Hall, Bard College
Digital Commons Platform for a Small College IR
Main takeaway – Instructional resources, Oral Histories, Senior Projects

4.    Kim Myers, The College at Brockport
Starting a library publishing program http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/lib_presentations/14/

5.    Pamela McLaughlin, Syracuse University Libraries
Sound Beat: an innovative media publishing initiative at Syracuse University Libraries
Main takeaway – 2 minute sound bites on a variety of subjects, musical and otherwise. Librarians work with one or two classes a semester to produce these. Posted on a Wordpress site, use only clips so it is used as transformative, avoid copyright police.

6.    Alice Carli, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
A digitization project leading to publishing a large number of texts (including musical scores, in our instance) on our digital repository
Main takeaway – Multiyear project to digitize and conserve fragile scores in the SML. Those in public domain made public in the U of R’s IR+, those still in copyright put up with embargos, and made public only to U of R community.

7.    Jiebei Luo, Skidmore College
1. Creating an auto embargo reminder by utilizing Google Gadgets (Google form, Google Spreadsheet, formMule add-on script, Google calendar). 2. Building a live statistic Google site (iFrame, Google)
No takeaway here. Sophisticated use of Google Apps, but what doesn’t make sense is WHY? Why create work outside the IR (Digital Commons), when it is already provided?

Main conference takeaway –The above lightning rounds took place in the morning. The afternoon was devoted to a World Café, where the audience determined the topics. Of all the possible topics to discuss at this unconference, how to start and run an IR, engage with faculty, etc. was what most people wanted to talk about. Brockport is way ahead of the game there.

Links to presentations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5BZ7sQZ7CRUa3RqWWdabllYems

Archival Audio files

I met with Charlie today to ask about digitizing some books from the Archives, and he showed me the audio files he had dating over the last 20 years - oral history of the college. What a great find. There are 55 files, 16 G of data, mostly in .wav format. I would really love to see this collection get put up!

Suggested two different formats to CC -http://repository.uwyo.edu/njat_oralhistories/ from Wyoming Scholars Repository (Not Just a Teacher collection), where they stream the interview. They also have a photo of the teacher, and a transcript of the interview as part of the metadata. The second was the Dory collection from Linfield College: http://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/dory/ where they have the audio file as a download in both MVA and the larger WAV archival formats. This is a slightly more robust collection, with extensive photos, interviews, transcripts, and even some videos. Charlie liked a hybrid approach, as did I, of having a streaming option, combined with being able to download the file, too. I contacted bepress, and they set up a collection on the demo site: http://demo.brockport.bepress.com/archival_test_series/.

Met with Bob today (6/26) to discuss possible format, etc. to put the audio files up in. He suggested conversion to MPG, with the option to play directly from the browser. He also mentioned not putting up the .wav files to be downloaded, unless we wanted others to be able to edit them - we don't right?

I asked whether this would be something we could get a student with a specific skill set to convert, and he suggested the Communications department might teach that skill set, so to check with them. Or apply for grant money to outsource it.