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Ok, kids. Finally, done. The Peace & War in the 20th Century is finally done - http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca. The site is now official. The site consists of nearly 3000 records, and is divided between two over archiving themes, “Waging Peace” and “Waging War.” The over arching themes are broken down into sub categories, and case studies, covering an expansive wealth of information. Images digitized for the collection include posters, letters, 3-D objects (grenades, metals, etc.), audio, and video. The also invites the user to interact with it, allowing logged in users to comment on records, vote comments left up or down, bookmark records to their account for future reference (the “Bookbag” feature), and share records (like digg) with the Curate It! button. Logged in users can also access the site-wide contact form for questions, concerns, bugs, etc. One last key feature of the entire digital collection (http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca) is OAI2 compliancy. The site was submitted to openarchives, and OAIster this afternoon. Anyone who would like to harvest the site, can do so at: http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca

Screen shots below, and from the site:

Why this website?

“The twentieth century has been a century of war. It began with the Boer War in South Africa and ended with the Gulf War in Kuwait and Iraq. This tragic legacy suggests that citizens of the twenty-first century have a shared responsibility to attempt to understand how and why these conflicts occurred and to discover how peace efforts contributed to the resolution of international conflicts. The work of understanding, conscientiously conducted, must draw on primary sources of many kinds, including oral histories, newspapers, contemporary journals, government documents, regimental histories, and archives. Archival resources provide us with a direct link to the past. We present here a wealth of archival materials for students, researchers, and all who seek a better understanding of the past in order to comprehend and guide the decisions of the future.
We invite you to explore it.”

We’ve added pictures from our Mass Digitization and Publishing Launch to the blog, including pictures of or brand new Kirtas scanner. The event was a huge success, drawing over 100 guests, and press coverage. The Hamilton Spectator Catherine Baird, our Marketing, Communications, and Outreach Librarian and myself about the project. The article can be viewed here: http://thespec.com/article/388938

Ok, the Digital Collectionswebsite is ready for beta testing. Registered users can comment, vote on comments, and tag records - and updated version of the “bookbag*” will be added soon. Collections with content include; Peace and War in the 20th Century, Russell Library, and World War II Concentration Camp Correspondences. At this time, AICT, and Kirtas Book Collection are outlines for content to be added later.

For the technical nerds…The site runs on Drupal, and takes advantage of the CCK Module. Each collection has it’s own content type, allowing it to expose it’s own unique metadata. All of the collections share Dublin Core fields, which combined with a modified version of the OAI2 module, provide OAI2 compliancy. As of the right now, there are approximately 165,000 nodes - with the great majority of those records being an experimental version of BRACERS (more of this some other time).

*the bookbag is a feature that allows registered users to bookmark records

ummmmm, I don’t know how to make a post about the Institutional Repository funny or witty, so I’ll go a little corporate sounding. bleh. I have been updating the repository quite a bit since the beginning of this year. We were apart of the first batch of upgrades from Bepress last month. We added categories and series, for most of the departments on campus so faculty can begin submitting scholarly output. Three additional journals that reside at McMaster are also in the process of being setup on the IR. Global Labor Journal, a completely open access journal that will launch on our IR. Energy Studies Review will follow an access model similar to the Russell Journal, where the current four years are subscription based, and the back catalogue is open access. 18th Century Fiction is in the works, the process of putting the journal in will begin in July. Finally, with the help of colleagues, I formed a Instituional Repository Steering Committee. The committee will:

1. Form a “collection” plan (strategy for getting specific types of materials into the DC (subject/formats ; McMaster faculty output, university archives, explore the possibility of creating a “subject” archive where none currently exists to serve a broad scholarly community http://hsc.unm.edu/library/sc/links.shtml#SUBJECT
2. An infrastructure, whereby scholars can easily contribute materials
3. A communication plan for raising awareness about the IR on campus
4. Regular updates to stakeholders on progress (once/term)

So, we have this robot now, and it loves to ingest books just like Johnny 5. It isn’t quite as spectacular as Johnny 5, but it gets the job done so far. It is the center of a top secret project here at McMaster, code named “otto.” [need input, need more input] Ok, I’ll get a little serious…The machine is a Kirtas 2400RA and can scan up to 2400 pages in an hour. It is powered by two 16.7 Canon DSLRs, uses a vacuum to pick up the pages, and numerous pages sensors to let the operator know if it picked up more than one page, or dropped one. Hence the beeping. More information on the project will be provided later…after the May 26th launch here at Mac. In the mean time, here are some pics that you are more than welcome to salivate over.

I have failed to write/blog about this for quite some time because of shear busyness (<– is that even a word?). But, since mid October of last year I decided to use Drupal as a content management system for McMaster University Library’s digital collections. I elected to go the brave/trail blazing/cheap route, instead of using an out of the box solution like ContentDM. Nothing against ContentDM, but I believe that libraries, especially academic libraries need to be at the forefront of using and incorporating open source software solutions to meet their needs.

With the help of a web designer/programmer (Ryan Barrett) hired for the Peace & War for the 20th Century and other staff members, we have been able to begin to mold Drupal into the beast that it can be. We have taken advantage of the CCK module (and the plethora of compliments to it) to develop individual collections, with their own unique meta data combined with Dublin Core for OAI compliance. In the next week or so, we will move from developing collections in FileMaker Pro, to exclusively Drupal. Soon after students will be able to test the alpha version of the site for research, and submit comments, errors, and bugs to a forum we have setup for them on the installation.

This spring the Peace & War in the 20th Century will launch, powered by Drupal. Authenticated users will have to ability to comment, tag, and contact research staff with any questions.

According to a listserv message I received today, “Wayne State’s Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs has been awarded the 2008 John Sessions Memorial Award for its online resource: ‘No Greater Calling: The Life of Walter P. Reuther, 1907-1970.’” This website was one of the projects I was a part of for the Recruiting and Educating Librarians for the 21st Century, while at Wayne State University. I want to take the time to say thank you for all the hard work by my fellow grant recipients on this project and congratulate them, too: Mignon Camara, Iman Dagher, Anna Fast, Megan Garza, Somaly Kim, Sharon Williams, and Akilah Wood.

John Sessions Memorial Award
A plaque given to a library or library system to honor significant work with the labor community and to recognize the history and contributions of the labor movement toward the development of this country. (Established 1980)

The jury is a committee comprised of three to five RUSA members who have demonstrated interest in or experience with library service to labor groups. Members serve two-year terms. Consecutive terms are not permitted. Nominees will be reviewed in a closed meeting of the committee during Midwinter.