Going Beyond Selection

Everyone agrees that subject librarians' major role in the creation of digital libraries is selecting the content. Yet the very skills that ensure their success as selectors also equip them to contribute throughout the creation of the digital library—with multiple benefits for end users.

Subject librarians have deep knowledge of a subject area, know the experts in the field, and are intimately familiar with both their library's collection and related collections. They possess collection assessment skills and have highly developed liaison and negotiation skills. They also understand how information is organized and disseminated and how the end user searches for and retrieves information.

Does this mean that subject librarians should compete with catalogers or technology staff and take on their work? No. Through their particular expertise, subject specialists, metadata experts, and technologists each enriches the outcome—resulting in an improved digital product. In "going beyond selection" the subject specialist brings particular value to the digital life cycle.

Subject specialists often work together. For example, archivists and the history librarian jointly developed a digitized library of images of braceros (Mexican farm laborers), used as an example throughout this article. This digital initiative provided an opportunity to create easy, visual access to an important aspect of Oregon's agricultural history. The 102 bracero photographs depict Mexican farm workers who were brought into the United States from 1942 to 1947.

At the OSU Libraries, our approach to digital initiatives has two goals. One is to highlight the university's main research and teaching strengths by digitizing library and nonlibrary collections that further those efforts. The other goal is to mainstream the creation of digital collections into the work of many librarians. This has helped us integrate subject librarians throughout the process.

Two considerations drive our desire to mainstream the process. One is that we envision digital libraries and collections outstripping growth in other formats—and we want as many staff members as possible to have familiarity with these collections. The second consideration is that our current staffing levels do not allow us to form a team for each separate project.

The principles and processes for building digital libraries parallel those of traditional collecting. A well-defined collection development policy drives selection. Scouting, seeking out materials that match the libraries' collection goals, requires more active identification than subject librarians typically exercise. Because of their liaison relationships with faculty members, researchers, and other professionals, librarians can identify potential resources useful to a broader community. Librarians are also able to recognize similar or related information stores that should be consolidated or linked. This mandate resembles archivists' role in soliciting researchers' collections.

Then the subject librarians must negotiate to determine the ownership, licensing and copyright issues, storage possibilities, and ultimate use of the information. While they might not negotiate the formal agreement, they do lay the groundwork for future discussions.

As with any collection effort, once the librarian identifies the collection, careful assessment of the condition, content, and format take place. The subject librarian screens the collection for material that meets the needs of the audience and determines the scope of what should be digitized.

The subject librarian also surveys the library's holdings for related material and determines if the new information is unique or if it complements, completes, or duplicates existing collections. The braceros photographs, for example, were drawn from several separate OSU archive collections and brought together to create the digital library. The subject librarian might also contact external institutions with related research materials. Partnering, either through combining digitization efforts or cross-linking sites, can result in a richer, more complete library.

While subject librarians are generally not part of the technical process of digitization, they can work with the technical staff to decide what standards need to be applied to replicate the format best. For example, the braceros digitization team based the scanning standards for the photographs and negatives on the California Digital Libraries standards. They created TIFF files from existing prints at 600 dpi and scanned negatives at 800 dpi to ensure comparable display resolution. JPEG files were set to make the images fit a 640 x 480 screen resolution. Subject librarians, metadata specialists, and technical staff should create the information structure to ensure effective storage and meaningful retrieval for the end user.

Subject librarians do not typically participate in description. However, they should assist with identifying existing controlled vocabularies and a thesaurus and test the appropriateness of the terms with subject experts. If no vocabularies are available or specific enough to describe the materials accurately, librarians can mediate between metadata specialists and subject experts to create vocabularies and a thesaurus—often a time-consuming process. The braceros team was able to use the Library of Congress's (LC) Thesaurus for Graphic Materials for basic terminology.

Subject librarians can supply content for use in descriptive records. In the Braceros project, the archival staff developed the records and used descriptive captions, such as "Laborers Ready To Work" or "Stacking Hop Sacks," that had been assigned by OSU Agricultural Extension Service photographers who documented the farm worker program.

OSU is looking at other ways to increase cooperation between subject librarians and catalogers. Our subject librarians now select and describe web sites using M-Web. This open source software tool developed by OSU Libraries provides a means to identify web sites for entry into the online catalog. Basic bibliographic information and a description of the item are entered into the program. M-Web then translates the information into a MARC record that is edited by a cataloger and approved (or not) for addition to the catalog. We are exploring this tool for creating digital library records.

Digital library development offers subject librarians the opportunity to set information in context. This extends beyond compiling annotated bibliographies and resource lists to include working with subject experts to write background information or develop related curriculum guides. The work is similar to that of curators who gather related objects for exhibits, place them in structured relationships to one another, and describe them in text. LC's American Memory site offers an example of the rich contextual environment that can accompany digital libraries. Its learning guides provide instructors with ideas on integrating the content into classes. Ideally, a digital collection should also allow for independent researchers to manipulate the information outside the built context in order to draw their own conclusions.

Figure 1: "Farm Workers at Their Camp," one of 102 photos in Oregon State University Libraries' Braceros, for which subject librarians created context.

Bibliographic records describe the individual photographs. The signature photograph "Farm Workers at Their Camp" (Figure 1, left) includes metadata that fills out the information about the photograph. For example, the descriptive/note field describes the silver gelatin print (Object type) as "Mexican farm workers pose in camp, Hood River."

Creating the look and feel of the public interface is the next big step. Subject librarians lend their knowledge of how users interact with the interface design. They collaborate with the information architect to ensure that the interface makes the best use of the underlying structure for users to locate information efficiently.

For example, CONTENTdm, image management software, was used for the Braceros project. The digital team modified the existing Dublin Core (DC) field tags to suit the photographs better, such as using "Photographer" rather than "Creator."' They then mapped the changed names to the original DC tags, so that the system could be searched using standard DC tags.

Subject librarians can join in conducting usability studies to ensure that the design is logical and accessible for the end user. For example, we created the front page of the Braceros project to include a composite graphic of several of the photographs, with a brief overview of the history and the collection. The left-hand navigation bar allows the user the flexibility to browse the photographs or search all indexed fields.

Building the collection and creating an interface does not ensure access. To create awareness of the collection, subject librarians work with communications staff to promote the digital library. They identify the appropriate library and discipline-related journals, newsletters, discussion groups, and web sites for announcements.

Following the release of the digital library, subject librarians advocate for improvements as suggested by the users and based on their own experience. They should gather and analyze use statistics, along with technical staff, to determine by whom and how the collection is being used. Another ongoing responsibility is updating the material.

What does it take to ensure that subject librarians are effective participants? Support from management in the form of training is critical. It is also important to embrace the opportunity to develop negotiations skills and relationships and to stay informed about subject areas and new technologies. Most significant is the willingness on the part of subject librarians and others involved in digital library initiatives to collaborate and share expertise. The end result—enriched digital libraries for all our users—makes it worthwhile.