Nicki Saylor

Mentoring: It's a Good Thing: what we learned partying with student librarians

Nicole Saylor et al. — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:20:58 PST

Party hosting is an exercise in preparation and personal finesse. The ambiance and menu must be exciting, the guests lively and engaging. As host, you must set the tone and connect newcomers with those already at the party. No matter how charming or prepared you think you are, once the party starts anything can happen. Uninvited guests can come crashing, Uncle Gene can go heavy on the Riesling and start telling inappropriate jokes, and timid, tired Tina can suck the air right out of the room. But when conditions are right, and host and guests find their flow, the experience is a delight for everyone. Last fall marked the end of a two-year digital librarianship mentor program where the University of Iowa Libraries’ Digital Library Services (DLS) played host to a total of 18 fellows. We’re exhausted but stimulated by the experience, savoring a number of successes and, well, blotting up a few messes. While the students’ experiences were no doubt fascinating with the usual mix of classes, seminars, and project work, our story here describes the party from the host’s point of view – the planning that worked and the unexpected surprises, the effect on staff dynamics, the unimagined strides made in growing a relatively young digital library program, and the impact of the students’ departure forcing us to realign workflows and develop a new plan to sustain and move forward.

Virtual Writing University Archive partnership with the University of Iowa Libraries

James Elmborg et al. — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:20:55 PST

Two sets of panelists, each with a librarian and an LIS faculty member, discussed the process and strategies for collaborating to bridge theory and praxis. The panelists discussed how "researching together" informs their work and will encourage others to engage collaboratively in research and writing efforts. Panelists will discuss their collaborative work and engage directly with attendees to explore the process of collaboration, from conception, through methodology and findings, to communication of results.

Speakers: John M. Budd, Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, University of Missouri; Nicole Saylor, Head of Digital Library Services, University of Iowa Libraries; James Elmborg, Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, University of Iowa; Sheril Hook, Collaborative Curriculum Development Librarian, University of Toronto

The Women of Country Music: A Reader (review)

Nicole Saylor — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 09:30:44 PST

The Folk Music Index, and: Discography of Bluegrass Sound Recordings (review)

Nicole Saylor — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:54:39 PST

The Folk Music Index and the Discography of Bluegrass Sound Recordings are two robust, open-access Web sources for information about traditional music recordings, performers, and record publishers in a field with too-few established digital resources. Unlike other folk and bluegrass Web sites begun by collectors and dealers intent on selling records, these two sites—established by librarians who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to the development of both resources—focus on information discovery. The online version of each resource was launched in 1996. Both databases are currently hosted by ibiblio (http://www.ibiblio.org), an extensive "collection of collections" of open-access information on topics ranging from music and literature to politics and cultural studies. ibiblio is a collaboration between the library science and journalism schools at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.

Community, and: Celestial Monochord: Journal of the Institute for Astrophysics and the Hillbilly Blues, and: The Art of the Rural: Considering Rural Arts and Culture in the Twenty-First Century (review essay)

Nicole Saylor — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:50:37 PST

Scaling Down to Scale Up: Streamlining Production for Mass Digitization Efforts

Greg Prickman et al. — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:15:13 PDT

Departments looking to increase their digitization efforts from start-up project mode to a maturing digital library program may encounter growing pains when it comes to reformatting and metadata production. Librarians from the University of Iowa's Digital Library Services department will facilitate discussion about trade-offs and lessons learned associated with scaling up digital collection work.

This preconference also will feature curators' perspectives on the shift to a more comprehensive scanning treatment of archival collections and how this impacts scholars' experience. Included in this presentation are tips for scaling up production through a collection-based approach, from practical tips on batch cataloging in a spreadsheet to a conceptual reorganization of digital collections to incorporate archival principles of hierarchical description.

Building Digital Libraries: A How- To-Do-It Manual (review)

Nicole Saylor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:15:12 PDT

Building Digital Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual. By Terry Reese Jr. and Kyle Banerjee. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2008. $75.00 softcover (ISBN 978-1-55570-617-3). How-To-Do-It Manuals 153. Building Digital Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual is a departure from other literature dealing with local digital repository building, which has been written primarily with archivists' interests in mind. The aim of Building Digital Libraries is to appeal to the "full range of librarians involved in digital projects: systems librarians, project managers, and students, many of whom will find themselves starting, updating, or maintaining digital collections in years to come" (xiii).

Public Folklore Collections in the Upper Midwest poster

Janet C. Gilmore et al. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:21:49 PDT

Public folklorist have generated a wealth of ethnographic documents since the 1970s through thousands of folk arts and folklife projects. Funded from the commons, they have depended on the “common wealth” of traditional artists and communities, and emphasized, for the common good, subsequent public productions. Digital age techniques afford ways to enhance the public investment in this work and renew common access to these documentary resources. Folklorists in the Upper Midwest have used these tools to identify and locate public folklore collections, and join with colleagues, archivists, and artists to record project histories, catalog materials, and enliven preservation issues.

Social Movement to Public Policy: Digital History in the IDL

Nicole Saylor et al. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:21:48 PDT

The Digital Library Services staff from the University of Iowa Libraries provided a content update of The Iowa Digital Library with special focus on Iowa images of social movements that have helped shape public policy.