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Each morning, I make espresso at home. It’s a small joy to make a single, small cup. It is a joy to take a moment and focus on one nice thing, and nothing else. Today and in recent mornings, Robins are moving through, chattering in the trees as they dance about the tree tops. Hearing them sing and watching them fly is another small joy.Read More →

I have a lot of research to do, and so these thoughts are ill-formed. Writing because it is helpful for me to write this out (and to come back to it later) and hoping it might be useful in some other way, too. The Libraries at UF have so many awesome folks, and many are reading Knowledge Justice together. First, the book is great, and everyone should read it. And, the Libraries are great and so lovely to read together. I’m not responding to the book or the reading group; I’m responding to my understanding of this chapter in relation to my work/life experiences andRead More →

With the new bylaws in effect that reflect governance and program activities, dLOC has an organizational chart! The lines are active relations – all groups interact with each other at different times and for different reasons; the lines are not restrictive nor directive. The org chart reflects an active diagram of dLOC’s operations, where Partners are the heart, and are supported by the Host Institutions, Scholarly Advisory Board, Executive Board, and financially supporting members. Also, please note that Partners and Members are similar words, and translation complicates this further. We’ve seen confusion in the past where some Partners have asked if they had to beRead More →

Executive Board / Junta Ejecutiva / Bureau Exécutif The elections have concluded, with unanimous results approving the new bylaws and electing the new Executive Board members! Congratulations to the new Executive Board Members: Orlando Dowart, University of Suriname; Dr. Charles D. Eckman, University of Miami; Dr. Schuyler Esprit, Create Caribbean Research Institute; Dr. Berthamae Walker, University of The Bahamas. Thanks to all of the Board Members for their service! See all: https://dloc.com/UF00093611/00065/pdf/0 ¡Las elecciones han concluido, con resultados unánimes aprobando los nuevos estatutos y eligiendo a los nuevos miembros de la Junta Ejecutiva! Felicitaciones a los nuevos miembros de la Junta Ejecutiva: Orlando Dowart, Universidad deRead More →

The ARL Position Description Bank (PD Bank) now includes over 4,000 position descriptions, at 4,222 to be exact. Importantly, the newest community member is the Research Libraries UK (RLUK), and their institutions have contributed 233 PDs. More About the ARL PD Bank In March 2012, the ARL (Association of Research Libraries) Board of Directors authorized the establishment of the ARL PD (Position Description) Bank. ARL contributed a significant portion of the programming cost for the system, which was developed by a team at the University of Florida (UF) with broad input from other institutions, including over 20 ARL member institutions, via surveys, focus groups, andRead More →

The fabulous Digital Development Team continues to release regular enhancements for all 3 portals (UF Digital Collections, Digital Library of the Caribbean, and the Florida Digital Newspaper Library). With so much new since the start of 2022, I’m trying to keep up with writing on the new stuff here, for my own ease of reference and sharing! For example, the Florida Digital Newspaper Library has the option to browse titles by county: https://newspapers.uflib.ufl.edu/titles Please check it out! And, check out exploring the titles in FDNL, looking through each which display all together and in chronological order, as with the Independent Florida Alligator. It will likelyRead More →

New Items and Updates Updates on the new dLOC interface continue: Usage statistics from prior years is now included: https://dloc.com/stats/usage The RSS feed for new items is also live: https://api.patron.uflib.ufl.edu/rss_dloc Title sets now default sort by date with oldest first: https://dloc.com/title-sets/UF00090030/results For title sets and all of the thumbnail results views, the date now appears under the title, for ease of use with so many serial items. We still have many things in process! For the first part of 2022, we are focusing on improvements to site functionality that users see, as well as improvements to the record/data feeds (OAI-PMH; new sitemaps are in placeRead More →

Work continues on the UF Digital Collections, Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), and Florida DIgital Newspaper Library! Work to support these is now in 4 main areas, from Library Technology (in addition to so many other folks working!): Patron interface Ongoing production support (standard tool needs, loads of batch ingests especially newspapers, etc.) Production tools: looking at creating a new spreadsheet importer to create METS files and add to the system Data workflow pipeline: loads of resaves and corrections to existing METS files, looking holistically at data across the full workflow to ensure coherence, sustainability, and maintainability including record ingest/creation, record flows out, digitalRead More →

The Department of Library and Information Studies (DLIS) was established in 1971 and is the premier regional institution for educating information academics and professionals in the English-Speaking Caribbean. The DLIS is the only academic department with this mandate and contributes to the tradition of excellence and prestige that is The University of the West Indies, which is ranked in the top 1.5% of universities in the world by the Times Higher Education ranking. The Department offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in Information Studies, Librarianship, Archives and Records Management and Computers Science in addition to MPhil and PhD programmes in Information Studies. Participants in this symposiumRead More →

Dr. Alma Jordan has passed. Dr. Jordan was one of the founders of the Association of Caribbean University, Research, and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL), as well as a founder for the national library association in Trinidad and Tobago, long-time librarian at the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies, and library leader all around. ACURIL members created the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), so all who have worked with dLOC have benefitted from Dr. Jordan’s work and vision. The library at The UWI, St. Augustine is the Alma Jordan Library, renamed in her honor in 2010. There’s so much here, from hearingRead More →