TCDL 2025

TCDL will provide breakfast.

The Check-in and information table is open until 3:30 pm. 

The TDR Steering Committee’s annual meeting is an opportunity for its members to meet in person to determine strategic goals for the coming year and review user and member activity in the repository. This meeting is for TDR Steering Committee members and their institutional colleagues, though guests may be admitted on an ad hoc basis if approved by the committee. Only committee members will vote.

This meeting is closed to the public.

Piloting DSpace Entities for TDL-hosted Repositories
By: Nicholas Woodward & Kristi Park

Since version 7, the DSpace repository platform has featured an “Entities Framework” for creating object types other than simple items, including, for instance, the ability to create Person objects that can be linked to other object types like Publications. In summer 2024, Texas Digital Library staff began working with librarians at UT San Antonio to pilot the implementation of this framework in TDL-hosted DSpace repositories, with the aim of determining a path to migrate existing repository content into the Entities Framework. This lightning talk will present a brief overview of this pilot project, its aims and deliverables, along with our conclusions and next steps for implementing Entities for TDL members.

Making MicroLearning Macro: Building Online Learning Infrastructure at Scale
By: Henna Punjabi

In 2022, Texas State University Libraries received more instruction requests with less librarians to respond. To meet this demand, they reimagined their library instruction to offer digital learning objects for faculty to use in their course sites. For courses that needed specialized instruction, librarians were still available to teach in a flipped-classroom setting, after students completed the digital materials. This allowed students to learn at point of need, and the digital-first instruction alleviated the demand on the instruction librarians. This iteration did not last long; too much customized coding and a lack of reusability with the library website led the instructional designer to rethink the delivery methods entirely. Using digital tools already available, including SpringShare LibGuides, Canvas, and H5P interactives, the instructional designer transformed the content to solve the problems of quality control, brand consistency, and reusability, while better meeting the learning needs of the students. Now, even as the learning objects continue to iterate, there is a sustainable system for future growth. This lightning talk will highlight how to use digital tools creatively to solve problems while maintaining stability and sustainability in the collection.

Visualizing the Artists' Books Collection at Texas Tech University
By: Emily Grover

In 2024, the Texas Tech University Rare Books Department completed a project to create a visual library of approximately 350 artists' books representing the work of twentieth and twenty-first century creatives from around the world. This lightning talk will explore the ways in which this visual database of artists' books enhances the information available in the more traditional online public access catalog. Particularly, I consider the pedagogical value of the digital library in the context of a university course in making artists' books.

Cleaning Days: A Method for Digitization Lab Maintenance
By: Marcia McIntosh, Brianna Guerrero & Christina Kellum

Some of the production of the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Projects digitization lab can be viewed online in the Portal to Texas History and the UNT Digital Library. While the contribution to over two million of items available there is a fine achievement, the daily upkeep -- and the dust-bunnies fought to complete that work -- does not get as much attention. This presentation will feature the cleaning routine implemented for a large lab area that employs many people. It will discuss how Cleaning Days were designed, set up, and allowed every employee to take part in maintaining the space to the benefit of all.

Re-engineering Search in FromThePage
By: Sara Brumfield & Ben Brumfield

Searching archival collections across diverse institutions is challenging. Volunteers, genealogists, and librarians each have unique needs, from locating relevant crowdsourcing projects to tracing ancestral names or finding specific documents via metadata and call numbers. Our collections range from untranscribed scans to fully indexed texts enhanced by OCR and HTR systems, LLMs, or manual efforts.

This webinar will explain how we consolidated five distinct MySQL-backed search functionalities into a single search engine while still respecting organization scope and privacy restrictions.

Highlights include:

Rationale: Insights from user feedback and group meetings that prompted the integration.
Live Demo: Explore the new range of searches, from site-wide project discovery to detailed searches within an organization’s collections.
Challenges: Addressing issues like line-spanning words, markup variations, and multilingual content.
Emerging Issues: Adjusting to a unified search that demands detailed context for each result.
Results and Process: How last summer’s analytics led to surprising insights, user stories, and the development of a new product requirement document.
Future Possibilities: Opportunities for thematic, cross-institutional search portals.

Using Alma/Primo for Digital Collection Discovery and Access
By: Melanie Cofield & Misu Kim

This session focuses on demonstrating various ways academic libraries are leveraging the Alma/Primo Library Services Platform (LSP) to support digital collection discovery and access.

Over the last couple of decades, the go-to solutions for digital collection management and access among TDL members have been open source digital repository platforms and products like Avalon, DSpace, Islandora, and Samvera. A more recent development is the wide adoption of the Alma/Primo LSP among TDL member institutions. This is a product developed and hosted by Ex Libris, and the features within this platform to support digital collection management, discovery, access, and preservation are rapidly expanding.

As Alma/Primo becomes an integral part of our digital collection landscape, it seems timely to discuss how this system’s features complement those of others, share various approaches currently being employed (such as digital collection migrations, metadata harvesting, etc.), and consider possibilities on the near horizon.

TCDL will provide beverage service.

1. An Oral History on Digitizing the UNT Oral History Program Collection
By: Marcia McIntosh & Sarah Lynn Fisher

A not so long time ago, two departments, both alike in dignity, began a collaboration in digitization within fair UNT Libraries. The addition of oral history volumes from the UNT Oral History Program began in 2012 with a few volumes at a time. As of early 2025, the collection contains over two thousand items. The collaborative project ramped up in 2021 with the endeavor to digitize the entire physical collection. This presentation will recount and record the project management workflows, iterations of digitization methods, metadata considerations, and unique access approaches that were implemented by the UNT Digital Projects Lab over the last four years. The benefit of hindsight is rare without a time machine. Relaying some of the diverging paths taken in a long-term digitization efforts may be helpful for planning future digital projects.

LLMs for Transcription and Metadata Creation
By: Willem Borkgren, Hannah Moutran, Katie Pierce Meyer, Josh Conrad, Devon Murphy & Karina Sánchez

Collections of digitized materials are growing faster than metadata can be added; can Large Language Models (LLMs) be one solution for consistent, quality metadata? The AI Metadata Creation Project at the University of Texas at Austin aimed to explore whether LLMs can offer a solution for improving the efficiency of developing metadata for large, digitized collections. Using a collection of digitized architectural publications, the group tested seven different models, using both APIs and web interfaces to test their ability in generating metadata, specifically subject headings, summaries of content, and named entities, as well as efficacy in metadata preparation tasks like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of digitized materials. Our presentation will examine our preliminary findings as well as our testing workflow, so that it can serve as a model for others wishing to evaluate LLMs.

Leveraging expertise in metadata, collections, and technical tools, project members evaluated which tools to apply to the testing, created standardized testing criteria and a grading system, and met frequently to evaluate the results. Members are currently finalizing recommendations via a report, which investigates the efficiency of the LLMs in terms of results, cost, and time.

As this project nears completion, preliminary results suggest several models can sufficiently perform metadata creation tasks, but still lack accuracy in certain aspects such as subject headings and handling offensive language. Responsible, cautious, and targeted implementation of LLMs could greatly improve access to libraries' digital collections.

Many academic libraries employ staff who do not hold an MLIS but contribute significantly to research support, digital scholarship, and collection management. Despite their expertise—often supported by advanced degrees in other disciplines—these professionals often face limited or unclear career advancement opportunities.

This panel will explore the challenges and possibilities for non-librarian staff seeking promotion within library systems. Panelists will share their experiences navigating institutional policies, advocating for recognition, and making decisions about further education. Discussion topics will include the role of advanced degrees, alternative promotion pathways, and strategies for fostering equitable career growth.

By bringing together voices from different institutional contexts, this session will offer insights into how libraries can better support professional development for all staff—regardless of job title.

Designated quiet room. Art supplies will be provided. Food is allowed in the classroom.

Please be considerate of fellow attendees present in the quiet space and keep noise to a minimum. If you have any concerns, please visit the Check-in table.

TCDL will provide beverage service.

Ten years of the Texas Digital Archive: lessons learned and future steps
By: Mark Myers

In 2015 the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) received seven terabytes (TB) of electronic records from the outgoing administration of Texas Governor Rick Perry. This marked the first official transfer of electronic records to TSLAC and was coupled with financial support from the governor’s office to create a digital archive. As of January 1, 2025, the TDA has over 250 TB of data and over 36 million digital objects. This presentation will look back at the lessons learned in the development and implementation of the Texas Digital Archive over the last ten years centering on:

• the issues and challenges of arrangement and description and how we standardized several metadata schemas into a workable solution.
• working to overcome years of not having the resources to accept electronic records and getting agencies to transfer records into the TDA.
• development of internal policies governing metadata, naming and date conventions, transfer methods, and handling electronic media.
• our efforts to make the TDA more visible and more important to our agency, the state, and the people of Texas. Access equals preservation.
• This presentation is being offered as a case study in building and maintaining a sustainable and growing digital archiving solution.

Collaborative Digital Archiving at HBCUs - the HBCU History & Culture Access Consortium
By: Ben Schachter & Rita Reyes

The University Museum at Texas Southern, along with four partner HBCUs, is part of a first of its kind collaboration between HBCUs to digitize the collections of each institution’s respective museum or archive. The HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium, in association with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) and George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media, works to highlight the contributions and importance of HBCUs to American history. A website featuring thousands of digitized items from the universities will go live this August, paired with a large-scale exhibition which will open at NMAAHC in September and then travel across the nation. This presentation, which will feature the University Museum’s project manager and graduate fellow, will showcase the rich collections from Texas Southern University which will be featured in the project, highlight the digitization, metadata, and oral history methodologies utilized, and discuss student participation and growth opportunities. Challenges and opportunities that have arisen during this collaborative, open-source, and public-facing archival project will also be analyzed.

As digital collection projects grow in complexity in cultural heritage institutions, so has the need for library professionals to step into the role of product owners. In the agile framework, a product owner is the liaison between the development team and the product stakeholders. This is often a solitary role requiring leadership, project management, communication, and advocacy. A role that isn’t taught but rather learned through years of experience… or a trial by fire. Is there any way to prepare for it? In this Idea Lab, we will learn from each other’s challenges and successes, create community around a shared experience, and identify creative strategies for helping each other make this solitary role more library-centered.

Texas Digital Library staff, Vireo User Group Steering Committee members, and members of the Vireo development community will be available to Vireo users and people interested in learning more about the system to discuss the outcome of the most recent sprints, timing for TDL Vireo upgrades, Vireo accessibility activities, and provide an opportunity for Vireo users to learn from others.

This informal session is an opportunity to join your fellow digital preservationists for a lunchtime chat about digital preservation accomplishments, challenges and opportunities.

Join the TDL Open Knowledge [Access] Interest Group for an informal Birds of a Feather session on Open Access and other open scholarship topics. Whether you're deeply involved in open initiatives or just curious, this roundtable offers a space to share ideas, discuss challenges, and explore opportunities in the open knowledge ecosystem. No interest group membership required—everyone is welcome!

Wanna talk about imaging and digitization? Come join the discussion about topics and interests with the region and conference community. 

TCDL will provide lunch. If you noted any specific dietary needs when registering for the conference, there is a meal waiting for you; talk to catering staff and they can assist you.

TDL DSpace Users Group

The annual in-person meeting of the TDL DSpace Users Group (DUG) is open to all conference attendees interested in the DSpace open repository platform. This year’s meeting will feature a presentation on using the DSpace Entities framework (building on a lightning talk presented earlier in the conference), as well as updates on upcoming releases of DSpace and open time for discussion.

The TDL DUG works to create an active community among DSpace users that facilitates mutual support for DSpace use and repository management; takes on collective projects for the benefit of the TDL consortium; and connects the TDL user community to the global open source DSpace community.