Webinar for the Mountain West Digital Library on how to turn your digital collections into datasets for digital humanities research. Includes a case study of the University of Utah Marriott Library and four digital collections we made available as datasets.

1. Collections as Data
Rebekah Cummings, Digital Matters Librarian
J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah
MWDL Webinar Series
November 12, 2019
CC BY SA

2. Rebekah Cummings,
Digital Matters
Librarian,
University of Utah

3. Acknowledgements
Thomas Padilla, UNLV Mia Ridge, British Library

4. CaD Team at the U

5. Collections as Data
• What is Collections as Data?
• Background and considerations of Collections
as Data
• Marriott Library Collections as Data pilot
• Moving towards a Collections as Data model
• Resources and training opportunities
• Questions and discussion

6. Physical Objects Digitized Collections
Data

8. Humanities Data

9. Metadata is data too!

10. collections as data
… ordered information
… stored digitally
… amenable to computation
From Thomas Padilla’s HILT lecture shared CC BY S

11. Pre-“collections as data”
collections as data

12. Always Already
Computational
2016-2018

13. Always Already
Computational
Deliverables
• Final Report
• Santa Barbara Statement on Collections as
Data
• Facets
• Personas
• 50 things

14. Collections as Data:
Part to Whole
2018 - 2021
Thank
you,
Twitter.

15. Two highlights from Cohort1
Weeksville Heritage Center
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill
On the Books: Jim Crow and
Algorithms of Resistance
Linking Lost Jazz Shrine

16. Marriott
Library

17. Pilot Project #1:
Text Mining Mining
Texts
Carbon County Oral Histories
Uranium Oral Histories
Cooley Oral Histories
Hispanic Oral Histories
Interviews with African Americans in Utah
Saving the Legacy Oral Histories
Image courtesy of Marriott Library

19. Pilot Project #2: Harold
Stanley Sanders Matchbook
Collection
A Screenshot of Google Sheets Add-on,
Geocode Cells.
Image courtesy of Marriott Library

21. Pilot Project #3: Kennecott
Mining Records
Employment card for Richard Almond, 1917
Image courtesy of Marriott Library

22. Pilot Project #4:
Woman’s Exponent

23. Woman’s Exponent Omeka Site

24. Marriott Library Collections as
Data GitHub

25. Moving towards a Collections
as Data model
1.Read “50 Things” and other AAC and CADPTW documentation.
2.Create a team.
3.Identify digital library collections that lend themselves to
computation.
4.Consider what methods could be applied to that data.
5.Make data available for bulk download.
6.Partner with disciplinary scholars.
7.Move from pilot to core organizational activity.

26. Challenges
1. What data and for whom?
2. Just in time or just in case?
3. More product less process?
4. Incorporating with current systems,
workflows, and staffing
5.Ugh… promotion

27. Resources and
Training
Opportunities
• Collections as Data: Part to Whole
• Always Already Computational
• Marriott Library Collections as Data
GitHub
• Woman’s Exponent Omeka Site
• HILT 2020

28. Wittmann, Rachel, Rebekah Cummings,
Anna Neatrour, and Jeremy Myntti. “From
Digital Library to Open Datasets:
Embracing a Collections as Data
Framework.” Information Technology and
Libraries, 2019.
Coming this December

29. Questions?
Discussion!
• Questions?
• Have you thought about / incorporated
Collections as Data at your institution?
• What are you excited about? What
gives you hesitation?

30. Thank you!
Rebekah Cummings
@RebekahCummings
rebekah.cummings@utah.edu