Kenning Arlitsch, Assoc. Director for IT Services at the University of Utah's Marriott Library, who oversees many large CONTENTdm collections, will discuss results of a survey designed to discern the perceptions and preferences of future library leaders related to organizational cultures in these times of precipitous change. Many of those surveyed perceive a gap between their current and preferred organizational cultures. Kenning will address these perceptions and how they impact collections and digital projects.

Participants will learn about the file structure and naming that is required for load wizards in the Project Client. In the hands-on practice session, you will edit compound objects to experience the creation and upload process. The OCR extension will be demonstrated and discussed as well.

Up until recently, the interface for the CDC included minimal customizations and relied on out-of-the-box navigation. CARLI and the CARLI Digital Collections Users’ Group determined in 2009 that the CDC interface should be more fully customized to showcase and improve access to and discovery of the collections’ unique content. To that end, a consultant was hired to work with CARLI staff to apply sustainable customizations to the CONTENTdm web templates. The redesign focused on applying the consortium’s local style guidelines while incorporating unique design elements that would meet the functional needs of member libraries and collection users.

Customization project team members will present on the collaborative interface redesign process, with specific focus on how the consortium succeeded in incorporating consistent layout and navigation across individually branded collections without overburdening CARLI staff with custom elements that would require excessive, on-going maintenance to support.

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.

After providing background information on EAD, the presentation would explain the process for creating finding aids in CONTENTdm, illustrated with examples from Marquette’s unpublished test collection. Along the way, the positives and negatives of using CONTENTdm will be highlighted. Although the Marquette Archives has chosen not to pursue CONTENTdm at this time for publishing EAD finding aids, it may revisit the decision in the future. Other repositories certainly could deem CONTENTdm a suitable platform at the present time.