1. First Contact: Establishing the USC Digital Library
Catherine Quinlan, Dean of the USC Libraries Hugh McHarg, Executive Director, Communications and Public Programming

2. Outline The USC environment The Essential Library
Mission and vision
The USC Digital Library
Philosophy, infrastructure, practice
A look into the USC Digital Library
Basel Mission Image Archive, mashups, and outreach

3. The USC Environment Academic units Student profile
College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
Graduate School
17 professional schools
Student profile
Undergraduate: 16,500
Graduate and professional: 17,000
International students: 5,900—most of any U.S. university
Faculty and staff profile
Full-time faculty: 3,200
Staff (50% time or more): 8,500

4. Examples of Major Research Centers and Institutes
Center on Public Diplomacy
Center for Religion and Civic Culture
East Asian Studies Center
Institute for Multimedia Literacy
Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
U.S.-China Institute

5. The USC Libraries 22 libraries and information centers
200 faculty and staff members
250 student worker FTEs
4 million volumes
103,275 serial titles (print and electronic)
316,000 electronic books
3,192,538 visual items

6. Collections Highlights
California and history of the American West
Cinematic and performing arts
East Asian studies
Iberian and Latin American studies
Natural history
Philosophy

7. The Essential Library

8. The USC Libraries’ Vision
The USC Libraries will be an innovative, inspiring, and integral partner in the scholarly achievements of USC faculty, students, and staff.
In so doing, we actively contribute to the development of knowledge and the advancement of society.

9. The USC Libraries’ Vision (cont’d)
We will build:
A dynamic intellectual and physical environment that will attract and retain top-tier students, faculty, and staff and encourage the creativity necessary to support the global ambitions of USC.

10. The USC Libraries’ Vision (cont’d)
We will build:
Vital partnerships, through which we will develop interdisciplinary collections that support faculty teaching and research, student learning, and the cultivation of critical-thinking abilities.

11. The USC Libraries’ Vision (cont’d)
We will build:
An agile, progressive culture of ubiquitous service that connects our users with relevant information.

12. The USC Libraries’ Vision (cont’d)
We will build:
An appreciation of the value of past knowledge, in all its forms, and its role in informing the scholarship of the future.

13. The USC Libraries’ Mission
The USC Libraries actively support the discovery, creation, and preservation of knowledge. We develop collections and services that support and encourage the academic endeavors of faculty, students, and staff; build a community of critical consumers of information; and help develop engaged world citizens.

14. Imperatives and Objectives
Collections imperative
To ensure ready access to existing resources and to develop focused collections that support effective learning, exceptional teaching, and innovative research at USC.
Digitization objective
Review digitization activities and develop a plan for future growth.

15. Task Force Findings Digital projects and services in silos
The Digital Archive
USC Institutional Repository
AIMS—Archiving, Indexing, and Metadata Services
Discrete faculty-driven projects; result of actively seeking to engage

16. Task Force Findings
Needed a deeper relationship with collection development, including:
Formal mechanism for review
More subject librarian participation
Unified framework for green-lighting projects—collections, technology, funds, faculty advocates

17. Task Force Findings Persistent questions among our users
What is the approval process for digital projects?
What are the libraries’ responsibilities? What are my responsibilities as a content owner?
Will you build—and maintain—a custom interface?
When I donate a collection, is it automatically digitized?

18. The USC Digital Library

19. Digitization Philosophy
A program of digitization, rather than a digital archive
Digitized collections must be accessible through our primary catalog
Project decisions must be transparent and communicated to partners and within the libraries
Focus on accessibility and sustainability vs. customization, however…

20. Digitization Infrastructure
Technical
…build so that assets are retrievable from secondary interfaces
Currently using Documentum
Organizational
Formal Digital Library unit and with a director
Reports to the associate dean for collections

21. Digitization Practices
Digital Library Selection Advisory Committee
Technical expertise
Subject knowledge
Metadata specialists
Established selection criteria
Relevant to educational and research mission of USC
Legal right to provide online access
Inventory and metadata available
Feasible with existing or potentially obtainable resources
Status and documentation published online

22. State of the USC Digital Library
2007 Digital Archive
Records: 125,307
Assets: 155,897
2009 Digital Library
Records: 200,500
Assets: 255,935
17 New Collections, Including:
Basel Mission images
Los Angeles Examiner
Russian satirical journals
Sea of Korea maps

23. A Look into the USC Digital Library
Basel Mission Image Archive Distributed Content Contribution Mashups, Outreach, and Community

24. 1. USC Digital Library
digitallibrary.usc.edu

25. 2. Basel Mission Photos

26. 3. Basel Mission Photos

27. 4. Distributed Content Capture

28. 5. Distributed Content Capture

29. 7. Alternate Interface

30. 8. Visual Interpreter by Rahul Mehrotra, Sharada Dwivedi

31. 9. Visual Interpreter by Emmanuel Akyeampong

32. 10. Russian Satirical Journals

33. 11. Russian Satirical Journals

34. 12. Russian Satirical Journals

35. 13. Google Map Interface

36. 14. Google-Flickr Mashup

37. 15. Twitter Outreach

38. 16. Media Resource

39. 17. Media Resource

40. 18. Print Exhibitions

41. Special Thanks Matt Gainer Director, USC Digital Library Chris Mendez
Web Applications Developer
Joyce Ouchida
Senior Web Developer
Wayne Shoaf
Head, Technical Services
Tim Stanton
Project Manager
Jon Vidar
Multimedia Services Developer

42. Questions