I. Collections, Services, and Systems

A. Collections

1. General

   UT Library Online (UTLOL) Use Statistics
   UTLOL is averaging 300,000 hits per day or 1.75 million hits per week. This has translated to over 8.5 million hits per month, with a recent high of 9,625,118 hits in March 2000.

   Licensing
   Since July 1999, DLSD negotiated or is in the process of negotiating 34 licenses for UT Austin and 27 for the UT System.

   
   

2. Digital Surrogate Collections

   Robert Runyon Photograph Collection of the South Texas Border Area
   The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection of the South Texas Border Area, a collection of 8,241 items, is a unique visual resource documenting the Lower Rio Grande valley during the early 1900s. Donated by the Runyon family to the University of Texas at Austin Center for American History in 1986, it includes glass negatives, lantern slides, nitrate negatives, prints, and postcards, representing the life's work of commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. Runyon's photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande valley. This project, completed in 1998, was accomplished under the auspices of a LC-Ameritech award.
   http://runyon.lib.utexas.edu/

   Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
   The PCL Map Collection, an ongoing digitization project that commenced in 1992, includes digital surrogates of thousands of maps from around the world. The General Libraries received a grant in 1998 from TexShare to digitize oversize maps of Texas counties produced by the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT). Use statistics for Texas Department of Transportation Maps. TXDOT maps receive 5,888 hits per day on average. PCL map collection:
   http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html

   Photographs from the David Reichard Williams Collection
   This collection consists of 1,074 photos taken in the 1920's of Texas vernacular architecture. David R. Williams is known as the "father of the ranch house"; and, along O'Neill Ford, he was one of the fathers of the study of Texas architecture. The collection has been digitized; metadata preparation is presently underway.

   Mission Drawings
   The 240 architectural drawings digitized document restoration work on the 18th century missions located in San Antonio and Goliad, Texas and Tamalpais, Mexico. The drawings derive from a number of Alexander Archive collections. The collection has been digitized; metadata preparation is presently underway.

   Southwestern Historical Quarterly
   In collaboration with the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), DLSD will provide an electronic version of approximately seventeen volumes (the first seventeen years) of The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. The Quarterly, published by the TSHA in cooperation with the University of Texas at Austin Center for Studies in Texas History, has been published four times annually since the late nineteenth century. The conversion process will involve the keying of all associated journal text, digital imaging of non-text material, and the marking up in TEI-Lite of the keyed data. Conversion will commence in October 2000.

   Photographs from the George Isadore Sánchez Papers
   Four hundred seventy-three photographs from the George Isadore Sánchez collection have been digitized, described, and will be available on the Internet in late fall 2000. Throughout his life, Sanchez was involved in the fight for equal educational opportunities for Mexican-American children through various organizations and the courts. Taken between 1934 and 1946, the bulk of the photographs chosen for inclusion in this project accompany a research study, conducted by Sanchez during his tenure at the Univerisity of Texas, concerning the segregation of Mexican-American and Anglo children in the public school systems of several towns in Texas. In particular, the photographs document the inferior conditions of the buildings, furnishings, drinking, sanitary, and other physical facilities of Mexican-American schools as they compare to the Anglo schools in the same town. Also included are photographs depicting migrant labor camp scenes, as well as a photographic scrapbook of rural Mexican-American schools in New Mexico.

   Third Geological Survey of Texas
   The General Libraries recently received a grant from TexShare to digitize and make available on the Internet the Third Geological Survey of Texas, known as the "Dumble Survey," after its leader, Edwin T. Dumble. The Dumble Survey is the first codified record of the geology of Texas, and many of their fundamental observations and discoveries are still in demand today. This 19th century survey is used to improve public understanding and decision-making in Texas for archaeologists, geologists, hydrologists, avocationists, lawyers, school children studying Earth Sciences, and anyone interested in the geology, water, and mineral resources of Texas. Conversion will commence in November 2000.

   
   

B. Services

Off-campus Database Proxy Service
On Monday the 14th of August, DLSD reconfigured the General Libraries proxy server which allows current students, faculty and staff to gain off campus access to subscription based electronic resources. In an effort to remove our reliance on a system that required patrons to enter their Social Security Number as the ID, this system is now making use of the University's Electronic Identification (EID) authentication mechanism to control access to these services.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/proxy.html.

Cooperative Digital Reference Service Project
The General Libraries is participating in The Cooperative Reference Service Project, an international effort led by the Library of Congress, which is intended to create a system of linked reference services. The Web site for the project is
http://lcweb.loc.gov/digiref.

Database of Full-text E-journals
The General Libraries has created a database that provides UT Library Online (UTLOL) users title and subject access to all electronic journals licensed by or otherwise made available through UTLOL.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/ejour/

UT Direct - Student Portal
The UT Direct interactive Web site provides students, faculty and staff with access to University services anytime, anywhere. UT Direct is part of the e-University initiative, a campus-wide effort to transform key relationships and services, as well as academic, outreach and business processes through the use of Internet-age technologies and practices. Although UT Direct is primarily geared towards students, more services for faculty and staff are in the works. With UT Direct, you can customize your home page to serve your individual tastes and needs. You choose the services to be featured, what event postings you will see, and you can select which Channels (informational links) you will receive. Other features include Quick Links, which gives easy access to frequently visited sites independent of the computer; personal memos using "Stickies"; and Web-based e-mail.
http://www.utdirect.utexas.edu/utdirect/.

Interlibrary Services (ILS) E-Docs
ILS is testing a new service that allows patrons to retrieve ILS photocopy requests from the Web.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/refserv/ILS/index.html

Pilot E-Reserves Project
The General Libraries Undergraduate Library will pilot ERes, a product of Docutek Information Systems. A pilot project for digital audio reserves will be implemented at the same time using ERes.

Laptop Checkout
The General Libraries main library, the Perry-Castañeda Library, has begun a laptop checkout program for use within the library by students, staff and faculty.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/laptops.html

UT System Copyright Tutorial
DLSD, in cooperation with Georgia Harper, UT System General Counsel, developed and released an online Copyright Crash Course Tutorial. The Tutorial is designed to help anyone interested learn about how ownership of copyrighted materials works, what is fair use, and when and how to get permission to use someone else's materials.
http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright/

Texas Information Literacy Tutorial (TILT)
TILT is an interactive library tutorial, sponsored by the UT System Digital Library, designed to prepare people to explore and research in the online world.
http://tilt.lib.utsystem.edu

Thermodex
ThermoDex is a web-based finding aid developed at the University of Texas at Austin General Libraries that indexes over 200 thermodynamic data collections and handbooks. ThermoDex allows a user to identify specific resources that might contain particular types of data, and offers a way to rediscover underutilized sources that might otherwise be overlooked.
http://thermodex.lib.utexas.edu

The head of the General Libraries Chemistry Library, David Flaxbart, wrote the following article about Thermodex.
http://www.library.uceb.edu/istl/00-summer/article1.html

Trademark Searching Tutorial
Developed by the General Libraries, the Trademark Searching Tutorial teaches the basics of trademark searching.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/ENG/TTUT/ttut.html.

C. Systems

During 1999-00, hardware and software was updated to handle more user traffic, provide increased reliability, and enhance DLSD's ability to provide administrative oversight for the systems that support the variety of UT Austin and UT System Web services. The following enhancements were made:

Software
Consolidation of TexShare, UT Library Online, the Texas Information Literacy Tutorial, UT System Digital Library and the Texas State Historical Association web sites onto a common suite of software packages.

Storage
Purchase of a terabyte of storage, the largest amount the library has ever purchased, allowing massive amounts of material to reside on-line (versus off-line or near-line).

Back-up
Purchase of a new DLT tape and back-up system for longterm storage and security.

Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board grant
The goal of the proposal submitted to the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board (TIFB) was "for each University of Texas at Austin student to have high speed access anytime and anywhere to the rapidly expanding contents of UT Library Online, a nationally recognized digital library." Meeting this goal required:

• High performance client stations in library facilities for more effective on-campus student access to UT Library Online services;

• High speed, scalable servers with adequate disk storage to provide fast and useful access to a broadening spectrum of digital information;

• A robust network infrastructure that permits effective integration of the server and client systems with the campus and external networks.

Grant funds have enabled the University to significantly enhance the computing and network components underlying UT Library Online. These funds have provided a more rapid, more reliable, more secure, and more scalable infrastructure to support distribution of quality digital information and services to University of Texas students as well as to the greater networked community of learners, teachers, and researchers throughout Texas and beyond.

II. Projects and Programs

A. Projects

Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO)
The General Libraries, in cooperation with the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRHRC), are establishing an online repository of archival resources for use by every Texan who has access to an Internet-connected computer. Phase I of the project has been funded by the Texs Telecommunication Infrastructure Fund (TIF). Six Texas institutions are participating.

Phase I of the project began in early 2000 and, to date, has accomplished the following:

• Installed a central server at the UT Austin General Libraries
• Established markup and content guidelines for finding aids
• Contracted with a vendor (Apex Data Services, Inc.) to encode select existing finding aids from all archival repositories at the six participating institutions
• Trained staff at participating repositories to encode newly created finding aids in EAD
• Established infrastructure at the participating repositories to facilitate encoding of new finding aids

http://taro.lib.utexas.edu

Handbook of Texas Online
DLSD is working cooperatively with the UT Austin Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) and the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) to add multimedia content to the Handbook of Texas Online. The projects will be semester-long and include, but are not limited to: video and audio digitization, scanning of collected materials, design and implementation of web pages, and other projects utilizing current technologies. Students who show interest in this collaboration must first go through an application process. Once chosen, they will participate in this faculty-sponsored practicum for class credit.

In spring 2000, two GSLIS students, Julie Holcomb and Mary Elizabeth McLain, digitized analog video and audio, and scanned images from records, posters, and photographs, to accentuate two entries from the Handbook: Sam Rayburn and Tejano Music. The Handbook of Texas web site averages 43,086 requests per day
http://epubs.lib.utexas.edu/~hot/index.html
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/

TxTell
Released in May 2000, TxTell chronicles the impact of The University of Texas at Austin on the state of Texas and the world. The TxTell project, sponsored by the UT Austin President's Office, is supported by the General Libraries through web site design, content conversion, and server hosting. TxTell averages 977 successful requests per day.
http://txtell.lib.utexas.edu.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
DLSD has implemented use of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to centralizes database applications. To date, DLSD has used LDAP primarily for management of digital collection metadata. LDAP efficiently replicates itself to backup. LDAP servers, an industry standard, are widely used for redundancy.

Texas Newspaper Project (TNP)
DLSD staff migrated the cataloging information for TNP titles from FileMaker to Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). An online administrative interface was added, allowing automated web site generation and indexing.
http://tnp.lib.utexas.edu

B. Programs

Digital Library Services Division (DLSD) Reorganization
DLSD has reorganized internally to better articulate functional areas that have emerged over the past six years. Those areas are: Digital Collections (conversion, search/retrieval, user interface, quality assurance and control, technical help, project tracking, collection metadata); Systems (systems administration and integration, software development); and Distance Learning (UT Austin/UT System/TexShare licensing, contracting, help).

UT System Digital Library (UTSDL)
DLSD created UTSDL to support the learning and research needs of the UT TeleCampus, the UT System's distance learning intiative. The TeleCampus presently serves 1,127 registered students.
http://www.lib.utsystem.edu.

Please send comments or suggestions.
Last updated:
© 2000 Council on Library and Information Resources

Issue Table of Contents Newsletter Index