LTS Newsletter: August 2025

Library Technology Services, Harvard Library

Welcome to Library Technology Service’s occasional newsletter for anyone interested in Harvard Library IT.

Coming Soon: Collections Explorer

The Reimagining Discovery team is excited to share that Collections Explorer—a new way to search and discover Harvard Library’s collections—is almost here!

This new search interface combines semantic search, natural language processing, and generative AI to deliver more meaningful, relevant results—helping researchers and students surface materials across Harvard Library’s collections. The first release will allow users to search Harvard’s finding aids to discover archival materials, and future releases will expand the platform to include additional data sources.

In recent weeks, the development team has focused on refining search strategies to boost relevancy, strengthening security controls, and implementing guardrails to ensure AI-powered features remain safe, reliable, and transparent.

Collections Explorer will launch on September 15, 2025—keep an eye out for the announcement when it goes live. Looking ahead, we’ll also host an Open Meeting in October to demo the platform and share what’s next for Reimagining Discovery. Event details will be available soon via HLComms.

HUIT Residency Program

In August, LTS welcomed back Janet Taylor, User Experience and Design Librarian, from a six-month residency through HUIT’s Residency Program Pilot. The program offers a cross-HUIT immersive experience designed to support staff that are looking to build new skills.

As part of the pilot program, Janet served as a Design and Digital Content Specialist with the HUIT Communications team. Janet found that her learning went far beyond building skills with tools like InDesign and Illustrator. She quickly realized that effective communication about the complexity of design work and setting clear expectations leads to better planning and stronger outcomes.

Also key to the residency program’s success were the mentorship model and a culture that embraced mistakes. Janet’s mentor, Neal Adolph Akatsuka, helped set priorities, identified valuable learning objectives, and answered questions (many, many questions!). The program offered a creative learning environment with high tolerance for mistakes and created a safe space for pushing beyond comfort zones.

Janet thanks all of her colleagues in LTS and the Library for supporting the residency by assisting with her work over the past six months.

Staff News

Diversity Intern: Shelby Jacob

This summer, Library Technology Services hosted Shelby Jacob, an MLIS student at Simmons University, as our Diversity Intern on the DRS Futures project. Shelby worked with the Senior IT Project Manager Vitaly Zakuta, Senior Business Analyst Miriam Leigh, Change Manager Khamiya Oyelaja and the cross-functional project team to advance Harvard Library’s next-generation Digital Repository Service implementation work.

Shelby jumped into hands-on testing of new tools and everyday deposit workflows—both through the web interface and an S3 deposit client—to help us make instructions clearer and smoother for Library staff. She reviewed how metadata is applied during deposit, exercised the new Structure Editor for complex preservation objects, and contributed to internal training and documentation work. She also met with system users to understand their routines, which she translated into more practical, step-by-step guidance.

Along the way, Shelby was introduced to core digital preservation concepts and to library software development—including a practical start with Python and working with APIs (one of the ways digital content is deposited to the system in high volume deposit workflows).

We’re grateful for Shelby’s energy, insight, and user-centered contributions to DRS Futures this summer.

Diversity Intern: Elaine Kong

Harvard Library Access Services and HUIT Library Technology Services hosted a Diversity Intern, Elaine Kong, this summer.  Elaine worked on 3 deliverables throughout the summer. First was compiling and summarizing reports related to Harvard's historic use of a customized version of the GFA LAS Inventory Management System. The next was refreshing requirements for an Inventory Management System, which required shadowing and interviewing key stakeholders. These requirements then informed a draft Request for Information (RFI) document as well as a scoring tool for evaluation of vendor responses which will be used when the RFI is issued in the future.