LTS Newsletter: September 2024

Library Technology Services, Harvard Library

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

Discovery Portfolio Update

Engineers from the Discovery Portfolio team are currently focused on three fronts: Reimagining Discovery, the project to improve the user experience for finding and accessing Library collections; the LTS Media Presentation Service (MPS), a robust update to Harvard Library’s digital image delivery infrastructure; and the Viewer, the Library’s implementation of Mirador, the application used to view digital images alongside vital metadata. The team this past month also released updates to CURIOSity, fixing an issue so that collections with full-text search options can generate comprehensive results; and to HOLLIS for Archival Discovery (ArchivesSpace), increasing the speed and efficiency of CSV exports.

ArcLight Implementation Announcement

As Associate University Librarian for Archives and Special Collections Tom Hyry announced last week in a message to all staff, Harvard Library is launching the ArcLight Implementation Project to enhance HOLLIS for Archival Discovery (HAD), transitioning from the ArchivesSpace Public User Interface (PUI) to the ArcLight platform. The initiative aims to improve user experience and system interoperability. The ArchivesSpace Public User Interface Working Group's assessment identified the need for a more effective interface, leading to the selection of ArcLight. This choice aligns Harvard with peer institutions like Princeton, Stanford, and Duke, who also support ArcLight.

A dedicated team of project and technology experts from the LTS Discovery Portfolio team, Software Services by Scientist.com, and library practitioners will oversee the project, starting in mid-September with completion targeted for December. This phase includes thorough testing, data migration, and remediation to ensure the new system's accuracy before retiring the old one.

The project acknowledges the contributions of Harvard Library staff and the foundational work of the ArchivesSpace Public User Interface Working Group. Their support has been crucial in shaping the future of archival discovery at Harvard.

DASH Stories

Development is ongoing for our repository for Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH). Of note, the current development cycle included our local enhancement - DASH Stories. Our partners, 4Science, have been focused on integrating this into our new instance’s core DSpace code and this work is now largely complete. We’ve prepared a demo of this service for people curious to see the new development or who want to know more about DASH. The demo covers what DASH Stories is, how it works, and its new role in the migrated repository. Colin and Grace will be presenting this enhancement later this month at the DSpace North America User Group Meeting and talking to the community about how it can be integrated into DSpace version 9 (2025) or 10 (2026). We expect the new instance of DASH will be available soon and look forward to sharing more demos with you. Demo of DASH Stories development.

Staff Presentations

At the Harvard Library All Staff meeting on 9/10/24, Stu Snydman, Vitaly Zakuta, Carolyn Caizzi, and Amy Deschenes delivered a presentation on two pivotal projects shaping the future of the Library's digital infrastructure. The DRS Futures project to redesign and reimplement the Digital Repository Service has selected LIBNOVA LIBSAFE as the vendor for the new DRS platform. Phase III: Implementation, currently in progress, involves implementing the new solution, training and onboarding DRS stakeholders, and migration of all data from the Legacy DRS to the new system. Reimagining Discovery is a 3-year project aimed at revolutionizing how users explore Harvard's collections through innovative technologies like generative AI and semantic search. This effort, following the retirement of Harvard Digital Collections, seeks to simplify and enhance access to the Library's extensive resources while integrating and optimizing various discovery systems. The first milestone, an Alpha version of the new UI for the natural language discovery platform with generative AI features has been completed and was demonstrated during the presentation. The Zoom meeting was recorded and this part of the meeting starts about 29:00.

Staff News

We are delighted to share that Katie Amaral is returning to LTS! As IT Project Technical Lead on the Reimagining Discovery Project, Katie will guide technical design and development and lead efforts around integrating AI-related tools and infrastructure.