Issue no.5

In 2015, the Dole Archives at the University of Kansas created an original exhibit in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, supplemented with over 12,000 digitized pages of archival documents. This case study discusses the practical aspects of a smaller institution’s efforts toward an MPLP-inspired approach to bulk digitization, including folder-level scanning and minimalist metadata creation, and the use of open-source technology (Bootstrap for responsive web design and SIMILE Exhibit for an interactive web interface) to facilitate discovery and access to a large amount of content in way that is usable, accessible, and flexible.

This article will showcase the workflow we employed to generate three-sixty views of our objects. It will also highlight the techniques we employed to capture images and to create virtual objects. But above all, it will demonstrate how any archives or museum can develop interactive virtual objects on a limited budget by harnessing the power of collaboration and open source technology.

The Swipe Aid Project balances user desire for digitized content in archives finding aids with the realities of archives metadata. It uses a free, open-source javascript library (Swipebox) to deliver a multi-device-friendly image gallery with quick and addictive side-swipe functionality. User feedback suggests a dual purpose for the gallery, as both a browsing aid and a promotional device for collections.

This paper discusses work completed in 2013 at the American Alpine Club Library (AACL) in Golden, Colorado, to implement a CollectiveAccess instance, which was given the name “Explore.” Although some literature on CollectiveAccess has been published, the AACL’s experience provides a unique example of how the software was used and customized in a small library and archives with limited staff and resources. From the process to identify the software specifications and needs at the AACL, to the design of CollectiveAccess’s public interface, this paper covers the strengths and weaknesses of the platform and describes the AACL’s experience launching Explore.