Library Tech Talk

Inactive blog with technology and project updates from U-M Library Information Technology.
Light blue gears on a blue background and an inactive banner across the top corner.

Posts in Library Tech Talk

Showing 1 - 10 of 128 items
TRACC: A tool developed by Michigan to help with portfolio management
  • Nabeela Jaffer
Academic library service portfolios are mostly a mix of big to small strategic initiatives and tactical projects. Systems developed in the past can become a durable bedrock of workflows and services around the library, remaining relevant and needed for five, ten, and sometimes as long as twenty years. There is, of course, never enough time and resources to do everything. The challenge faced by Library IT divisions is to balance the tension of sustaining these legacy systems while continuing to innovate and develop new services. The University of Michigan’s Library IT portfolio has legacy systems in need of ongoing maintenance and support, in addition to new projects and services that add to and expand the portfolio. We, at Michigan, worked on a process to balance the portfolio of services and projects for our Library IT division. We started working on the idea of developing a custom tool for our needs since all the other available tools are oriented towards corporate organizations and we needed a light-weight tool to support our process. We went through a complete planning process first on whiteboards and paper, then developed an open source tool called TRACC for helping us with portfolio management.
Top portion of the U-M Library website homepage showing the site navigation, a large banner image of anti-racist pinback buttons, and a large "What can we help you find?" search box.
  • Heidi Burkhardt
The U-M Library launched a completely new primary website in July after 2 years of work. The redesign project team focused on building a strong team, internal communication, content strategy, and practicing needs informed design and development to make the project a success.
  • Fritz Freiheit
How to add ordered metadata fields in Samvera Hyrax. Includes example code and links to actual code.
Image of man in uniform carrying a gramophone on his shoulder
  • Larry Wentzel
This article reviews how 9,000+ frames of photographic negatives from the Harry A. Franck collection are being digitally preserved.
A tree and a wheat field in Röe, Sweden. The wheat field is filled with pretty white flowers.
  • Anthony Thomas
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has collected and made searchable a vast quantity of metadata from digital collections all across the country. The Michigan Service Hub works with cultural heritage institutions throughout the state to collect their metadata, transform those metadata to be compatible with the DPLA’s online library, and send the transformed metadata to the DPLA, using the Combine aggregator software, which is being developed here at the U of M Library.
Image of event details: March 5-6, 2020. Hack with Friends. 4 - A Pangeo State of Mind. Developing a Python stack and repository for access, analysis, and management of big data
  • Greg Kostin
When the students go on winter break I go to Hacks with Friends (HWF) and highly recommend and encourage everyone who can to participate in HWF 2021. Not only is it two days of free breakfast, lunch, and snacks at the Ross School of Business, but it’s a chance to work with a diverse cross section of faculty, staff, and students on innovative solutions to complex problems.
Drill motor caption in a newspaper
  • Paul Frederick Schaffner
For the past three years the Text Creation Unit, a small group within the Digital Content & Collections department of LIT, has been busy revising one of the University's oldest and most famous products and projects, the Middle English Dictionary. This post will not address the now 90-year history of the project, nor the technical or design aspects of our new interface, nor even the problems attached to sustaining a project like this over nearly a century. In fact, this post will seem a little roundabout, but trust me, it will eventually end up at the work actually being carried out, and at the sort of thinking, and the sort of crazy people, that go into it.
Search Screen Shot
  • Ken Varnum
U-M Library Search launched in late July 2018, combining Mirlyn, ArticlesPlus, and Search Tools into a single discovery interface. Over the past academic year, much work has gone into providing functionality available in the previous interfaces, resolving bugs, and improving the overall user experience.
The statue of Mao, right next to the main campus library
  • Kat Hagedorn
In November 2108, I was fortunate enough to travel to Fudan University (Shanghai, China) to be a “Foreign Expert” at their library.
Delicious looking cake with a piece missing.
  • Ben Howell
Web accessibility is a key ingredient to successful product development that can make or break many peoples’ experience. The U-M Library Digital Accessibility Team (DAT) helps library teams 'bake in' web accessibility from the beginning of their projects and helps coordinate accessibility work across the Library. Read about DAT's services and how collaboration with teams and staff across the library has led to improved products and services for our Library staff, faculty and students.