It has been a little over a year since the Library’s Digital and Pictorial Collections merged to form the new Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives Department. Much has happened since then and we decided on our one year anniversary to brag a bit about all we have accomplished as well as offer a sneak peek of our future plans.
During 2014, we made unprecedented strides in improving access to our audiovisual materials. Department Archivist Laurie Rizzo has been adding online information about our collections at a steady rate, utilizing the new finding aids platform we launched in 2013. Her work has been one of the primary reasons that we averaged more than one-hundred researcher requests per month last year. It is a number that has steadily grown and will continue to grow as we add more information to our website.
Thankfully, to deal with the increase in requests, we added Lynsey Sczechowicz in May to fill the new position of Audiovisual Reference Archivist. Lynsey spends all of her time assisting those using Hagley’s AV collections. She has established a well-organized and efficient system for providing timely service in her first year at Hagley. In addition, we added a part-time assistant, Alex Miller, to work on supporting reference with scanning requests and processing.
On the digital side of the department, Digital Initiatives Coordinator Abby Adams has led the charge to improve our online digital archives. A plan has been set in motion to migrate from our current system to a much improved platform that will significantly enhance online access to Hagley’s digitized content. We have tentative plans to launch the new site in early 2016. Additionally, the new department led the project of building and launching a new Hagley website that went online last year. On the backend of the digital operations, we continue to make strides in collecting and preserving digital records. This is a critically important piece in maintaining Hagley’s status as the preeminent library for the study of business history. The work of processing digital records has been ably supported by Angela Schad, a recent graduate from the University of Delaware.
This past year also brought with it the start of two grant-funded projects. Ken Cleary began work in June processing the recently acquired David Sarnoff Library collection. The project is being funded by a grant from CLIR. Skylar Harris was hired to digitize a large collection of historical publications from a national trade organization. More details will come when the collection is complete and ready to launch.
It has been a productive first year for the new department and we look forward to what lies ahead in 2015 and beyond!
Kevin Martin is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Audiovisual Collections & Digital Initiatives.