Digital Library Blog

Some of the latest work underway in Digital Library Systems and Services involves adding digital collections to SearchWorks. Last week saw the addition of five new collections to SearchWorks, all created and deposited to the Stanford Digital Repository using the Self-Deposit web application.

Of the five, we’re highlighting Preserving Virtual Worlds, a collection produced by curator Henry Lowood and a team of collaborators in a multi-institution project funded by the Library of Congress. Original software, gameplay samples, technical documentation, web sites, and other contextual information for games like SimCity, DOOM, and Star Raiders are archived for the ages.  Henry’s blog announcement sums up the project and collection nicely.

Stanford University Libraries has provided digital access to large portions of the Musical Acoustics Research Library (MARL) making available important research papers from some of the most eminent acousticians of the 20^th century. The MARL collection consisting of nearly 60 linear feet of materials is dedicated to the study of all aspects of musical acoustics.

The Undergraduate Theses collections for Physics and Engineering Physics are now open for deposit. This year’s crop of top undergraduates in the Department of Physics and in the Engineering Physics program have the distinction of being the first undergrads to deposit their theses in the SDR. These two are the first of several honors theses collections opening this quarter. (The School of Education is assembling their collection together now, and two other departments may follow suit.)

Librarian Stella Ota manages the collections, working with faculty, staff, and the selected students to use the Self Deposit application. She has been collecting digital honors theses offline since 2010. When the ETD system launched in fall 2009, Stella had a vision for using a similar process to collect the Physics undergraduate theses for access and preservation in the SDR. Yet without a deposit interface, it proved to be challenging to track down each student, to have them sign a hard-copy deposit agreement, to collect the PDF files by thumbdrive or email, and to create the metadata. The Self Deposit workflow promises to make the whole process of collecting and archiving these works more systematic, more secure, and more efficient.