Recent cdl items

Measure What Matters: A Workshop on Developing Rubrics for Journal Evaluation and Growth

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Library publishers often exist in a liminal space between “technical host” and “strategic publisher.” For years, eScholarship operated largely in the former category – providing platforming for important niche scholarship but lacking the mechanisms to encourage adoption of professional standards. We now recognize that this passive model was ultimately a disservice to our editors, authors, and readers: without adhering to transparent, community-established standards, journals risk being less discoverable, less relevant, and less likely to achieve sustainable funding.

To bridge this gap, eScholarship has, in the past several years, pivoted to a proactive, standards-based approach. In 2025, drawing on the JPPS framework, DOAJ criteria, and COPE guidelines, we developed a suite of evaluation rubrics to assess new journal proposals, audit existing journals, and measure the overall health of our own publishing program. These tools have allowed us to replace subjective “gut...

Matching Algorithms Task Force Final Report

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Determining whether two bibliographic records describe the same title is fundamental to a wide range of activities essential to managing and stewarding library collections. Identifying analogous records aids in efficient cataloging, resource sharing, collection management, and preservation. The algorithms computers follow to find matching records assume an ever growing importance as libraries increasingly seek to engage with their collections in a multi-library context by sharing resources at a very large scale. Understanding how record matching is performed and the varied effects of different approaches are critical for managing collections within and across libraries. Matching algorithms for bibliographic records are essential infrastructure for several aspects of work involving Shared Book Collections.

Implementing DEIA Training for Editors in a Library Publishing Program

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Established in 2002, eScholarship Publishing is a comprehensive open access publishing program for the University of California (UC) academic community with almost 100 open access journals. Our team is working to embed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in its training materials, starting with a required webinar for all journal editors that provides an overview of major DEIA topics in scholarly publishing. These topics include diversifying editorial boards, staff, author pools, and peer reviewers; implementing inclusive language and style guides; and meeting accessibility standards.

In this informational session, we describe our goals for creating and conducting this webinar, the level of editorial participation in the training, the opportunities and challenges we have encountered, feedback we have received, and the impact of this program so far.

Project LEND Service Plan

Thu, 29 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Project LEND Service Plan

Research Information at California Digital Library

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Research Information at California Digital Library

DEI Efforts Across GLAM Organizations: A Report by the GLAM Diversity Subgroup of the DLF Committee for Equity and Inclusion.

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In early 2021, the Digital Library Federation Committee on Equity and Inclusion (DLF CEI) formed a subgroup to identify resources and activities that have been useful in supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts across organizations that fall under the umbrella of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM), including within individual departments or functional areas. To that end, the Subgroup conducted an online survey in Spring 2022 to learn about DEI efforts that have been implemented or are underway at GLAM organizations. The Subgroup defines DEI activities as: Efforts to advance anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility across all of the organization’s activities. Through questions spanning three distinct survey components and generating both quantitative and qualitative data, respondents were asked about their work settings and their positions, DEI-related activities and topics being addressed at their GLAM organizations and larger...

Building a National Finding Aid Network: Final Report

Thu, 8 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Building a National Finding Aid Network: Final Report

“Make it so”: Sustainable, Academy-Owned Publishing Infrastructure with CDL, Michigan, & Janeway

Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Both the California Digital Library (CDL) and Michigan Publishing are migrating their journal publishing programs away from aging open source systems to the relatively new Janeway platform, also open source and developed by a team at the Open Library of Humanities. What does Janeway offer that has prompted this move? How might these migrations align with broader efforts to develop sustainable models for academy-owned OA publishing programs? How can library publishers, operating in a space dominated by the large commercial publishers and the platforms they own, help ensure that academy-owned, open infrastructure like Janeway is sustainable in the long term?

In this session, CDL and Michigan will discuss their distinct approaches to platform migration, Janeway’s capabilities as a platform for both journals and preprints, and how all three of these organizations are committed to long-term sustainability and collaboration with each other. The Janeway team will also offer...

Outcomes, Questions, and Answers: “The Right to Deposit (R2D) Uniform guidance to ensure author compliance and public access”

Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With the forthcoming release of new federal agency public access plans as a result of the White House Office of Science and Technology Planning (OSTP) public access guidance (“the Nelson memo”), federally-funded authors will face new requirements to deposit their scholarly publications, without an embargo, in agency-designated public access repositories. These requirements will impact authors and their institutions. Federal agencies could improve clarity for authors by adopting the Federal purpose license found in existing federal regulations as a foundation for guidance language and implementation of the Nelson memo. Specifically, the Federal purpose license states that, “The Federal awarding agency reserves a royalty-free, nonexclusive and irrevocable right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work for Federal purposes, and to authorize others to do so.

EAD Analysis: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This report details the methods and findings from a quantitative analysis of a corpus of EAD encoded collection descriptions provided by current regional finding aid aggregators in the US. The analysis sought to assess current EAD data as raw material for building a finding aid aggregation by looking for common elements and data structures present in the data and probing for gaps that could impede user discovery of archival collections. 

From 2020–2023, OCLC conducted research as a partner on Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN), an IMLS-supported research and demonstration project to build the foundation for a national archival finding aid network to address the inconsistency and inequity of the current archival discovery landscape (LG-246349-OLS-20). The project was led by California Digital Library (CDL), with partners at OCLC, the University of Virginia Library, Shift Collective, and Chain Bridge Group.

Focus Group Interviews: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project  

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

OCLC conducted a series of focus group interviews with archivists and archives administrators from across the United States to investigate the needs of archivists and others who might contribute to a national archival aggregator for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. This report details the methods and findings from those focus group interviews and examines the needs of archives and archivists related to describing the collections in their care and contributing description to an archival aggregation.

User Interviews: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This report details methods and summarizes findings from semi-structured individual interviews with end users of archival aggregation for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. It focuses on their information needs and information seeking behavior related to searching and accessing primary source material, and their interactions with archival aggregators.

Pop-up Survey: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This report summarizes the findings from a national survey of more than 3300 end users searching for archival materials online for the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant. The survey captures data about search behavior and information needs along with demographic characteristics from a cross section of online users.

From 2020–2023, OCLC conducted research as a partner on Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN), an IMLS-supported research and demonstration project to build the foundation for a national archival finding aid network to address the inconsistency and inequity of the current archival discovery landscape (LG-246349-OLS-20). The project was led by California Digital Library (CDL), with partners at OCLC, the University of Virginia Library, Shift Collective, and Chain Bridge Group.

Summary of Research: Findings from the Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network Project

Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This report contextualizes and synthesizes the findings from across all OCLC’s research activities on the Building a National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) grant, with a focus on how findings relate to future phases of work on the NAFAN project. The findings indicate that there is significant value to be drawn from a national aggregation of archival description. They also identify challenges that must be overcome to build the community of participation that a national finding aid aggregation will require to be sustainable.

Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network - From Planning Initiative to Project and Program: An Action Plan

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This action plan is a key deliverable of "Toward a National Finding Aid Network," a one-year planning initiative supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered in California by the State Librarian. The plan was prepared by a Task Force comprising representatives from the Core Partner group of aggregators, who contributed time between July-September 2019 to formulate and develop these recommendations. At the heart of the action plan are recommendations for and principles to guide next steps to implement a national-level finding aid network. The Task Force recommends a phased, incremental approach that moves this effort from a research and demonstration project to a program; is informed by a research agenda; and (from the beginning) includes work to establish business and governance models that fit the infrastructure and service model.

Increasing discovery of archives: A project to provide better pathways to archival records in cultural heritage collections

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This report summarizes input from participants in the "Increasing Discovery of Archives" workshop hosted by Shift Collective on December 14 and 15, 2021. It is intended to help inform the research and development phase of the National Finding Aid Network (NAFAN) project led by the California Digital Library (CDL).

Finding Aid Aggregation at a Crossroads

Fri, 1 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This report represents the first phase of "Toward a National Archival Finding Aid Network," a one-year planning initiative supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered in California by the State Librarian. The report describes the current landscape of archival description -- and in particular, finding aid aggregations -- as background for an exploration of how best to provide access to archival collections, ensure the long-term sustainability of that access, and plan for future developments in this space.

Integrating Multiple Platforms with OpenID Connect, A Shared Authentication Service

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A conference presentation regarding OpenID Connect (OIDC) and other similar single sign on technologies, how it works, why you would want to use it, what projects are currently using it, and how to integrate it into your own work. Presented at Open Repositories 2022, in Denver, CO, on June 8. 2022. Supplemental material includes a recording of the presentation, made after the conference, as well as a powerpoint version of the slides.

UC HathiTrust ETAS Assessment - Summative Report to CoUL

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

UC HathiTrust ETAS Assessment - Summative Report to CoUL

Ten persistent myths about persistent identifiers

Mon, 1 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Ten persistent myths about persistent identifiers

Preservation in a dynamic environment: A librarian’s perspe

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Preservation is a collaborative effort and community engagement around priority setting is a must. Let me begin by being clear about what hasn’t changed, and that isthe library’s core mission:connectingits patrons with content of interest in meaningful ways across barriers of space and time. Of course, while that focus remains constant,the mechanisms by whichandthe environment in whichwe approachithaveevolvedin any number of highly significantlyways.To assessthe impact of these transformational changes, let’s examinethe keycomponentsof thatmission statement:patrons, content, meaningful, space,and timeand see how they have been affected.

Cobweb: Collaborative Collection Development for Web Archives

Thu, 8 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The massive scale of online news calls for collaborative approaches to assessing what has already been archived and asserting which un-archived sites should be preserved, considering their significance in representing a “first draft of history.” And given the fast pace at which online news content evolves, memory institutions interested in preserving this content may need to understand not just what has been archived, but also the temporal and structural conditions that were applied in its archiving. Researchers and journalists likewise have an interest in understanding what online news content is available to them, and are well-positioned to make recommendations about which content should be preserved, why, and at what pace, so that it can be made available into the future. There is therefore a potential for highly productive synergies between the news archiving community and the Cobweb initiative, which is building a collaborative collection development platform supporting...

Collaborative Collection Development with Cobweb

Thu, 8 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The demands of archiving the web in comprehensive breadth or thematic depth easily exceed the capacity of any single institution. To ensure that the limited resources of a given archival program are deployed most effectively, it is important that its curators know something about the collection development priorities and holdings of other, similarly-engaged institutions. Cobweb, https://github.com/CobwebOrg/cobweb, will meet this need by supporting three key functions: nominating, claiming, and holdings. The nomination function will let curators and stakeholders suggest web sites pertinent to specific thematic areas and provide seed-level descriptive metadata; the claiming function will allow archival programs to indicate an intention to capture some subset of nominated sites; and the holdings function will allow programs to document captured sites along with their collection-level description, structural and temporal scope,...

Cobweb: Collaborative Collection Development for Web Archives

Thu, 8 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A presentation to staff of the California Digital Library, providing an update on Cobweb development progress as of January, 2018.

Supporting Research Data Management at the University of California

Fri, 8 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Supporting Research Data Management at the University of California

Supporting research data mangement at the University of California

Fri, 8 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Supporting research data mangement at the University of California

Curation is Not a Place: Post-Custodial Stewardship for a Do-It-Yourself World

Fri, 8 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Academic libraries operate in an increasingly crowded information space shared with many new public and private actors characterized by overlapping spheres of intention, capability, and responsibility. In the areas of digital and data curation, library-hosted repository and preservation solutions are competing against alternatives with a lower barrier to entry, better user experience, and perception of functional sufficiency. As these are also often free, libraries face increasing difficulty in retaining, let alone increasing, service adoption by their stakeholder communities. One possible solution is suggested by questioning the often tacit assumption regarding the centrality of custodial stewardship. What are the consequences of shifting curatorial imperatives away from *holding* a copy of a given information object to *knowing* where all the copies are? This talk explores ideas for a post-custodial stewardship regime under which curatorial functions are applied in situ...

Securing the Future of Federal Research: Mirroring Data.gov as a Vital Scholarly Resource

Wed, 6 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The recent transition of US presidential administrations has raised awareness and concern regarding the continuity of access to federal research data. These data are part of the vital public record of federally-funded research, and their continued availability is critically important to scientific integrity and advancement, governmental accountability, and informed public policy. The data.gov portal was created in 2009 as a central repository of government research data, and currently hosts over 135,000 datasets. This information is, according to the 2013 federal open data policy, “a valuable national resource and a strategic asset to the Federal Government, its partners, and the public.” As such, it is imperative that these data are subject to effective long-term stewardship. Best practice within the preservation community calls for redundancy, at both a technical and organizational level, as a primary strategy for higher preservation assurance. Consequently, California...

Persistence statements: describing digital stickiness

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Persistence statements: describing digital stickiness

The ARK Identifier Scheme

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The ARK Identifier Scheme

The GrabIt Package Exchange Protocol

Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This document specifies GrabIt, an HTTP-based protocol for systematically transferring lists of digital packages. A package is an arbitrary sequence of octets (e.g., a single TAR archive) that can come with an associated content type indicating that extra steps (not central to GrabIt) may need to be taken to complete and validate a package before successful receipt can be reported. The sender issues an HTTP "post" with a list URLs corresponding to packages to "grab". In response, the receiver returns a job URL in an HTTP "Location" header that can be probed periodically to retrieve transfer status reports.

State of California Website Trends 2008-2010

Tue, 3 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

An analysis of a comprehensive archive of the State of California web domain, built between 2008 and 2010. This includes an investigation of how state agency server "robots.txt" rules impact the quality of an archive, and on how the archive supports the ongoing work of government information specialists across the University of California Campus Libraries.

Dash: Improving Community Repositories for Better Data Sharing

Fri, 24 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Dash: Improving Community Repositories for Better Data Sharing

Making Data Count: A Data Metrics Pilot Project

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Making Data Count: A Data Metrics Pilot Project

DataUp: Further Development and Community Building

Thu, 2 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

DataUp: Further Development and Community Building

Reinventing Shared Print: A Dynamic Service Vision for Shared Print Monographs in a Digital World (preprint)

Tue, 3 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Reinventing Shared Print: A Dynamic Service Vision for Shared Print Monographs in a Digital World (preprint)

Big data and the future of ecology

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The need for sound ecological science has escalated alongside the rise of the information age and “big data” across all sectors of society. Big data generally refer to massive volumes of data not readily handled by the usual data tools and practices and present unprecedented opportunities for advancing science and inform- ing resource management through data-intensive approaches. The era of big data need not be propelled only by “big science” – the term used to describe large-scale efforts that have had mixed success in the individual-driven culture of ecology. Collectively, ecologists already have big data to bolster the scientific effort – a large volume of distributed, high-value information – but many simply fail to contribute. We encourage ecologists to join the larger scientific community in global initiatives to address major scientific and societal problems by bringing their distributed data to the table and harnessing its collective power. The scientists who contribute...

Growing Pains for Ecology in the Twenty-First Century

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Growing Pains for Ecology in the Twenty-First Century

Ecological data in the Information Age

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Ecological data in the Information Age

Methods to Tame the Madness: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Assessment Techniques for Online Finding Aid and Website Design

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Methods to Tame the Madness: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Assessment Techniques for Online Finding Aid and Website Design

“The Links in the Chain”: Connecting Undergraduates with Primary Source Materials at the University of California

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

“The Links in the Chain”: Connecting Undergraduates with Primary Source Materials at the University of California

UC Libraries Academic e-Book Usage Survey

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The University of California Libraries initiated the Springer e-Book Pilot Project with the goal of developing appropriate systemwide processes for acquiring and managing licensed e-books, as well as informing future licensing activities. Evaluation of the UC academic community’s experience utilizing the Springer e-book collection began in 2010, and a UC systemwide survey was launched by the UC Libraries for the purpose of assessing the user experience. The primary objectives of the survey were to determine:

- Respondents’ general preference for print books as compared to e-books.

- How respondents interact with e-books and barriers to e-book adoption and use.

- How users of Springer e-books discover their availability.

- Satisfaction level with Springer content and features, including the “MyCopy” service.

The initial survey received 2,569 responses. Respondents who indicated the use of e-books in their academic work (58%) became the core target...

Primer on Data Management: What you always wanted to know

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Primer on Data Management: What you always wanted to know

Advancing Scholarship through Digital Critical Editions: Mark Twain Project Online

Sat, 3 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Digital critical editions hold the promise of supporting new scholarly research activities not previously possible or practical with print critical editions. This promise resides in the specific ability to integrate corpora, their associated editorial material and other related content into system architectures and data structures that exploit the strengths of the digital publishing environment. The challenge is to do more than simply create an online copy of the print publication, but rather to provide the kind of resource that both eases and extends the research activities of scholars. Authoritative collections published online in this manner, and with the same rigor brought to the print publishing process, offer scholars: the ability to discover more elusive, granular pieces of information with greater facility; tighter, more obvious and more accessible connections between authoritative versions of texts, editorial matter and primary source material; and continually corrected...

The Melvyl Recommender Project: Developing Library Recommendation Services

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Popular commercial on-line services such as Google, e-Bay, Amazon, and Netflix have evolved quickly over the last decade to help people find what they want, developing information retrieval strategies such as usefully ranked results, spelling correction, and recommender systems. Online library catalogs (OPACs), in contrast, have changed little and are notoriously difficult for patrons to use (University of California Libraries, 2005). Over the past year (June 2005 to the present), the Melvyl Recommender Project (California Digital Library, 2005) has been exploring methods and feasibility of closing the gap between features that library patrons want and have come to expect from information retrieval systems and what libraries are currently equipped to deliver.

The project team conducted exploratory work in five topic areas: relevance ranking, auto-correction, use of a text-based discovery system, user interface strategies, and recommending. This article focuses specifically...

Creating the Mark Twain Project Online

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The Mark Twain Project Online (MTPO) was launched in October 2007 and, in this first phase, digitally published several thousand of Twain's letters, almost 100 facsimiles of original documents, and over 28,000 records of other correspondence. The partners involved in the building of MTPO - the Mark Twain Papers, the California Digital Library, and University of California Press - created the site on the premise that Web-accessible versions of this content, enhanced by innovative design and site architecture and a suite of research tools, would greatly improve scholars' ability to discover and work with this unique material. Anecdotal feedback supports this premise. Early data analysis confirms the usefulness of facsimiles and browsing functionality. Users tend to prefer simple keyword over complex searches; however, those conducting advanced searches are using the tool flexibly, as we had hoped. Further analysis is expected to improve our understanding of how researchers...

isCitedBy: A Metadata Scheme for DataCite

Mon, 7 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The DataCite Metadata Scheme is being designed to support dataset citation and discovery. It features a small set of mandatory properties, and an additional set of optional properties for more detailed description. Among these is a powerful mechanism for describing relationships between the registered dataset and other objects. The Scheme is supported organizationally and will allow for community input on an ongoing basis.

Practices, Trends, and Recommendations in Technical Appendix Usage for Selected Data-Intensive Disciplines

Fri, 4 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There is a need to establish a new publishing paradigm to cope with the deluge of data artifacts produced by data-intensive science, many of which are vital to data re-use and verification of published scientific conclusions. Due to the limitations of traditional publishing, most of these artifacts are not usually disseminated, cited, or preserved. These latent artifacts consist largely of datasets and data processing information that together form the foundations of the reasoned analyses that appear in the published literature. But this traditional record of science increasingly represents only the tip of the scientific iceberg.

One promising approach to this problem of data invisibility is to wrap these artifacts in the metaphor of a “data paper”, a somewhat unfamiliar bundle of scholarly output with a familiar facade. As envisioned, a data paper minimally consists of a cover sheet and a set of links to archived artifacts. The cover sheet contains familiar elements...

Towards Support for Long-Term Digital Preservation in Product Life Cycle Management