UMDCC 2016 Keynote Speakers

Keynote: Next Steps for IMLS’s National Digital Platform

Trevor Owens of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will kick off UMDCC16 on August 9. Trevor will introduce the National Digital Platform priority, discuss how the cultural heritage community can engage with and connect local projects to it, and share updates on the future of the initiative.

About Trevor Owens
Trevor is the Senior Program Officer responsible for the development of the National Digital Platform portfolio for the Office of Library Services at IMLS. He steers an overall strategy of research, grant making, communications and policy agendas in support of the development of national digital services and resources in libraries. From 2010-15, Trevor served as a Digital Archivist with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) at the Library of Congress. Before that, he was the community manager for the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media.

Trevor has a doctorate in social science research methods and educational technology from the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University, a bachelor’s degree in the history of science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master’s degree in American history with an emphasis on digital history from George Mason University. He teaches graduate seminars on digital history and digital curation for American University’s history department and the University of Maryland’s iSchool.

CONTENTdm Keynote: OCLC Research/Linked Data

OCLC and the Strategic Advisory Group for Digital Collections have created the Metadata Refinery Pilot Study to explore metadata enhancement and the conversion of record-based metadata from CONTENTdm and other digital repositories to entity-based linked data.

The goal of the pilot study is to answer these questions:

• What services are needed for metadata enhancement and conversion from a record-based description system to an entity-based description system?
• What issues are encountered when record-based descriptions of unique digital content are converted to linked data entities?

This panel will discuss the background of the pilot study, the structure of the Strategic Advisory Group, and the progress made with the Refinery tools to date. The panel will then present real-life use cases of data enhancement and conversion from the Wisconsin Historical Society using the Refinery.

The breakout session will include a moderated Q&A in plenary, followed by time for attendees to speak further with the panelists about their questions and use cases individually or in small groups.

Panelists:

• Paul Hedges, Emerging Technologies Archivist, Wisconsin Historical Society
• Jeff Mixter, Software Engineer, OCLC Research
• Bruce Washburn, Consulting Software Engineer, OCLC Research