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Articles, Preprints, and Presentations by CUL Staff

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A Collection of articles, preprints and presentations by the Staff of the Cornell University Library.

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    Entity Metadata Management API: A Specification for Communicating Changes to Entity Descriptions
    Folsom, Steven; Warner, Simeon (2024-03-06)
    The Entity Metadata Management API (EMM API) is an effort with the LD4 community to define a specification for communicating changes to linked data entity datasets so that data consumers are aware of new, updated, and deprecated entities as the dataset evolves over time. Understanding these types of changes is critical for a number of use cases including local caching of labels and caching of full datasets. The specification builds on the widely adopted W3C ActivityStreams specification with usage patterns appropriate for entity datasets. This presentation will provide an overview of the use cases and specification. We will also share examples of early implementations (including the Library of Congress, e.g. id.loc.gov subjects), demonstrating the specification is ready for adoption.
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    On this Rock: Why Democracies Need Libraries
    Westbrooks, Elaine L. (2024-02-27)
    In a time of intense political polarization, libraries in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. Yet the Pew Charitable Trust has documented that Americans have consistently put their trust in libraries more than other institutions. Carl A. Kroch University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks will discuss how research libraries promote and sustain democratic activities by highlighting the role Cornell’s librarians play in providing citizenship education, stewarding facts, and building pluralistic and diverse communities—activities that fundamentally make our democracy more secure and stable for future generations.
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    Cornell University Library (CUL) Browser IP Obfuscation Task Team Recommendation Report
    Howell, Debra; Chandler, Adam; Blumenthal, Amy; Johns, Erica; McCracken, Peter; Morris-Knower, Jim; Stergion, Peter (2024-01)
    Internet privacy and the ability to access electronic resources safely and reliably are fundamental concerns for libraries and their users. In 2024, a significant change is anticipated in the form of a new browser IP obfuscation setting. The setting aims to enhance user privacy by obfuscating their true IP addresses by transparently routing queries for online content through secure proxies. While this may benefit user privacy, it also raises important questions about its impact on libraries and their ability to provide access to electronic resources efficiently, given our reliance on IP-based authentication in licensing.
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    Strategies for Critical Visual Literacy Instruction in Small Liberal Arts Institutions
    Krahmer, Debbie; Buell, Jesi; Keen, Sarah (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2024-01-04)
    Small liberal arts institutions face unique challenges when addressing visual literacy in academic library and archives instruction settings. Given the hybrid nature of job duties at institutions of this size, librarians and archivists often are not trained specifically in visual literacy or visual arts disciplines, and they often perform multiple functional duties in addition to instruction and support multiple disciplines. Resources and time for professional development can be limited, and instructors generally are limited to teaching one-shot sessions. The first section will complicate conventional methodologies and offer ideas for applied learning in both digital and in-person spaces. When examining traditional visual literacy, it is important to challenge the framework we were taught so that the field keeps growing and so that these principles align with student experiences. Next, using methods from museum education and history methods workshops, the second section will examine how students are empowered to demystify the understanding of visuals without formal arts training. This section encourages sessions that ask questions of visuals and reinforce an individual’s powers of observation and other ways of knowing. The last part will explore how visual literacy is more than just the “visual” in the traditional sense; it can involve description, haptics, tactile, and other ways of “seeing.” When incorporating values of Universal Design and Disability Studies, visual literacy expands to allow all users, regardless of level of sight, to interact, understand, and explore visual mediums.
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    Truly shared cataloging ecosystem development: A report from the workshop at SWIB23
    Kovari, Jason; Folsom, Steven; Warner, Simeon (2024)
    This report documents the "Truly shared cataloging ecosystem development" workshop held at the Semantic Web in Libraries (SWIB23) conference in Berlin, Germany on 2023-09-11. Participants engaged in structured brainstorming to explore the idea of moving MARC-based cataloging practice from its current state to one where work is performed in shared data stores, using BIBFRAME linked data rather than copying.
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    Privacy in Academic Libraries: A Collective Action Problem
    Bettinger, Eliza; Chandler, Adam; Bursic, Meryl (2023-10-19)
    Presentation given at Ivy Plus Discovery Days webinar event on October 19, 2023.
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    Audiovisual Preservation Infrastructure
    Berney, Tre (Tre Berney, 2023-03)
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    The Future of Audiovisual Preservation
    Berney, Tre (Tre Berney, 2022-08-11)
    Audiovisual preservation continues to be one of the most complicated endeavors in the cultural heritage sectors of libraries, archives, and museums. This work, if successful, outlives us, representing peoples, places, cultural norms, and life as we understand it. Our history should effectively inform our individual and collective futures and there is no substitute for audiovisual documents. As with any challenge, we must understand the long tail of the issues, including the interdependencies involved in the work of time-based media preservation. This includes identifying the current challenges and imagining potential future threats and solutions at scale. From storage to curation, this work is resource intensive and in this talk we’ll identify how we can collectively share the burden of preserving our shared memory.
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    CORNELL UNIVERSITY AUDIOVISUAL PRESERVATION INITIATIVE SURVEY REPORT
    Berney, Tre; Alexander, Desiree; Mericle, Danielle; Fitzke, Karl (Cornell University Library, 2017-02)
    Digital Consulting & Production Services, in partnership with CIT and other Cornell stakeholders, is leading an effort to determine audiovisual preservation needs campus-wide. Cornell University has vast holdings of unique audio and video assets vital to its mission “to discover, preserve, and disseminate knowledge…” These include lectures by luminary figures (Nobel laureates, heads of state, writers, artists and more) as well as original source recordings essential to research in biology, linguistics, art and beyond. However, due to hardware and file obsolescence, media failure and rights issues, we are now faced with an imminent and growing threat to these high value and unique audio and video assets. Over the period of 15 months, we conducted a campus-wide survey of unique or rare audiovisual assets being used for teaching and research. We also scanned the AV technology landscape to help inform next steps. The results can be found in the final report (PDF). We continue to partner with IT@Cornell and Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology on a campus-wide preservation storage solution.
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    Addressing Business Research Needs in the Engineering Curriculum
    Lee, Hyunjung; Lane, Sarah; Sheley, Christina; Powell, Jill H. (American Society for Engineering Education, 2023-06-25)
    Teaching business competencies in the engineering curriculum frequently happens in support of entrepreneurship and/or management and leadership programs. However, in the College of Engineering at Cornell University, business and engineering intersect in a more ubiquitous manner, including traditional coursework and co-curricular initiatives. Examples of this include projects where there are corporate partners, business and leadership skill development in student project teams, market and consumer aspects of design courses, and training focused on organizational communication. To address these real-world applications of engineering and the external factors impacting theoretical approaches, students need to research companies, industries, business environments, organizational behavior, and sources of financing. This has prompted the Engineering Library, part of the Cornell University Library system, to think about approaches for supporting business research, in addition to the all-important design, build, and modeling work of engineering and science. Increasing collaboration between business and engineering librarians to provide research assistance and instruction has been one approach; providing cross-training on databases and subject expertise is another. Finally, adopting different pedagogical styles and considering disciplinary contexts and language has been essential. This paper will describe the use cases where business and engineering intersect in the College of Engineering at Cornell University while also detailing our approaches. In addition, it will discuss the outcomes of our efforts and the successes and challenges encountered as we work to address business research needs in the engineering curriculum.