The Scholarly Communication and Digital Services Department is charged with building effective, dynamic knowledge management and research systems to preserve and provide access to the intellectual output of Georgia Tech. Its responsibilities include identifying, assessing, collecting, preserving, providing access, and making this output more valuable through digital information technologies, whether “born-digital” or convertible to digital formats. The Department provides these resources and services in support of the research and educational endeavors of the Georgia Tech community and to scholars around the world.
The Scholarly Communication and Digital Services Department’s collecting areas reflect the major areas of research of the Georgia Tech campus, especially Science and Engineering. Effort is concentrated on those areas with national rankings and emerging significance. Materials range from traditional scholarly publications through materials created in support of classroom teaching. Through survey of the Institute’s Web presence, personal interviews, or contact, materials are identified, investigated in light of content, technical, and legal considerations, and solicited/collected from the departments.
U.S. News & World Report 2006 America’s Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools editions provides us with a ranking guide to Georgia Tech’s exceptional research and educational centers on campus. This, used in conjunction with patent awards and dollar amounts of sponsored research projects leads us to our primary collecting areas.
Engineering
- Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronomical
- Biomedical/Bioengineering
- Civil
- Computer Engineering
- Electrical/Electronic/Communications
- Environmental/Environmental Health
- Industrial/Manufacturing
- Computer Engineering
- Mechanical
Public Affairs
- Information and Technology Management
Science
- Chemistry
- Computer Science
- Computer Science Systems
- Applied Mathematics
- Mathematics
- Physics
Business
Areas recognized as Research Initiatives for an Enhanced Research Enterprise at Georgia Tech : ¹
Materials of specific interest:
In concert with the Archives, SMARTech collects electronic publications and traditional archival materials now available in digital format. This continues the Archives’ mission of collecting and preserving the history of campus, promoting research and scholarship through collections relating to the academic curriculum, provides research experience for students in the use of primary sources, and aids in preservation of the legal and administrative documents of the Institute. Some of the materials collected by Archives for inclusion in SMARTech include:
All materials considered for inclusion in SMARTech will be assessed using the following criteria.
In addition to the subject areas for collection outlined above, materials will be assessed on their enduring value.
Both the Library’s ability to commit to the preservation of the bitstream/digital item and the technical quality of the materials will be considered in accepting materials for inclusion in SMARTech. Digital file formats are discussed below.
The Library will research publishers’ restrictions and conditions for deposit of pre-/post-prints, conference proceedings, and other items and ensure there is evidence of clear ability under copyright for the depositor to post the material.
Items considered for SMARTech will be evaluated using the same generally accepted categories standardized by MIT. ²
When an item’s format is public and open as is the case with formats such as Adobe PDF, HTML, JPEG, or AIFF it is categorized as a “Supported format.” Items in this category can be used in the future through migration or emulation and the Library makes a commitment to do so.
When an item is submitted in a proprietary format it is categorized as “Known.” This category indicates that the specifics of the program code for that format are not public but the format is so widely used that the ability to use it in the future is almost certain.
“Unsupported” formats are those that the Library can not commit to converting to some usable form in the future. In consultation with the depositor, a decision will be made as to including the item in SMARTech and if it is accepted, readable descriptive information will be included. In the case of unsupported formats, the Library will request that the item also be submitted in a supported or known format, if it is at all possible to do so.
Materials can be deposited into SMARTech in two main ways. The Library can receive permission from the submitter to deposit the material for them. The submitter is also able to deposit materials themselves: training from the library is available.
Materials in SMARTech are considered permanent in nature. However, items raising legal issues, containing plagiarized content, or considered breaches of confidentiality may be considered for withdrawal. To avoid loss of the historical record, any withdrawal transactions will be traced in the form of a note in the
The content of the note should be one of the following:
"removed from view at request of the author"
"removed from view by legal order"
"removed from view at Georgia Institute of Technology's discretion"
"removed from view at Georgia Institute of Technology Library and Information Center's discretion"
Since any SMARTech item that has existed at some time may have been cited, we will always supply a "tombstone" when the item is requested, which will include the original metadata (for verification) plus one of the above withdrawal statements in place of the link to the object. For preservation and reference purposes, the item itself will be placed in Aardvark, a dark repository managed by the Georgia Tech Archives.
Generally, items in SMARTech are open to the public. However, there are instances where copyright law or specific needs of the depositor requires campus-only access. The Library always encourages open access to all items found in SMARTech but will review requests for limited, campus-only access on a case by case basis.
The Library is committed to adhering to the best practices of the profession applying to digital preservation. All materials are backed up with at least one method. All servers are backed up by tape. The Library is a member of the MetaArchive cooperative, a Digital Preservation Partner of the library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP) for the networked preservation of cultural heritage materials using the LOCKSS software. All Georgia Tech created digital materials held by the Library are included in this network. The Library also participates in the ASERL LOCKSS program for the preservation of electronic theses and dissertations. In addition, dissertations are submitted to UMI/ProQuest which is the official off-site repository for the preservation of dissertations for the Library of Congress.
This mission and collecting policy will be reviewed and revised based upon the experience gained in implementing the policy. A review and assessment of the policy will be conducted every 6 months by the Scholarly Communication and Digital Services staff and others invited to participate in the review.
[1] http://www.gatech.edu/president/strategicplan.html
[2] http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/build/policies/format.html