The UCD Digital Library began as a niche project focused on digitizing select special collections materials. Early criteria for selection included available technology, preservation needs, existing digitization projects, user demand, and metadata availability. Over time, drivers like centenary initiatives, strategic university objectives, and increasing digital technologies pushed the Digital Library towards mainstreaming and expanding its stakeholder base to include additional repositories, researchers, teachers, and schools. While growing functionality created new opportunities, managing expectations of what digitization and services involve remained important. The Digital Library transitioned from its initial niche role to increased engagement both within and outside the university.

1. An Leabharlann UCD
Moving from niche to mainstream:
the evolution of the UCD Digital
Library
1
Eugene Roche, Special Collections
Librarian
Julia Barrett,
Research Services Manager
UCD Library

2. Structure of the presentation:
Eugene
• Niche – the early days of
the DL and limitations.
• The criteria used for
selection of the first
projects
• Point of view of repository
stake holder
Julia
• Current “Drivers”
• Mainstreaming
• Managing expectations
• Summary of the journey
2

3. A note on structure and corporate entities
• The Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) was a component of
the UCD Humanities Institute and was conceived as a five-year research
project which ran from January 2005 to December 2009, funded by the
Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) Phase 3
• Evolved into what is now the UCD Digital Library
3

4. The Horseless Carriage
• Digitisation seen in simple terms like a early motor car was defined as a
carriage without horses – unaware of its potential
• Focus summed up in the word “surrogate” seen in simplistic terms as
providing a substitute for the hard copy
• “whether such efforts [digitisation projects] will be effective for more
than limited, well defined sub-sets of special collections is unclear”
(Bradshaw and Wagner, 2000)*
*Bradshaw, E. B., & Wagner, S. C. (2000). A common ground: communication and alliance between cataloguer and curator for
improved access to rare books and special collections. College & Research Libraries, 61(6), 525-534. 4

5. Selection Criteria
What did we choose and why?
• Available technology
• Preservation issues
• What was already digitised or likely to be
digitised?
• User demand
• Available metadata
5

6. Available Technology
• The “Creo” scanner above was the only one available for the first five
years. It could take only single sheets up to A3 size
• Could do single sheets or pamphlets (or maps using post scan
stitching)
6

7. Preservation
• Historical Maps - John Rocque
• Ó Lochlainn Ballad Sheets
• Often sparked desire to see the original
7

8. • Our 18th Century Pamphlets?– ECCO produced digital copies of of almost
150,000 18th century books and pamphlets in 2002
• “We own the 18th century”! – Mark Holland (Gale Group /ECC0, 2002)
• UCD Special Collections submitted fifty 19th century pamphlets for
digitisation - designed to act as a showcase for the rest of the 19th
century holdings
Already Digitised
8

9. User Demand
• Thomas Hardy’s Ms. Return of the
native
• Demand from the international
academic community for
digitised copy of the manuscript
to facilitate research
• Simon J Gatrell and Tim Doolin
Hardy's study at
Max Gate
9

10. Sources for
Metadata
Available or not ?
43 volume collection of 19th and 20th century Irish language
manuscripts
Ca. 10,000 images
Existing calendar dating from early 20th Century
Reliable metadata confined to brief descriptions from Hayes
“Sources”
Patrick Ferriter 1856-1924
Ferriter Ms. 5

11. Drivers
• Decade of Anniversaries
• UCD’s strategic objectives
– Increase the quality, quantity and impact of our research,
scholarship and innovation
– Build our engagement locally, nationally and internationally
• Academic impact
• Public impact
• Increasing awareness of the use of digital technologies
to facilitate research insights and communication
• Internal re-organisation: UCD Archives and NFC
• Opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with
repositories, Schools, academics, etc.

12. Profiling
e.g. collection
scoping
Digital Asset
Curation
e.g. scanning, file
processing
Cataloguing
Copyright
Ingest
Quality Review
Publicity
Evaluation
A time-consuming process

13. So how do we decide?
Demand
Relevance
Rarity
At risk material
Metadata
Copyright / IPR

14. Stakeholders
• Repositories
• Researchers
• Teachers
• UCD Schools and Research
Centres
• UCD
• Library

15. Transforming Teaching
I am working for Liverpool Hope
University developing an app to be
used by English Literature students
celebrating the life and work of Gerard
Manley Hopkins.
One of the main aims of the app is to
humanise Hopkins in a way he perhaps
hasn't been in a classic academic
syllabus.
I understand you hold letters from
Hopkins would there be any chance I
could use any images you have of his
handwritten letters?
I believe the letters give a truer sense
of his thought processes and a sense of
him as a man.
bookhaven.stanford.edu

16. Researching Hidden Histories:
Eithne Coyle O’Donnell
• Eithne Coyle O’Donnell was
an Irish Republican activist.
She was a leading figure
within Cumann na
mBan and a member of the
Gaelic League.
• She would also become
notorious for her
involvement in two high-
profile prison escapes in
the 1920s.
UCD Archives

17. Discovering Patterns: Iberian Books
http://iberian.ucd.ie/

18. Place / time visualisation

19. School Funding Application:
Ryan Report
• The structure of the Ryan
Report makes institutional
comparisons difficult, thus
hiding how child abuse
emerged and became
systemic over time.
• It also obscures the pattern
of movement of staff and
victims between institutions
which must be important to
understanding the diffusion
of the culture of abuse

20. • “Dynamic Heat Map … The heat map will
bring together current digital arts
visualisation and digital mapping
techniques to create a geospatial heat
map of institutional expansion and
decline over the century 1899- 1999.
• This heat map will follow the lead of the
Iberian Books Project (UCD Centre for the
History of the Media; Mellon Foundation
Funded).
• This aspect of the project outcomes will
be done in collaboration with the UCD
Digital Library team.”
• “Long term
sustainability will be
ensured via digital
archiving through the
UCD Digital Library,
which is a certified
Trusted Digital
Repository.”
Successful School of
English, Drama & Film
and School of Computer
Science grant
application to IRC:
€213,958 awarded.

21. Managing Expectations
• Work with others;
communication; relationship-
building
– Highlight what is involved
• Flowchart; LibGuide
– Academic “champions”
• Services
– How do we know what the
demand is for specific services?
– How do we satisfy the demand
for new services e.g. inclusion
of a narrative or timeline or a
heat map?
– How do users know what the
potential uses are of our digital
collections?
http://libguides.ucd.ie/digitisation

22. Managing Expectations
• Articulate roles,
procedures and
expectations
– MOUs
• Create efficiencies
– Workflows – from the start
22
• Jessie Lendennie’s “Funny Dog” poem
• Film-maker used this title as it was
supplied by poet
• Library could not track the poem down
• School of English assistance: “For the Guys
with Apologies for Human Frailty”.
• Irish Poetry Reading Archive: Poetry Title
Check Sheet

23. Summary
DL pushes out to Reps
Demand, rarity, at risk
Digital analogue
Builds on niche – trust,
expertise
Reps push out to DL
New, external Reps
Tie in to strategic
objectives of wider
stakeholders (not only
Reps)
Functionality advances
create more
opportunities for
widening stakeholder
base with their various
strategic aims
Becomes more “core”
and embedded
Creates more demand
Manage expectations
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