Digital repository celebrates virtual launch

By Stephen Wilson

Charlotte Nunes, director of digital scholarship services, hailed Nora Egloff, digital repository librarian, and Adam Malantonio, digital initiatives developer, as the dynamic duo to help launch the fourth iteration of a digital repository at the College.

While the digital space for objects debuted at the library in 2009, the scope and breadth of today’s offerings far eclipse it.

The latest repository has 17,268 objects and counting. It features Lafayette-specific collections including faculty publications, the student-run newspaper, the alumni magazine, and archival collections such as the East Asia Image Collection.

More impressively the repository integrates in some key ways for scholars—each item has a permalink, standardized way to describe and deliver images, and archival collections are shared via the Digital Public Library of America.

The repository sets Lafayette apart from peer institutions of the same size. Lafayette is the first small liberal arts college to implement a repository using Samvera, a suite of open-source digital library technologies, rather than a commercial repository product.

Migrating thousands of items from earlier repositories is labor-intensive work and speaks to the dedication involved in making Lafayette-produced scholarship and special collections available to others.