Schedule

Tuesday July 22

Start time	End time	Event duration	Event type	Title	Presenter (s)	Description
8:00 AM	9:00 AM	1:00:00	Breakfast and registration		Planning Committee
09:00 AM	09:15 AM	0:15:00	Welcome and logistics		Planning Committee
09:15 AM	9:45 AM	0:25:00	Presentation	Tree to Forest: Cultivating Aspen Discovery at Different Scales	Rogan Hamby, Equinox Open Library Initiative	Equinox Open Library Initiative has successfully implemented Aspen Discovery across a spectrum of libraries, from complex statewide consortia with hundreds of branches to single-location institutions. Learn how we leveraged Equinox’s long-term expertise with open source software to launch support services for Aspen Discovery, specializing in libraries using Evergreen ILS and Koha ILS. Participants will get an inside look at how libraries of varying sizes modernize discovery and how its emerging sustainability framework positions Aspen as a living project evolving alongside changing library services.
09:45 AM	10:00 AM	0:15:00	Presentation	Automating generation and delivery of ILS reports with Python, SQLAlchemy, and Linux crontab	Brian Clark, University of Alabama	Our office runs and delivers dozens of scheduled reports of data from our ILS in addition to the ad hoc report requests we receive. We developed a process to automate the generation and delivery of the scheduled ILS reports by embedding SQL queries in Python scripts using the Python packages SQLAlchemy and email. The scripts are then added to our ILS server crontab and scheduled to run at specified times, creating a fully automated process. We will describe the process and shows some examples of how we implemented it at our institution. Prerequisites include SSH access to a self-hosted ILS or LSP and Linux crontab or another task scheduler. Template files will be made available for anyone to use and modify to suit their needs.
10:00 AM	10:15 AM	0:15:00	Break
10:15 AM	12:00 PM	2:00:00	Unconference	Various	Various	Various
12:00 PM	01:30 PM	1:30:00	Lunch
01:30 PM	1:55 PM	0:25:00	Talk	Circa: A Customizable, Web-based Request System for Special Collections	Jon Page, NC State Libraries	Circa is a modern web-based request system that streamlines the management of special collections materials. For almost a decade at NC State Libraries, our homegrown system has efficiently managed requests by centralizing the request creation process, tracking material movement, controlling researcher access, and providing extensive usage data for informed planning and resource allocation. Circa seamlessly integrates with ArchivesSpace—allowing for effortless import and updates of container and location data—and connects with local catalogs to access non-ArchivesSpace materials. It supports on-site access, remote duplication requests, and leverages the IIIF specification for high-resolution reproduction requests from digital collections. Over the past year, we've developed a new version of Circa focused on maximizing customization for other institutions. In this talk, we will demonstrate how you can tailor Circa to meet the unique needs of your collection. We are in the midst of open sourcing Version 2 and hope this session will spark conversation and feedback on how our new open source release can best serve the community.
02:00 PM	02:25 PM	0:25:00	Talk	An Introduction to Trankskribus: An AI tool for digital interpretation of historical documents	Andrew Battelini and Simon O'Riordan, Emory University	The Media Preservation team at Emory University has begun experimenting with the Transkribus tool, a digital interpretation tool used to analyze textual documents and provide transcriptions. Transkribus uses an AI approach that incorporates analysis models that users can train to better recognize specific line patterns and text format or handwriting styles. For large collections that use one individual’s handwriting, or a series of geographic-specific items, trainable models can increase the accuracy of the program significantly. We have worked with a small variety of collections using this tool, such as a Civil War collection that has a very large number of handwritten materials from an area with low literacy and askew line patterns, but also containing insightful information. Another example collection is the Maud Gonne and William B. Yeates Correspondence, which provides a unique collection where there is substantial existing transcription and a consistent handwriting style. Our presentation will focus on an introduction to the Transkribus Tool, our experience with “getting up to speed” with it, and a summary of the value we’ve gotten from its use and the various lessons learned should others wish to try it out.
02:30 PM	02:55 PM	0:25:00	Talk	Keywords for Black Louisiana	Alex Sanchez, Skylar Jones, and Zara El-Fil, LifexCode; University of Notre Dame (Jones); Johns Hopkins University (Sanchez)	Keywords for Black Louisiana (“Keywords”) is a collective of researchers, subject matter specialists, and a New Orleans-based community advising board who transcribe, translate, and curate an online database of documents that examine Black life in eighteenth-century colonial Louisiana. Keywords members are committed to centering African and African-descended people in the colonial archive and being accountable toward Black history and culture. Keywords members are dedicated to making these archival documents easily available to descendants in Gulf Coast communities, K-12 educators, and other researchers. We will use an interactive presentation to expand on two aspects of Keywords’ communal workflow: accountability and accessibility. We use a communal workflow to help make the historical archive available to the public and to present crucial resources to end users as part of keeping ourselves accountable to the representation of Black history and culture. Our presentation will demonstrate the workflow using a single document, from document selection to publication, with emphasis on the project’s minimal computing methods like markup and Wax and how we aim to prioritize the database’s accessibility for descendants and other researchers. We will conclude by discussing how Keywords members work together to provide necessary definitions of historical terms and events, especially when present in metadata, in the individual documents and in the database. We argue that communal workflow is critical to community-accountable organizing and Black digital humanities projects.
03:00 PM	03:15 PM	0:15:00	Afternoon Snack
03:15 PM	03:30 PM	0:15:00	Talk	Investigating Speaker Diarization within the Whisper ASR Ecosystem	Simon O'Riordan and Nina Rao, Emory University	This presentation will explore approaches to integrating speaker diarization into a caption and transcript creation workflow for increased accessibility. At Emory University Libraries, we are currently implementing Whisper, an open-source AI-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) software, to create caption and transcript files for digitized audiovisual (AV) material, improving its discoverability and accessibility. While Whisper provides many benefits in creating high-quality captions and transcripts, the baseline Whisper software lacks native functionality for speaker diarization, the process of segmenting audio into homogenous segments according to the identity of each speaker. Speaker diarization increases the readability and accessibility of multi-speaker content such as oral histories and interviews. In this presentation we will explore possible solutions such as using modified Whisper instances that support speaker diarization, using chatbots such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to perform speaker diarization on Whisper output, or adding specialized speaker diarization software to Whisper such as Picovoice Falcon or Pyannote. We will discuss the pros and cons to each approach while narrating our successes and failures along the way.
03:35 PM	4:00 PM	0:25:00	Talk	Coding your Career: Tech-Powered Goal Setting for library practitioners	Kay Coates and Jessica Garner, Georgia Southern University Libraries	"This presentation is designed to empower library personnel at all career stages with strategic goal-setting skills. Employing a blend of constructivism, andragogy, and experiential learning, this session will explore the importance of professional goal setting that is tied to career progression. Oftentimes when library practitioners think of goal-setting, they focus on organizational objectives; however, the emphasis will be on the importance of personal and professional growth while achieving the libraries’ mission of serving the academic community and local jurisdiction. Through guided reflections and references to technology resources and strategies for ongoing goal evaluation and adjustment, the presenters will focus on the SMART goal framework. Real-world examples will be mentioned so that attendees recognize how to define and operationalize measurable objectives in their mundane activities via an illustration of Goals Tracker. The session is steeped in intergenerational knowledge and professional know-how. "
04:00 PM	5:00 PM	1:00:00	Tour of Preservation Spaces

Wed July 23 This will be an unconference style meeting

Start time	End time	Event duration	Event type
09:00 AM	10:00 AM	1:00:00	Breakfast and Registration
10:00 AM	10:30 AM	0:30:00	Intro and Topic Selection
10:30 AM	11:15 AM	0:45:00	Discussion
11:15 AM	12:00 PM	0:45:00	Discussion
12:00 PM	01:30 PM	1:30:00	Lunch
1:30 PM	02:15 PM	0:45:00	Discussion
02:15 PM	03:00 PM	0:45:00	Discussion
03:00 PM	03:15 PM	0:15:00	Afternoon Snack
03:15 PM	04:00 PM	0:45:00	Discussion

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