The Authority File

In the final episode of this four-part series, Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, discusses metadata challenges and solutions for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Noting the difficulty of digitizing objects with uneven records, Eleanor highlights the thoughtful choices Gale and its partners made for ECCO Part III when it came to standardizing the data. In addition, she chats about metadata updates to Part III requested from longtime users, such as adding an author gender filter and a material’s place of publication. Finally, Eleanor shares one of her most surprising discoveries in the archive while using its digital humanities tools—the 1782 caterpillar plague, anyone?

Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, we chat with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, about the logistics of digitizing tiny books for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. First, Eleanor outlines the challenges the physical conditions of miniature books bring to the digitization process. Praising the work of the British Library on ECCO Part III, Eleanor explains how the team tested out new digitization techniques and even built a tiny book cradle to accommodate their small size. In addition, Eleanor shares how Gale worked with library partners to determine what to digitize—keep or discard a hundreds-year-old bug stuck between the pages? Our guest closes with thoughts on remediation, exploring the transformation of books from texts to objects when digitized.

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In the second episode of this four-part series with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, we turn our attention to a big topic: tiny books. A key archival format in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III, miniature books emerged in the 17th century as collectible items often in the form of almanacs, historical works, or religious pieces. In the episode, Eleanor recounts their history, exploring how their size—for example, holding the entire history of Britain in your palm—revealed their impracticality and allure as a symbol of knowledge and art piece. In addition, we chat with Eleanor about what makes tiny books “invisible” in the archives and the benefits of digitizing these small but mighty works.

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What does it take to bring some of the smallest—and most fragile—volumes of the eighteenth century into the digital research environment? In this series, Gale acquisitions editor Eleanor Leese discusses the preservation and digitization of rare and understudied materials now available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Historically inaccessible due to their physical condition and scarcity, these items include miniature devotional works, ephemeral pamphlets, and personal instructional texts. Over the next four episodes, we’ll examine how careful handling, specialized imaging techniques, and collaboration with libraries help ensure these delicate works survive to be searched, cited, and studied by scholars around the world.

In the first episode of this series, Eleanor introduces us to Eighteenth Century Collections Online. She details the inspiration for the original collection, charting its development over the past two decades to its latest iteration, Part III. As Eleanor notes, ECCO was last updated in 2009, so Part III contains unique objects that previously couldn’t be microfilmed due to their unique size, in addition to updated color imaging and the books’ exterior features like the spine and cover. To close, she shares how scholars use ECCO across disciplines and its impact on 18th-century research.

Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, explore supporting information professionals in the push for stronger public trust in science. Highlighting consistent patron trust in libraries, our guests see librarians as key players in the fight for academic freedom. In fact, Louis discusses the library’s connections to the local community, research ecosystem, and publishing cycle as crucial benefits. Surfacing the recent information curation guide from Sage and Sense about Science, he also notes the value of the guide’s connections across the information ecosystem and points to the tech industry as an essential partner. To close, Louis reflects on librarians’ changing curatorial roles in the AI environment, and Camille previews next steps from Sage following the guide’s publication.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), joins Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, to discuss the current environment for public trust in science. First, Louis shares CILIP’s background and previews its upcoming five-year strategy and updated mission. Next, Louis and Camille highlight major obstacles toward restoring public trust in research, reflecting on censorship attacks, political interference, and, of course, artificial intelligence. Our guests also share why information curators within and outside academia are stepping up in this moment to champion academic freedom, access to information, and research impact. Camille also touches briefly on The People’s Case for Curators, the recent guide from Sage and Sense about Science.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science, and Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, reflect on key takeaways from Sage and Sense about Science’s guide on increasing public trust in research, The People’s Case for Curators. They discuss the similarities and differences between editors, librarians, and journalists in their contributions to the information landscape; despite distinct processes and criteria, each group works to get vetted information to readers. In addition, our guests explain why they want to make the invisible work of public-good curators visible and provide action steps informed by the guide on how everyone can spotlight curators’ efforts. Last, Tracey shares an optimistic outlook on the general public recognizing the contributions of information curators.

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In this month’s four-part series, we dive into public trust in science. Inspired by the recent guide The People’s Case for Curators from Sage and Sense about Science, the series investigates the need for the guide and what issues within and outside scholarly communication have compounded on each other, creating unique challenges to strengthening public trust in research.

We first chat with Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, and Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science, in episodes one and two, digging into their collaboration on the guide, key takeaways, and the value of research communicators. In episodes three and four, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), joins Camille to discuss the obstacles impacting public trust in science and the key role of information professionals in combatting these issues.

In this first episode, Tracey shares the mission behind Sense about Science and why the organization wanted to team up with Sage on the guide. Further, Camille and Tracey define public-good curators, explaining how librarians, research officers, and journalists each play a unique and crucial role in building public trust.

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In the second episode of our two-part series with ACRL, Whitney Kramer and Iliana Burgos, editors of Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians, move into the applications of Text and Data Mining (TDM). They start by highlighting key partnerships essential to TDM’s success on campus and encourage librarians to stay engaged in researcher trends and the local community. Next, they chat about licensing and legal issues, identifying how vendors are responding to the uptick in TDM practices in scholarship. Looking ahead to the future of Text and Data Mining, our guests share how TDM and AI literacies go hand-in-hand and why broader data literacy efforts prepare librarians to adapt and respond to fast-moving technology trends.

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This fall our friends at ACRL published Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians, a wide-reaching text that details how librarians are using Text and Data Mining (TDM) across disciplines and levels of expertise. This month, we’re joined by two of the book’s editors, Whitney Kramer and Iliana Burgos, for a two-part series to discuss why this book is needed right now. In the series, our guests highlight the growing demand for TDM literacy among researchers and outline what makes TDM partnerships work across campus. Further, they chat about licensing agreements and copyright in relation to TDM, practical case studies in the book, and how TDM literacy might evolve from here.

In this first episode, Whitney and Iliana reveal that they started this project with their coeditor Evan Muzzall in response to a gap in the literature—there was a clear lack of guidance for librarians on how to support researchers using TDM. Next, they share their working definition for Text and Data Mining and why their call for chapter proposals specifically sought out early-career writers. Last, Whitney and Iliana underscore that librarians don’t need to become TDM experts overnight, instead recommending to approach any new technology from a “learning perspective.”

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!