Systemwide technical and automated services activities support the mission of the Rutgers University
Libraries to provide effective stewardship of scholarly information and the delivery of quality
information services. Responsibilities in this area include the acquisition and cataloging of
information resources and the development of a repository infrastructure to acquire, preserve and
provide long-term access to the intellectual property that is owned or created by Rutgers University
and strategic collaborators. Strategic directions are provided for two areas:
Technical and Automated Services and
Digital Repository Development.
Technical and Automated Services:
- Increase workflow efficiencies. Technical and Automated Services will continue workflow analysis to
further streamline processes, by minimizing redundancies and eliminating unnecessary activities. TAS
will implement appropriate technologies and vendor-provided services to increase productivity and
responsiveness to users. TAS will work with TSCWG to standardize core services across all campuses,
establish benchmarks, and identify and resolve bottlenecks.
- Provide support for multilingual information. TAS will increase support for multilingual information
that supports the curricular and research needs of the university and the rich diversity of the state
of New Jersey. Specific examples include the integration of Unicode into IRIS and the repository for
input, search and display of Roman and non-Roman vernacular languages.
- Enhance cataloging expertise. TAS will increase its cataloging capacity for special materials,
specifically databases, continuations and multiformat resources.
- Participate in digital initiatives. TAS will incorporate support for the Digital Repository into its
core services. Specific activities include:
- metadata creation and support,
- educating TAS librarians and staff about pertinent technologies and applications.
- providing technical support to partners who contribute materials and collections to the Digital Repository,
- advising academic departments who are providing collections for the repository, and
- maintaining a robust digital library infrastructure.
- Provide training and support to enable individuals to work to their full potential in a highly
technical and fast paced environment. TAS will partner with relevant committees and departments, for
example RUL Training and Advisory Committee and UHR, to implement a professional development plan,
which insures to that faculty and staff are able to meet the strategic challenges facing the
department. In addition, TAS will align job descriptions with changing departmental activities,
actively engage staff in planning for new developments and in workflow analysis, develop documentation
to support changing workflow and training needs and recruit staff that bring expertise and diversity to
the TAS workforce.
Digital Repository Development:
The Rutgers Digital Repository will preserve and make accessible the intellectual output of the
university and its strategic partners, particularly the state of New Jersey. Activities of the Digital
Repository include the creation, storage, preservation, description, access and display of information
and provision of information services. Digital Repository users will include Rutgers faculty, staff and
students, as well as scholars and students worldwide. Strategic activities of the repository are:
- Preserve intellectual content that is unique, important to a wide range of users and that will remain
valuable and useful to future generations of scholars and students. Priority will be given to
preserving information resources that are unique and important within RUL's collections, including
materials in the Institute for Jazz Studies, New Jerseyana and brittle materials. In addition, priority
will be given to research products that are useful to a wide range of users and that would otherwise
not be available. Examples include primary research products such as data sets, laboratory notes,
multimedia research artifacts and working papers. Collaboration with faculty proposing grants,
particularly in strategic research areas, will be explored as an area that represents a compelling need
for faculty and a source of income for RUL.
- Integrate information systems within RUL. A critical development area is the integration of RUL
information systems, such as IRIS and Luna, with the Digital Repository for seamless information
access.
- Integrate information across the University. The Digital Repository will serve as an integrator of
university information to extend seamless information access across the university. Potential Digital
Repository collaborators outside RUL include the Rutgers University Press (preservation of out-of-print
publications), graduate schools (publication of digital dissertations and theses), RUTV (integration
with the media asset management system for continuous access to video resources), and OTI (integration
with OIT's Sakai learning content repository to provide resources for use in course creation).
- Develop user interfaces. Digital Repository interfaces for content creation, submission, discovery
and access must be user-friendly, intuitive and integrated into the user's research and learning
workflow. The Digital Repository will integrate and utilize OIT's authentication and authorization
system to support NetID and access to repository functions via MyRutgers. Interfaces will also focus on
integration of IRIS and Luna resources with the Digital Repository.
- Emphasize long-term preservation of intellectual content within a trusted repository. Application
development within the repository will focus on information preservation for future generations of
scholars. TAS will develop a robust repository, which ensures that content is authentic and readily
accessible in the future. TAS will create documentation for future Digital Repository administrators to
insure the long-term management and migration of the technical infrastructure.
- Develop a business plan to insure the sustainability and long-term viability of the repository. The
business plan will articulate potentially strategic collaborations, identify primary repository content
and clients within Rutgers, delineate core services provided at no cost and fee-based value added
services, perform detailed cost analysis for determining cost recovery, risk analysis, staffing and
space planning. The plan should be developed in collaboration with the Rutgers Business School.
