TCDL 2026

Description: Digital preservation work increasingly takes place under conditions of uncertainty: shifting funding landscapes, evolving systems, unclear authority, and emotional strain. While technical assessment frameworks help institutions evaluate infrastructure and workflows, they rarely address the human experience of stewardship work—confidence, safety, belonging, and sustainability.

This interactive workshop introduces and applies Navigating Uncertainty, a human-centered reflection and assessment framework developed by the Digital POWRR team through the Digital POWRR Peer Assessment Program. Participants will actively complete the framework for their own professional context and engage in structured peer dialogue using guided reflection prompts.

Rather than producing a formal assessment outcome, the workshop emphasizes learning through reflection and conversation. Participants are invited to surface insights, clarify next steps, and reconnect with a sense of agency and community, highlighting how shared understanding and connection can be sources of joy even amid uncertainty.

Learning Objectives/Outcomes: By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
Describe the purpose and structure of the Navigating Uncertainty framework
Apply the framework to reflect on their own position across multiple domains of digital preservation work

Use structured reflection prompts to support meaningful peer conversation
Distinguish between individual challenges and structural or institutional constraints
Identify forms of scaffolding, support, or practice that could improve sustainability
Reflect on how peer connection and shared language can foster resilience and professional joy.

Target audience: This workshop is intended for:
Digital librarians, archivists, curators, and repository managers
Practitioners working in small, mid-sized, or under-resourced institutions
Individuals navigating ambiguity around staffing, systems, authority, or funding

Prerequisite knowledge: General familiarity with digital collections or digital preservation work. No prior experience with Digital POWRR or assessment frameworks is required.
Experience level: Beginner to intermediate (advanced practitioners welcome as well!)

Time Expectation: 2 hours

Tech Requirements:
Participants bring a laptop, tablet, or use provided paper copies of the framework

Proposed Agenda / Outline
0:00–0:15 | Welcome & Context Setting
Introductions and workshop goals
Brief overview of POWRR and the Peer Assessment Program
Why the Navigating Uncertainty framework was developed
Connecting uncertainty, sustainability, and joy

0:15–0:30 | Framework Walkthrough
Overview of the six domains and navigational levels
Guidance on using the framework as a compass rather than a checklist
Emphasis on non-linearity and self-compassion

0:30–0:55 | Individual Assessment
Participants complete the Navigating Uncertainty framework for their own context
Focus on 2–3 domains most relevant to their current work
Facilitators circulate to answer questions

0:55–1:30 | Peer Reflection (Pairs or Triads)
Structured dialogue using selected reflection prompts
Emphasis on listening, resonance, and shared learning
No expectation to “solve” problems or disclose sensitive details

1:30–1:50 | Group Synthesis & Shared Themes
Voluntary sharing of patterns, insights, or surprises
Reflection on how peer conversation shaped understanding
Optional sharing of practices, resources, or forms of support that participants have found helpful in building resilience or sustaining their work
Discussion of where participants found clarity, validation, or renewed energy

1:50–2:00 | Closing & Feedback
Brief introduction of an optional, anonymous feedback worksheet
Participants invited to share feedback focused primarily on the Navigating Uncertainty framework, with light reflection on the workshop format

Final takeaways and next steps
Note on Feedback and Learning: As Navigating Uncertainty is a new and evolving framework, this workshop also serves as an opportunity for the POWRR team to learn how the tool functions in a live group setting. Participants will be invited to complete a short, optional, anonymous worksheet focused primarily on feedback about the assessment instrument: its usefulness, clarity, and potential applications in different contexts. No individual assessments will be collected.

Designated quiet room from 8 - 9 am.

Food is allowed in the classroom. Please be considerate of fellow attendees and keep noise to a minimum. Meetings are not allowed in this space during this time. If you have any concerns, please visit the Check-in table.

Vireo Roadmap
By: Christopher Starcher & Frank Smutniak

As Vireo continues to serve as a core system in established ETD workflows, the project is entering a phase focused on intentional planning for long-term sustainability. This session focuses on the Vireo roadmap as a strategic tool and framework for ensuring the project remains technically viable, community-supported, and adaptable to changing institutional environments.

We will explore how upcoming development priorities are being shaped by future-oriented concerns, including stack longevity, reduction of technical debt, and architectural decisions that make the system easier to maintain, deploy, and extend over time. Planned work emphasizes modularity, clearer separation between core functionality and local customization, and improved integration patterns that allow Vireo to evolve alongside repository platforms, identity systems, and broader research infrastructure without requiring disruptive redesign.

Sustainability is also a governance and community challenge. The roadmap incorporates efforts to make contribution pathways more accessible, documentation more actionable, and shared development more predictable. By strengthening testing practices, release processes, and extension points, the project aims to distribute knowledge and effort across institutions rather than concentrating it in a few places.

Attendees will gain insight into how Vireo’s future is being actively designed, how priorities are selected, and how technical and organizational sustainability are being treated as first-order goals. The session invites institutions to see themselves not only as users of Vireo, but as long-term stewards of a shared platform.

Amplifying Student’s Scholarly Output by Registering References
By: Mark Phillips

Over the past year, the University of North Texas Libraries has expanded the visibility and impact of graduate student scholarship by integrating Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) into broader scholarly communication and citation networks. This initiative includes assigning Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to ETDs published since 1999 and registering them with Crossref.

Beyond DOI registration, the Libraries have extracted reference lists from ETDs and deposited those references into the corresponding Crossref records. This step, which is a common practice for journal articles, books, and conference proceedings enables ETDs to participate more fully in global citation infrastructure. By contributing reference data, UNT makes dissertation scholarship discoverable through tools and services that power “cited by” and “referenced by” features across scholarly databases and open citation systems.

Although ETDs represent significant original research, relatively few institutions currently register dissertation references with Crossref. UNT’s work helps position graduate research on more equal footing with other forms of scholarly output while also increasing visibility for faculty advisors and committee members whose work is cited within these documents.

his presentation will outline UNT’s end-to-end workflow, including DOI creation, large-scale reference extraction from ETDs, metadata preparation, and reference deposit to Crossref. We will also discuss how this enriched metadata supports downstream integration with open scholarly knowledge graphs and citation services such as OpenAlex, as well as lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities for other institutions interested in similar efforts.

Co-author: Daniel Alemneh, Supervisor, Digital Curation Unit, University of North Texas Libraries

The Texas Digital Library (TDL) and The Portal to Texas History have partnered to develop the TxHub, a statewide service that aggregates and normalizes metadata from cultural heritage institutions across Texas and contributes those records to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Through this collaboration, Texas institutions are connected to a national discovery platform that now includes more than 53 million records from 44 content and service hubs, representing thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and other collecting organizations across the United States.

This Birds-of-a-Feather session will introduce the TxHub program and the collaborative work behind it, highlighting how TDL and The Portal support institutions in sharing their digital collections more broadly. The discussion will cover participation models, technical and metadata considerations, and the benefits of contributing to both the statewide aggregation and the larger DPLA ecosystem.

Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions, share their own experiences with metadata aggregation and digital collection visibility, and explore practical ways to get involved. We will also discuss how institutions can leverage DPLA’s aggregated metadata for local discovery, research, digital scholarship, and outreach.

Designated quiet room from 11:30 am - 12:30 pm.

Food is allowed in the classroom. Please be considerate of fellow attendees and keep noise to a minimum. Meetings are not allowed in this space during this time. If you have any concerns, please visit the Check-in table.

The Vireo User Group Steering Committee welcomes Vireo users and those attendees curious about Vireo ETD to a community discussion about the system's current status and its future. Most Vireo users, whether hosted by TDL or not, have moved into Vireo 4. The Steering Committee is interested in hearing your experience using Vireo 4. Vireo leadership and developers are beginning to consider what Vireo 5 and beyond will have in store, so there will also be ample opportunity to provide input about new features, accessibility improvements, development refinements, and other changes to prioritize in the coming years.

The TDL Imaging Interest Group would like to hold their yearly meeting. The meeting is to discuss current imaging issues, general topics, and future plans for the group.

Work in Progress: Alpine Restaurant Mapping Project
By: Betsy Evans Helesic

“What is there to eat around here?” is a common question heard in small-town Alpine, Texas, gateway community to the Big Bend of far west Texas and home of Sul Ross State University and the Archives of the Big Bend. This presentation introduces the Alpine Restaurant Mapping Project. The overarching objective for this project is to introduce a digital exhibit of Alpine’s past and present restaurants populated by archival research and crowdsourced data. Other than answering that perpetual question, this project holds interdisciplinary significance while providing an opportunity to further the ‘town and gown’ connection between Sul Ross State University and City of Alpine.

By bringing together historical data from Alpine’s restaurants into a user-friendly digital space, we tell the history and present – of our frontier region’s dynamism, our rural economy, and the people who come here from all over the world to make a home – and use that data when considering further questions, such as “What does it mean to run a successful and sustainable restaurant business in a remote and rural area?”, “What can future restauranteurs learn from the past?”, And even “How does the university community support the local restaurant community?”

The presentation covers work in progress including a literature review, the development of the first iteration map(s) using available historical data and open access tools, processes for crowdsourcing further data, and next steps. The project is in year one of three of web-hosting at alpinerestaurantmappingproject.org. This project is led by a beginner; Prerequisite knowledge not required.

Digitization Methods, Techniques, and Exploration for a Large and Historical Bible
By: Christina Kellum & Noah Garcia

The UNT Libraries Digital Projects Lab had the biggest task of digitizing a Low German Lutheran Bible from 1614 from the Patrick Heath Public Library in Boerne, Texas. This historic Bible provided the team the opportunity to push their equipment limitations, reimagine an older digitization technique, and collaborate with other departments and experts. The presentation will give an overview of the project's scope, breakdown the preliminary work done before the item arrived, share the ups and downs of working with historical materials, the full scanning and organization process, reevaluate what could have been done differently, and then finally the results of this project, including the timeline.

Captured Lakes and Landscapes: A Collaborative Effort to Digitize Two Film Collections
By: Bree'ya Brown, Marcia McIntosh & Christina Kellum

In July 2025, University of North Texas Special Collections was awarded a TexTreasures Grant to support the preservation, digitization, and access of two hidden, older acquisitions. Gathered from inside document cases, these materials included minimally processed coiled film strips coupled with negatives and Super 8 film stored inside shoe and cigar boxes from the Victor Oppenheim Papers. Additionally, the grant subsidized 4x5 film negatives housed in acid-free, clamshell boxes from the Bill Woodside Lake Whitney Views Collection. These film elements present unique still and moving images that captured Texas’s natural and architected landscapes, rivers, wildlife, and communities in the 20th century. The Digital Projects Unit lab took part in the digitization process, including the management systems and the digitization workflows done for both collections. They will explain inventory decisions, introduce the student team, and showcase the scanning equipment used in the lab. Additionally, a discussion of workflows and steps to transition materials back to Special Collection for metadata creation and publishing on The Portal to Texas History digital library. By intentional collaboration between two UNT Libraries divisions, staff from Special Collections and the Digital Projects Unit worked together to promote the preservation and accessibility of Texas cultural heritage materials. The TexTreasures Grant is provided by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC).

Beginner Level

Designated quiet room from 8 - 9 am.

Food is allowed in the classroom. Please be considerate of fellow attendees and keep noise to a minimum. Meetings are not allowed in this space during this time. If you have any concerns, please visit the Check-in table.

This GIS Birds-of-a-Feather session is meant to provide an opportunity for TCDL attendees to learn more about the GIS Interest Group and the work and focus of the group. This includes GIS, mapping, GIS tools, AI, working with Faculty and students, and more. The session will provide an opportunity to network with librarians/specialists or others interested in GIS/mapping and working in similar fields and to have an opportunity to ask questions or listen to discussion about current projects or activities from different institutions. One such project is the Georeference-A-Thon taking place later this summer that all can virtually attend. Come and learn more about the new resource that will be used at this event and hear about the other types of events and direction the group is hoping to take to reach more of the needs of librarians and staff/faculty working with GIS, mapping, and other similar areas.

Co-author: Kristina Claunch, Research and Instruction Librarian, Sam Houston State University

Harmful content and description, from offensive language in the catalog to visually graphic media in digital collection portals, can be a sensitive, emotional, and complex topic to tackle ethically on your own. The Harmful Content and Description interest group fosters an environment in which digital library practitioners are supported by cross-collaboration, understanding, and care.

In this session, Harmful Content and Description interest group members will gather to discuss best practices related to harmful content, harmful description, reparative metadata, and related topics. We will discuss current initiatives undertaken, as well as identify creative strategies and collective solutions to support our community and sustain the work we all do. Come prepared to build together the best practices zone and share relevant resources!

Making Metadata Input Accessible: Training Volunteers & Practicum Students for the Sherwin Carlquist Project
By: Samantha Ekberg

At the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, there is a small team working on the intimidatingly large National Science Foundation grant, ""Collaborative Research: Advancing the Extended Specimen Network: Curating and Digitizing the Sherwin Carlquist Collection""; a collection containing nearly 200,000 archival objects to arrange, rehouse, digitize, upload, and describe.

Without the volunteers and practicum students dedicating their time and energy to describing these digitized items, this project would likely go undescribed and inaccessible for years. However, describing archival objects is often complicated, and this particular project comes with extra quirks (such as lost field documentation, difficult to read handwriting, and linkages to another portal) that required the project team to constantly adapt the training, workflow documentation, and quality checking processes to make the activity accessible to anybody who wanted to try.

This presentation will give an overview of the way we currently train our metadata workers and the quality checking process, as well as describing the adaptations made over time to accommodate and work with both hired practicum students and volunteers. There will also be a detailed look at the current versus the several previous versions of the metadata training and reference documents, used in training and as working guides for the metadata workers.

We will discuss why and how these changes were made in the documentation, training, and quality checking process; the lessons we've learned and their effect on the rest of the project; and the joy in making a complicated activity accessible to anyone.

Practical Approaches for Training Student Library Employees in Metadata Creation
By: Sarah Lynn Fisher

The University of North Texas Libraries Digital Libraries Division employs approximately a dozen students each semester who participate in the description of digital objects for our items in our repositories. Through a thoughtful training approach, our division has been able to rely upon students to consistently create high-quality metadata for our collections. This provides a sustainable solution to scale our operations beyond the capacity of full-time staff, while also creating professional development experiences for students from a variety of disciplines. Many of the students start having little to no experience creating metadata or knowledge of the principles of information organization. After many years of refining the process, we will share our best practices for training novice metadata creators in a manner that emphasizes building knowledge field by field, allows for iterative refinement over time, and cultivates syntactical thinking that translates beyond the library domain. The training workflow is supported by clear, well-documented general metadata input guidelines along with format-specific guidance for common resource types in our digital collections. To support multiple learning types, this material is presented in one-on-one, video, text, and peer-training formats. Editors begin applying these guidelines by adding or modifying specific fields in collections with existing metadata. And to involve all creators in the quality review process, we provide instruction on how reviewers can use in-house tools to understand the impact of metadata quality in our repositories. We hope that sharing these workflows will aid other institutions training staff and students to create metadata for digital collections. (All Audiences)

Co-authors: Hannah Tarver, Head, Digital Projects Unit, University of North Texas and Mark Phillips, Associate University Librarian - Digital Libraries, University of North Texas

This is an in-person meeting for the Web Archiving Texas Interest Group (WATXIG) open to all TCDL attendees. We welcome anyone actively engaged in or simply interested in web archiving to an open discussion about current web archiving projects, issues, and practices. We will also spend time brainstorming initiatives and training ideas for WATXIG to organize in support of group members and the broader TDL community. Through this meeting we hope to increase dialog and strengthen connections between institutions in Texas that are archiving the web.

The annual in-person meeting of the TDL DSpace Users Group (DUG) is open to all conference attendees interested in the DSpace open repository platform. This year’s meeting will provide opportunities for DSpace users to share about their repository operations and challenges, feature an update on the status of on-going DSpace development at the global level, and provide updates on upgrades of TDL-hosted DSpace repositories.

The TDL DUG works to create an active community among DSpace users that facilitates mutual support for DSpace use and repository management; takes on collective projects for the benefit of the TDL consortium; and connects the TDL user community to the global open source DSpace community.