The HardiBlog

It is not often that a digital tool does what it says on the tin in a simple, user-friendly way. This blog post is a shout-out to the Bulk Rename Utility - an unsung friend to digital archivists and other information professionals.  Using the Bulk Rename Utility for the Kerby Miller Collection In early 2023, the University of Galway Library digitised the Kerby Miller Collection . Over ten weeks, more than 150,000 pages were scanned to hi-resolution .tif format and filed digitally to mimic the physical arrangement of the collection – 125 boxes, 1,491 subseries and 1,729 folders. During the digitisation process, folder and file name barcodes were used to track progress and support the digitisation workflow. While essential for this use case, the barcodes must be removed for long-term digital preservation and archival intellectual control.  The Library has developed internal guidelines for file and folder naming conventions used across the Archives holdings that are in lin...

The University of Galway Library is leading a two-year NORF-funded project to align Ireland’s network of open access repositories' metadata standards with international best practices. The Project Board is comprised of experts from institutions across Ireland ( https://www.universityofgalway.ie/openrepositories/team/ ).  I joined the project as NORF Open Access Repositories Project Manager in June, when the project was already well underway. Twenty-nine repositories are registered for the Inventory of Open Access Repositories, comprising a range of institutions, including universities, colleges, schools, and government departments. You can view the complete list here: https://universityofgalway.ie/openrepositories/inventory/ .  A survey of institutional repositories’ metadata practices is now being analysed and will inform the work of the project board as the project progresses towards its first set of deliverables, due in December 2023, which includes the publication of an Ir...

In January 2021 Kerby Miller (Professor Emeritus of History for the University of Missouri) donated his vast research collection about Irish immigration to North America and Irish diaspora identities to the University of Galway. Miller’s collection ranges across multiple material types including (but not limited to) letter transcripts, original letters, photocopies of original letters, memoirs, autobiographies, research notes, research correspondence and genealogical records. After decades of close reading for his own academic research, Miller’s choice to donate the materials to the University of Galway has been contingent on the promise that his life's work would be made digitally accessible to academic users and the public alike. A portion of the full collection is due to be released online in early 2024 and this article summarises some of the key stakeholders, methodologies and goals that have guided the project thus far. Letters Home  The bulk of the collection comprises person...