Systems

The Library Systems unit works to support the strategic goals of the Washington State University Libraries and the University. Library Systems maintains all computer hardware and software at the six Pullman campus libraries. Librarians and staff in the unit also maintain the Libraries’ online catalog, the Libraries’ website and services such as Search it, ILLiad, and ERes. Systems has also supports a number of strategic initiatives such as the university’s institutional repository service, WSU Research Exchange; and the Northwest Digital Archives union catalog.

Systems Employee Directory

Past Projects

Discovery and fulfillment system modernization

WSU Libraries and the 37 academic libraries that are members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance are moving to a shared integrated library system. In December of 2013, WSU Libraries launched Search It, providing access to books, articles, and digital content, including adding third-party databases in the default search. Additionally, links to freely-available full-text content are now included on the results screens.

The Research Exchange and Open Journals Systems services

Systems staff are supporting two efforts designed to help WSU faculty and students in the scholarly communication area. WSU Research Exchange is a durable digital repository that enables faculty, students, and campus departments to deposit their digital content through a web interface; the Libraries takes on the role of enabling access to and preserving the content. Items in Research Exchange have stable, long-term identifiers (called file handles) which remain constant over time; this makes the identifiers ideal for inclusion in vitas and research papers. Additionally, the content stored in Research Exchange is automatically harvested by search engines like Google and can be easily shared with discipline-specific repositories.

More recently, unit staff have supported the launch of an Open Journals Systems (OJS) service at Washington State University. OJS supports the review and publication process for electronic journals. As an example, LandEscapes, a student creative arts journal, is now published in WSU’s OJS service.

Kimble Northwest History Database

The Kimble Northwest History Database contains newspaper articles collected and organized in the late 1930’s by dedicated historians working for the Works Progress Administration.

Selected articles have been digitized and made searchable in this online collection. The collection describes in vivid details a period of rapid growth and development in the history of the Pacific Northwest. During the early part of the 20th century the Pacific Northwest experienced an influx of inhabitants leading to rapid development in the area. Settlers were still arriving, when farmable land and available water were getting scarce. Large and small irrigation and reclamation projects were planned, funded, and constructed during this period. The profound impact of the settlers on the indigenous Native American population is vividly documented in the newspaper clippings selected.

The collection can be accessed from this project site.

J. Elroy McCaw Memorial Film Collection: Pilot Digitization Project

This pilot project is designed to gather an understanding of the process of preserving and digitizing 16mm film collections. The pilot project involved 5% of the reels of the J. Elroy McCaw Memorial Film Collection that was donated to the WSUL in 1982. Using funds from the Bruce and Jolene Donor Advised funds the WSUL was able to clean and digitize twenty three RKO feature films and five military documentaries. Lessons learned from this project will be applied toward the preservation and digitization of the entire collection which includes 436 feature films and twenty five military documentaries. The RKO feature films included in the pilot project have been transferred to DVD and can be checked out. The military documentaries can be viewed from URL http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/mccaw/