Fondren provides expertise, space, and information resources to deepen the impact and visibility of research by Rice faculty, staff, and students. As an intellectual hub, Fondren is well-positioned to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration; it also provides diverse expertise to support research and teaching.
Woodson Research Center Launches Quartex
Fondren Library’s Woodson Research Center moved to a new archiving platform, Quartex, that provides enhanced functionality and accessibility for its extensive digital cultural heritage materials.
In the first half of 2023, the Woodson Research Center migrated their digital and digitized online content to the new platform powered by AM Quartex. Because D-Space, the longtime home for our materials, was due for a major upgrade, a task force explored alternative repositories and digital asset management systems, like Quartex. After a yearlong study, the task force determined that Woodson’s public-facing university archives and special collections content would be better served on a separate platform. The new platform offers perks like closed captioning for video and audio, in text highlighting of search terms, A/V transcription using machine learning AI, and a visually appealing layout.
The Fondren UX Office conducted usability testing on some of Quartex’s many features, including the search bar, Browse by Category, and Explore the Collection, and reported design recommendations in 2023.
Read more about this in the May 18, 2023 in Rice News.
Woodson Research Center Implements Archivematica
In 2022-2023, the Woodson Research Center tested and implemented a new digital preservation system, Archivematica. This open-source software allows the team to process and archive digital master preservation files faster and more efficiently than had previously been possible, with tools such as file format normalization and file integrity checking. This system is not public-facing, and handles digital content which might have copyright or privacy concerns, as well as serving as back-up for all of Woodson’s digital content.
DSS Team Migrates to New Platform
The DSS team prepared to migrate the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive (RDSA) from DSpace 6 to DSpace 7. DSpace 7 offers several benefits, including a more flexible and modern user interface, improved workflows, and a new API that enables DSpace to interact with other web services. Since the Woodson Research Center has moved its digital collections to the Quartex platform, RDSA will be renamed Rice Research Repository (R-3) and will provide online access to research materials such as dissertations, faculty publications, reports from institutes, and research data.
Rice Author Collection Unveiled
Fondren recently unveiled a new means to highlight books written by Rice-affiliated authors: the Rice Author Collection. While the library has collected works written by faculty, staff, students, and alumni for many years, the authors' Rice affiliation had not previously been noted in the catalog. The new collection, a collaboration between the Acquisitions and Cataloging & Metadata Services departments, aims to better promote these valuable contributions by the Rice community. A system is in place to routinely identify newly published titles by Rice authors, and retrospective work to add older titles to this collection is ongoing. The collection includes two works published by Rice students during the 2022/2023 school year: Token for My Sanity, by Tamaz Young and Andromeda, by Sofi Aguilera.
Submitted by David Bynog
Woodson Center Events Highlight Collections
The Woodson Research Center hosted events highlighting collections including the Star Wheel Printing Press and the works of William Blake; the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop (CATS) collection; a panel on Townes Van Zandt for the Houston Folk Music Archive; an event for Houston Hillel highlighting the Joan and Stanford Alexander South Texas Jewish Archives; a film and reception on American Women Rebuilding France after WW I; a lecture on the Novi Thesauri Musici; an author event celebrating Allison Bashford’s book focused on the Julian Huxley biology archives for the Friends of Fondren Library; and the Texas Map Society/Texas General Land Office meeting. The Woodson also welcomed groups and individuals for tours and discussion of collections, including members of the Filipino American Society, the Friends of Fondren Library, the Rice Women’s Club, and Rice Pride.
Business Information Center Meets with Launches
The Business Information Center engaged with more than 400 students from the fall 2022 launches including: MBA for Professionals, MBA for Executives, MBA Weekend Professionals, MBA Evening Professionals, MBA International Students, Full-time MBA program, Master’s in Accounting, and the Ph.D. in Economics programs.