Cover Page Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant Final Report Grant Number: PW-228174-15 Grant Title: Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) to the 21st Century Collaborative Planning Project Project Director: Libraries Director lorraine haricombe Grant Recipient: The University of Texas at Austin Libraries Submitted: November 29, 2016.

Table of Contents Narrative Description:

a. Project Activities...1 b. Accomplishments...6 c. Audiences...7 d. Evaluation....8 e. Continuation of the Project...11 f. Long Term Impact...11 g. Grant Products...12

Appendices Appendix A: Implementation Plan...13 Appendix B: High-Level Requirements for TARO’s Website...19 Appendix C: Functional Requirements for TARO Implementation...26 Appendix D: Implementation Budget...29 Appendix E: Implementation Workplan...31 Appendix F: TARO Bridge Governance Plan...33 Appendix G: TARO Program Manager Job Description...36 Appendix H: TARO Infrastructure Policy Development, Working Group Charges...38 Appendix I: “What is TARO?”: Principles, Scope and Collection Development...40 Appendix J: Platform Evaluation Matrix Worksheet...49 Appendix K: Sample Blog Posts and Newsletter Announcements...53 Appendix L: Outreach and Education Schema Planning...56 Appendix M: Outreach and Education Training Research...68 Appendix N: Plan for Repository Training During Implementation...72 Appendix O: Usability Testing 2016...74 Appendix P: TARO Platform Evaluation User Personae…89 Appendix Q: Consortial Documentation Summary Report...93 Appendix R: Bridge Projects and Next Steps...99 Appendix S: Memorandum of Understanding with UT Libraries...101 Appendix T: ArchivesSpace Guidelines...105 Index to TARO Online Products Web Attachment A: Implementation Grants Funding Calendar Web Attachment B: TARO Platform Evaluation Final Synthesis Web Attachment C: Links to TARO Workspaces Web Attachment D: Instructions for Conversion to Schema Web Attachment E: TARO Schema Conversion Status Tracking Web Attachment F: TARO EAD Best Practices Guidelines Web Attachment G: Standards Communication Plan Web Attachment H: Broad Thematic Subject Browsing List Web Attachment I: TARO User Survey Results Analysis Web Attachment J: TARO Schema Compliance Intern Report Web Attachment K: <TARO>: Authority Control at Texas Archival Resources Online Web Attachment L: 2016 Report to TARO Members at SSA Annual Meeting Web Attachment M: White Paper

Narrative Description As detailed in the July 2015 grant proposal and January 2016 interim report, the TARO to the 21st Century Collaborative Planning Project had four distinct goals for this initial planning phase, including: 1. A written plan providing concrete actions for achieving targeted improvements to TARO during the project’s implementation phase, including a highly detailed project narrative accompanied by a project work plan, staffing and budget requirements 2. A new set of policy documents to solidify TARO’s infrastructure and carry the consortium into the future, including: a formal system of governance with written bylaws; an updated strategic plan and mission statement; a collections development policy, including a clear process for joining TARO; and TARO EAD Best Practices 3. A clear vision for what sustainability means for TARO, and; 4. A white paper detailing findings of planning activities, user studies and lessons learned

A. Project Activities Implementation phase planning At the conclusion of the grant term, project manager Leigh Grinstead and consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell created a three-phase plan for updating TARO (see Appendix A: Implementation Plan). A first phase bridges the interim period until the consortium is ready to seek implementation funding; a second phase implements modernizations to the TARO website; and a final phase envisions potential expansions to TARO’s services. In addition, the consultants elaborated on the high-level requirements for modernizing and updating TARO’s website and infrastructure (see Appendix B: High-Level Requirements for TARO’s Website); this document is designed to complement the finalized Functional Requirements (see Appendix C: Functional Requirements for TARO Implementation) and assist developers during the implementation phase. A general landscape review of other EAD consortial practices and policies was conducted and significantly informed this work (see Appendix Q: Consortial Documentation Summary Report). The implementation phase workplan and budget will be finalized during the project’s bridge phase, once questions about TARO’s institutional home are resolved; however, a draft budget (Appendix D: Implementation Budget) and workplan (Appendix E: Implementation Workplan) have been created for preliminary planning purposes. In addition, the Governance working group has developed a Bridge Governance Plan (see Appendix F: TARO Bridge Governance Plan) that will guide the operation of the Steering Committee until a formal institutional home is established. Planning for the implementation phase will be finalized by a TARO program manager, a bridge position to be funded as a collaboration between several large TARO participants. A job description for the TARO Program Manager position is available as Appendix G: TARO Program Manager Job Description. Infrastructure policy development The initial NEH planning grant proposal tasked the Steering Committee and TARO subcommittees with the creation of infrastructure policy documents to guide TARO’s operation; these are compiled in the

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grant proposal as Working Group Charges: TARO Infrastructure Development (see Appendix H). To develop these infrastructure policies, the committees met during a July 2015 kick-off meeting and a January 2016 mid-project meeting as well as regular telephone conferences throughout the grant term. The TARO Steering Committee surpassed its initial goal of creating a collections development policy for TARO to write What is TARO? (see Appendix I: “What is TARO?”: Principles, Scope and Collection Development). In addition to outlining TARO’s collection development policy, the document articulates the organization’s mission and vision, audience, historical background, subject strengths, and digital preservation standards with boilerplate language that can be remixed and reused in future conversations with funders and collaborators. The Governance Working Group built on work conducted by the Steering Committee during the January 2016 in-person meeting in Austin to update TARO’s vision and mission statement (see Appendix I: “What is TARO?”: Principles, Scope and Collection Development). The group additionally drafted guidelines for participation on the TARO Steering Committee and working groups during TARO’s bridge governance phase (see Appendix F: TARO Bridge Governance Plan). Since TARO is not seeking 501(c)(3) status at this time, it was determined that the organization would not benefit from the creation of bylaws, as planned in the original grant proposal. The group did not formally establish an advisory council, but did confer with a similar consortium, the Chicago Collections, about the roles and responsibilities of their Board of Directors. The Maintenance Working Group advised the WebTex subcommittee and Steering Committee throughout the grant about the feasibility of the three platforms selected and the support needed on the administrative side. Critically, the group supported the implementation of the schema-compliance project after receiving project approval from UT Libraries. The grant proposal called for the Funding & Sustainability Working Group to design three models for TARO’s future sustainability and outline the level of services and costs of each model, then poll member repositories for feedback. The group conducted initial planning for this task, but postponed creation of a sustainability model based on the advice of project manager Leigh Grinstead and consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell, who stated that TARO’s institutional home should be solidified before engaging in questions of long-term sustainability. After this readjustment, the group focused their attention on discussions with state library leaders in order to advance the conversation about the consortium’s institutional home; these discussions included the leaders from UT Libraries, the Texas State Library and Archives, the Texas Digital Library, and the Briscoe Center at UT Austin. In addition, the group created a spreadsheet summarizing various funding opportunities (see Web Attachment A: Implementation Grants Funding Calendar) to prepare for the implementation phase. Building from earlier functional requirements drafts, comments from preliminary user and repository studies, and work by similar consortia, the Technologies & Website Working Group (also known as WebTex) developed functional specifications for TARO website revisions (see Appendix C: Functional Requirements for TARO Implementation) to guide technical developers during project implementation; this document was used to critically examine software functionality of test platform instances (XTF,

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ICAAToM, ArchivesSpace) during pilot testing, along with a platform evaluation matrix (See Appendix J: Platform Evaluation Matrix Worksheet). UT Libraries staff assisted in the installation of instances for pilot testing the three platforms. To complete platform testing of the three platforms, the working group created an evaluation toolkit and also conducted three semi-structured follow-up interviews to capture observation and reflections that could not be captured in the evaluation worksheet. As a result of the pilot testing, the WebTex committee was able to identify criteria and characteristics for the kinds of technical services that TARO will be in the best position to provide in the coming years, regardless of the specific technology or system chosen to implement those services. WebTex’s detailed summary of the platform evaluation process is available as Web Attachment B: TARO Platform Evaluation Final Synthesis. In addition to pilot testing of the three platforms, WebTex monitored the progress of the TARO schema compliance data normalization intern, assisted in translating findings into documentation for member repositories, and created WordPress documentation for other subcommittees. Following goals outlined in the original grant, the Outreach & Education Working Group updated the list of TARO contacts at all repositories and created a group email list, posted grant updates on the TARO wiki and the new TARO Today blog, formalized procedures for sharing information with all TARO members through the creation of a general TARO communication plan and workspace management plan (See Web Attachment C: Links to TARO Workspaces), and submitted grant announcements to the Society of Southwest Archivists newsletter (see Appendix K: Sample Blog Posts and Newsletter Announcements). Tasked with identifying potential new TARO members, the committee contacted the Fort Worth Jewish Archives in Spring 2016 and made significant progress toward bringing their archives into TARO. Additional outreach was conducted in person at the Society of Southwest Archivists meeting in May 2016, with various repositories expressing interest such as Catholic Diocese of Dallas and El Paso Public Library. Working in collaboration with the full steering committee, the group recommended a process for onboarding new TARO members, including recommendations for number of TARO members accepted per year and procedures for transitioning responsibility for member training from UT Libraries to a designated TARO group as part of the collection development planning (see Appendix I: “What is TARO?”: Principles, Scope and Collection Development). In response to its charge to identify and approach repositories who are experiencing technical incompatibilities with current TARO system, the outreach and education working group managed the conversion to schema-compliant XML; work included the creation of instructions for converting files to schema-compliance (See Web Attachment D: Instructions for Conversion to Schema), one-on-one communications with repository representatives by email, phone and in-person, troubleshooting and correcting XML errors, and proposing TARO stylesheet changes as needed. This effort is successfully underway with 51% of TARO repositories already submitting and displaying schema compliant XML in TARO, and the remaining repositories are on schedule to complete this process by end of February 2017 (see Web Attachment E: TARO Schema Conversion Status Tracking). Communications and notes from the committee’s schema-compliance work is compiled in Appendix L: Outreach and Education Schema Planning. In addition to the schema-compliance project, the group explored the current training needs of TARO participants, successfully mentored three repositories to get their first finding aids into TARO, and significantly enhanced online documentation for submission of finding aids into TARO.

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The committee also fulfilled its charge to initiate contact with repositories that have processed collections with grant funding, but are not yet TARO contributors. The Amon Carter Museum (NEH 2012) was contacted regarding their approximately 20 archival finding aids currently available on their website in PDF format, and UT Rio Grande Valley (formerly UT Pan American) was contacted regarding Congressman Eligio de la Garza’s papers (NHPRC 2010) and other collection finding aids that do not appear on their website. Conversations are ongoing with these institutions, including exploration of how to encode their finding aids if their current staff does have XML familiarity. To prepare for the creation of TARO training materials during the grant’s implementation phase, the committee researched training webinars and other training prepared by similar archival consortia (see Appendix M: Outreach and Education Training Research) and created a plan for TARO member repository training (see Appendix N: Plan for Repository Training During Implementation). Going beyond the group’s initial charges, the committee assisted the WebTex working group with platform testing, performing usability testing of the three test platforms with non-archivists (see Appendix O: Usability Testing 2016); creating sample user personae for archives users (see Appendix P: TARO Platform Evaluation User Personae); and writing documentation to assist platform testing (see Appendix T: ArchivesSpace Guidelines). The Standards Working Group was responsible for a critical piece of TARO infrastructure development, the creation of updated EAD Best Practices that comply with DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard) rules (see Web Attachment F: TARO EAD Best Practices Guidelines). Work drew heavily from existing documents from other consortia, with the group conducting a thorough analysis of the encoding practices of other consortia. Based on the advice of project consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell, the committee adhered to the EAD 2002 Schema standard rather than the newly-released EAD3 standard; migration to EAD3 will be considered during the implementation phase, using the EAD2002-to-EAD3 migration stylesheet provided by the Society of American Archivists. The Standards Committee developed a communication plan which included a survey to receive feedback on the guidelines in April 2016 (see Web Attachment G: Standards Communication Plan). The resulting feedback was incorporated into the guidelines, with a finalized standard released in June 2016. In addition to their work developing new best practices, the Standards subcommittee responded to issues caused by TARO’s switch to schema, updating the guidelines document to provide guidance about avoiding possible validation errors. For example, when the finding aids for the Texas General Land Office were being converted from DTD to Schema in May 2016, an error about the <container> TYPE attribute was discovered, prompting an update to the "Component Tags" section of the EAD guidelines document. Finally, the group drafted broad thematic browse terms to provide easy entry points to TARO finding aids (see Web Attachment H: Broad Thematic Subject Browsing List). These browse terms will be reviewed during the project implementation phase; the Chicago Consortium’s Metadata Hopper suggests some intriguing possibilities for use of the terms. At the beginning of the grant term, members of the standards committee conducted preliminary usability work, reviewing results of 2014 surveys of TARO users and repositories and complying the results into short executive summaries that will be used to inform usability studies during the implementation phase (see Web Attachment I: TARO User Survey Results Analysis). A significant piece of the planning grant’s infrastructure development activities involved data standardization initiatives; NEH grant funds supported two student internships based at the University

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of Texas School of Information. The internships were filled by two iSchool students: Hannah Rainey (Fall 2015; schema compliance planning) and Tim Kindseth (Spring 2016; controlled access vocabulary standardization). Rainey reviewed similar conversion projects by other institutions, surveyed encoding practices of TARO repositories, then created a plan for schema-compliance conversion, summarized in a report made to the TARO Steering Committee during our mid-project meeting (see Web Attachment J: TARO Schema Compliance Intern Report). A second student, Tim Kindseth, drafted <TARO>: Authority Control at Texas Archival Resources Online (see Web Attachment K: <TARO>: Authority Control at Texas Archival Resources Online), which examines the current use of controlled access terms on TARO and explores possible workflows for data reconciliation, information-seeking behavior of archives researchers, and the use of controlled vocabularies and subject browsing functions at other archival consortia. As a part of the project, Kindseth used BaseX to export all of TARO’s controlled access terms, then analyzed these terms in Google Refine. Kindseth’s work additionally isolates terms by repositories, so institutions may begin to independently review their own controlled access terms. Publicization of TARO’s Planning Project At the beginning of the grant term, the Outreach and Education working group created a communication plan for sharing information about the grant and other TARO initiatives. Information-sharing occurred regularly throughout the grant term. Some examples include:

● A new blog, TARO Today, updated membership on grant accomplishments, including several blog posts detailing the Web & Technology goals and methodology, EAD Best Practices work, and the transition to schema compliance

● UT Libraries publicized the grant on the Tex Libris blog ● Steering Committee members introduced the grant to the general TARO membership at the 2015

annual meeting of the Society of Southwest Archivists, then reported on grant accomplishments during the 2016 annual meeting (see Web Attachment L: 2016 Report to TARO Members at SSA Annual Meeting). The SSA annual meeting also was used to request feedback on grant products, such as the EAD best practices draft guidelines

● Project members reported on methods and outcomes of platform evaluation testing at the 2016 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries

● Grant products underwent rigorous review processes that publicized the planning grant. For example, email announcements that the best practices document was available for comment were sent to: the TARO members listserv; the Archives & Archivists listserv; the EAD listserv; UT Austin iSchool archives students listserv; Rocky Mountain Archives Online members; Orbis-Cascade Alliance/Archives West personnel; and Online Archive of California (via Adrian Turner, data services manager with California Digital Library). To engage members and solicit feedback on the Collections Development Document, Governance subcommittee members made direct calls to members and held two webinars to solicit member feedback

● Regular updates were provided to members in print media, including notices in the December 2015 and May 2016 issues of Southwestern Archivist newsletter

Ensuring TARO’s sustainability As is evidenced by a 15+ year commitment to the site and significant investment of staffing to support the current grant project, both UT Libraries and TARO’s contributing repositories are dedicated to ensuring

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TARO’s long-term sustainability. Since the site’s introduction, UT Libraries has provided ongoing support for maintenance, uploading of finding aids, and onboarding of new membership (5% of one FTE staff member). The project investigated several issues related to sustainability, including: member support for a fee structure; funding sources for infrastructure overhauls and regular maintenance updates; and an alternate staffing model for onboarding and training of members that distributes responsibility to the Education and Outreach committee. Chief among the issues related to sustainability is the determination of a formal institutional home for the site. To address this issue, TARO engaged in conversations regarding the site’s institutional home with UT Libraries, the Texas State Library & Archives, and the Texas Digital Library during the grant period. A final determination of the site’s longer-term institutional home will require further negotiations, but we are pleased to announce that UT Libraries generated a formal memorandum of understanding for its support of TARO in October 2016 (see Appendix S) that will carry TARO into the implementation phase of the project. While the planning grant did not institute a formalized fee-structure for TARO, the upcoming collaboration to fund a bridge program manager position will serve as a model for how collaborative funding could be implemented in the future. White paper A white paper summarizing grant activities, user studies and lessons learned is available as Web Attachment M.

B. Accomplishments The current project made significant inroads in planning for the implementation of upgrades to TARO. Accomplishments include: selection of a new platform for TARO; commencement of the Schema compliance project; a best practices guide; and enhanced member communication and participation. Selection of a platform for implementation phase: XTF Following the evaluation of potential platforms, the WebTex committee recommended XTF as the best current overall platform for TARO, and the Steering Committee approved this recommendation in October 2016. XTF offers excellent basic functionality and extensive flexibility in building a customized public interface, with proven success by other archival organizations (e.g., Online Archive of California, Chicago Collections, and the Richard B. Russell Library). In addition to guiding platform selection, the review process solicited feedback from users that will be useful in shaping TARO’s future. We now understand repositories’ priorities for TARO, including centralized training through “how-to” tutorials, webinars and institutional collaboration covering topics like data upload, maintenance, system functionality, task workflows, and standards; an easy-to-use and transparent system for uploading and editing finding aids; and a robust search tool. Importantly, the platform review process provided feedback about changes that TARO members do not want to implement--only half of the evaluators support adoption of a shared archival management system, citing difficulties such as data privacy and permissions, shared customizations, policy development and shared hosting support. As a result of the platform review, we now know that instead of developing a collection management system for TARO, the implementation phase should focus on improving TARO’s current services (e.g., hosting EAD finding aids, providing a robust search interface, promoting collections at Texas repositories). See Web Attachment B: TARO Platform Evaluation Final Synthesis for the complete WebTex platform report.

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DTD to schema-compliance Early in the grant term, the project celebrated a significant achievement when UT Libraries approved staff time to transition TARO from DTD to schema-compliance. TARO’s acceptance of only DTD-compliant EAD had become an issue when many TARO members began to use software such as Archivists’ Toolkit that generated schema-compliant EAD. As a result, many institutions could no longer contribute finding aids to TARO. After a student intern generated a schedule for schema-conversion (see Web Attachment J: TARO Schema Compliance Intern Report), the conversion process began in early 2016. To date, over 50% of repositories have been transitioned to schema-compliant EAD. The transition to schema-compliance is a critical step in the modernization of TARO, and we have accomplished our major goal of getting all members back on the same track for the creation of finding aids. Current project progress may be reviewed at Web Attachment E: TARO Schema Conversion Status Tracking. Creation of a shared best practices guide Shared best practices ensure the creation of standardized data, and are critical to the relevance and success of archival consortia. When properly managed, standardized data has countless uses; it may be extracted to support digital humanities projects, but it is also critical in ensuring the researcher success. For example, standard encoding of names ensures that researchers will retrieve all materials related to a particular person. While TARO created basic editing guidelines in 2004, the guidelines did not provide enough specificity to ensure standardization in encoding. Over the course of the grant, the Standards subcommittee researched and wrote best practices that encourage the creation of standardized TARO data. The best practices guide is available as Web Attachment F: TARO EAD Best Practices Guidelines. Improved member communication and participation Perhaps the most meaningful accomplishments of the grant period were enhancements to member communication channels and increased participation by archivists from a broader variety of repositories across the state. New communication channels such as the blog, along with updates to existing communication channels (e.g., the TARO wiki and listserv) served a function beyond just sharing project progress; they reinvigorated TARO members’ interest in the site and made them excited about the possibilities for the future. After the Education and Outreach committee update to the list of TARO repository contacts and associated email list, we know that repositories are receiving timely updates related to the site. In addition, the grant encouraged direct participation by TARO members in planning for the consortium. Recruitment of new subcommittee members at the May 2015 Society of Southwest Archivists meeting allowed staff members from repositories who are not represented on the Steering Committee to impact the consortium. The platform review process also encouraged new member participation--the process brought on 15 volunteers representing 15 different collecting institutions. The project has promoted transparency for potential members, as well; with the new collections development policy, prospective TARO institutions now have a clear path for joining the consortium.

C. Audiences Who is TARO’s Audience?:

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TARO’s audience is comprised of two distinct groups with very different user needs: 1) TARO’s primary audience of researchers, a diverse group of one million+ yearly users that includes historians, genealogists, documentarians, educators, undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty; and 2) secondary users from contributing repositories who use the site to store finding aids and provide reference services. This group is typically composed of public services staff and research archivists acting as content mediators for the site’s primary users. Impact on TARO’s primary audience (researchers) While the current grant period included planning for changes that will eventually directly impact TARO’s primary audience of researchers, the audience for this initial phase was TARO’s secondary audience of archival staff. As a result, TARO use statistics do not indicate significant changes in traffic on the site; visits and number of users have remained constant over the course of the grant. However, the planning grant did include one notable interaction with our primary users--usability testing with non-archivists such facilitated the Outreach and Education Committee. While this was a small and qualitative testing experience, it provided very valuable feedback on the platforms tested (ArchivesSpace, XTF, AtoM). (see Appendix O: Usability Testing 2016). Changes to be made during the implementation phase (e.g., an expanded number of contributing repositories, better links to digital materials, and an improved user experience) will encourage new audiences for TARO and increase use of the site. Impact on the secondary audience (TARO membership) The primary audience for the planning grant was TARO’s membership, the 40+ member repositories across the state of Texas that use the site to upload finding aids and provide reference services to archives patrons. During this initial phase, this audience of member repositories provided feedback on grant products, including the ongoing DTD-to-Schema Compliance Project and the accompanying EAD 2002 Schema encoding guidelines, the new Best Practices Guidelines, and the Collection Development Document. These infrastructure documents will have a huge impact on TARO’s audience of member repositories, enabling them to create standardized finding aids. The planning grant additionally provided the TARO member audience with a chance to participate in development of the consortium by their involvement with committee work.

D. Evaluation Evaluation of the project’s success occurred through both a formal review of Steering Committee and subcommittee work by consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell to determine lessons learned at the end of the grant cycle and informal evaluations by TARO subcommittees throughout the grant term. A open questions and comments period at the brown bag lunches held at the 2015 and 2016 annual meetings of the Society of Southwest Archivists provided the larger TARO membership with a chance to give feedback on the project. End of grant formal review At the conclusion of the grant term, project consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell surveyed TARO’s Steering Committee and subcommittees to determine what lessons could be learned from the project to inform future projects by the consortium. To evaluate the planning project, Allison-Bunnell shared a Google

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Forms survey with Steering Committee members. In addition, one member from each subcommittee was identified by their chair as involved and knowledgeable and the survey was sent to them directly. The survey asked users to describe in narrative form what they believed had gone well, and what should be carried on in implementation; what hadn’t gone well and should be avoided in implementation; and provided a space for additional comments and an opportunity sign up for a half-hour phone interview to clarify any answers or have additional discussion. A white paper detailing Allison-Bunnell’s full evaluation is available as Web Attachment M. Informal evaluations from subcommittee work At the end of the platform review process , the WebTex subcommittee gathered informal feedback, noting that volunteer evaluators struggled during the process. There was persistent confusion regarding the user personas that accompanied the core evaluation tasks, as well as misunderstanding about the usefulness of completing the functional requirements matrix. User personas were helpful to some in providing a context from which they could more easily respond to tasks that were outside of their normal professional duties in the archive. However, volunteers were asked to complete tasks that they would not typically be responsible for in the course of their work day, and this challenged their confidence in their responses and the recommendations derived from these responses. The committee responded to these challenges by clarifying the purpose of the personas, providing criteria for judging the ease or difficulty of completing the tasks, and encouraging volunteers to ground themselves in their own experience. Volunteers responded well to committee encouragement and the clarification of instructions surrounding both the personas as well as the functional requirements matrix. The Standards subcommittee informally assessed perceptions of the creation of the best practices guidelines through a survey sent to membership and with TARO’s members’ comments on the guidelines. This evaluation highlighted members’ differing ideas about the level of detail required of the guidelines, what subjects lay outside the scope of the guidelines, and the level of expertise required of users. This process allowed the group to articulate confusion surrounding the document--would the guide simply provide standards, or would it serve as workflow instructions for uploading files to TARO? In the interest of having a single document cover file creation and contribution, the Steering Committee asked the group to include upload instructions; however, as TARO continues to evolve, the subcommittee may reconsider the best methods for delivering uploading instructions. The evaluation process also clarified the need for each repository to have its own manual to provide continuity for description within elements and to adhere to the EAD Tag Library in connection with DACS. It should be communicated to members that the guide is not meant to advise repositories on the correct textual content for elements. The Education and Outreach committee reports that the schema conversion portion of the planning project has been well-received by TARO participants and has gone smoothly. Despite the anxiety caused by the transition, participants have recognized that the process represents real step towards the adoption of a more modern TARO platform. TARO has achieved significant progress with the conversion, especially considering that the initial grant proposal only required conversion planning. Converting to schema-compliance during the planning grant has enabled the Standards committee to write Best Practices Guidelines geared for schema compliance, then update them based on participating repositories’ active use. The group also reports that the research they conducted in assessing training needs and

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planning for a future education program was very fruitful, but the process highlighted the pressing, immediate need for a comprehensive training program for the consortium. Strengths As noted in the white paper summarizing the lessons learned during the project, TARO members are pleased with the work accomplished during the planning grant, including the platform evaluations, best practices guidelines, and schema compliance transition. This success is due in large part to the enthusiasm, strong work ethic and talent displayed during the project by Steering Committee members, working group participants, and staffers at TARO repositories. The project has given the TARO membership greater knowledge of the strength of its members and confidence in the consortium’s ability to work together to achieve project goals. Committee members agree that in-person meetings and the outset of the project and mid-grant cycle were important to strengthening these working relationships, as well as clarifying TARO’s mission, vision, and audience. Similarly, regularly-scheduled and clearly-documented remote project meetings were critical to ensuring project transparency to the larger TARO community by keeping participants informed and moving towards accomplishing the project’s stated goals. Areas for improvement A survey by grant consultant Jodi Allison-Bunnell at the end of the grant term researched opportunities for improvements to be implemented during the project’s implementation phase (see Web Attachment M: White Paper). Chief among the survey’s findings is the need for changes to the composition of the various TARO committees. Issues encountered during the current grant include difficulties in maintaining a consistent voice on consortium documents due to the number of individuals included in the writing process; communication disconnects between the Steering Committee and subcommittees; confusion about the roles of the committees; unreasonable workload distribution; and lack of financial influence within the Steering Committee. To remedy these issues during the implementation phase, TARO plans to maintain current communication channels, but increase their visibility and regular use within the TARO community. It will be important to clearly articulate grant messages as early and as often as possible. We plan to keep subcommittees in place, but will clarify the roles and responsibility of these groups by creating written job descriptions for the Steering Committee and working groups that include annual goals and objectives. We will also design an annual evaluation process that ensures the operation of the group is transparent, efficient and effective. It was noted during the evaluation process that having the Steering Committee co-chairs also chair subcommittees seems to be an unreasonable workload. In the future, we will find ways to spread that work to other individuals to better distribute responsibilities. The Steering Committee will also need to devote attention to horizontal lines of communication so that individuals can better understand how the pieces of the project fit together. The white paper notes that TARO should reconsider the makeup of the Steering Committee, and we plan to address this during the project’s bridge phase, considering how the Steering Committee can attract new members who are skilled in organizational development and have more direct access to funding sources. In the future, we expect that the Steering Committee will focus less on day-to-day operations of TARO and more on the long-term goal of financial sustainability.

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Public response Since the project is now in a planning phase rather than implementation phase, the public did not experience changes to the TARO website during this first initiative to update the site. Consequently, we do not have statistics to report on public response. Informally, researchers have expressed strong interest in the project and excitement about the possibilities for changes to TARO.

E. Continuation of the Project The TARO consortium is committed to continuing the work accomplished during the planning grant. A draft workplan outlines tasks to be undertaken during a bridge phase while implementation funding is sought, as well as activities planned for the following implementation phase (see Appendix E: Implementation Workplan). The Steering Committee and working groups have already created goals for the bridge period, outlined in Appendix R: Bridge Projects and Next Steps. Key to ensuring the success of the activities accomplished during the planning phase will be implementation of grant products, including the Best Practice Guidelines and Collections Development policy; following training of TARO membership, use of these documents will be assessed, with periodic revisions and updates made to the documents as needed. Planning for TARO repository training will continue to be refined as more details about our platform, the manner in which participants may upload finding aids, the impact of EAD3, and other components of the TARO environment are revised. The schema transition will continue beyond the grant period, with a target completion date in early 2017. Communication about TARO activities will continue after the grant period, since TARO is an ongoing program. There is strong potential for reuse of grant products: the evaluation toolkit, completed by members of the seven different institutions that were represented on the Web & Technology Subcommittee, proved useful not only directly, as a tool in evaluating the three platforms by our archival staff volunteers, but also provide to be a module/reusable tool that Rice was able to easily modify and reuse for end-user testing. We believe all members of the Web & Technology Subcommittee would continue this work in the future - next time narrowing the focus to test platforms that meet the criteria for TARO 2.0 platform that were abstracted from volunteers’ comments and our insider knowledge of TARO’s organizational readiness.

F. Long Term Impact The planning grant will positively impact TARO’s long-term success through the multiple products that have been created during the grant term: a best practices guide; an evaluation toolkit and implementation-phase functional requirements; and a collection development document. Having a substantial, promoted guidelines document for TARO will potentially help build a stronger communal identity for our EAD consortium and encourage members to be vocal in how the guidelines evolve to address future needs. TARO’s ability to provide up-to-date encoding guidelines also ensures that member repositories see a clear benefit to TARO membership. Over time, adherence to the encoding guidelines will facilitate metadata migration to meet new software (e.g. archival management systems) and hardware requirements (e.g. to improve server security). In the future, the user testing tools and evaluation toolkit created for the grant act could act as a modular and flexible approach to user testing, and could potentially be reused by similar groups conducting user evaluations. Outside of the specific goals of strengthening

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the Texas archival consortia for the benefit of our online users, creating reusable tools for our professional community lies at the heart of what it means to truly be a source of community support and service.The new collection development plan will raise the long-term profile of the consortium across the state, as it gives archival repositories a clear path forward in joining the group. In addition, due to work conducted during the grant term, we now have a much better understanding of the range of training needs for staff at TARO’s contributing repositories, thanks to individual conversations with staff and to research of other consortia practices. This will enable us to create better training materials during the grant’s implementation phase and over the longer term future. Finally, our audience of TARO membership has been reinvigorated by the planning process, with members experiencing a renewed enthusiasm for future possibilities of TARO.We believe we now have a strong foundation with which we can seek federal funding for the implementation phase of the project.

G. Grant Products Implementation phase planning:

● Implementation Plan (Appendix A) ● High-Level Requirements for TARO’s Website (Appendix B) ● Functional Requirements for Implementation (Appendix C) ● Draft Implementation Budget and Workplan (Appendix D and Appendix E) ● Plan for Repository Training During Implementation

Governance planning: ● Bridge Governance Plan (Appendix D) ● “What is TARO?”: Principles, Scope and Collection Development (Appendix I)

Platform evaluation: ● TARO Platform Evaluation Final Synthesis ● Platform Evaluation Matrix Worksheet (Appendix J)

Moving towards shared standards for TARO: ● EAD 2002 Schema best practices guidelines. Includes an EAD Schema template, a Schema

complaint sample finding aid, and an HTML (preview) version of the Schema template ● <TARO>: Authority Control at Texas Archival Resources Online (evaluation of TARO’s use of

controlled access vocabularies, iSchool student capstone project, Spring 2016) ● Compiled lists of controlled access terms across TARO as well as terms organized by repository

Archival consortial research: ● Summary of Collaborative Workforce Model ● Consortial Documentation Summary Report (Appendix Q)

Other: ● Grants calendar for implementation phase funding ● White paper (Web Attachment M)

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Appendix A

Implementation plan for the next stages There are recommendations for short term or immediate action and additional recommendations broken into two additional phases that would likely be funded, at least in part, with an implementation grant. With the conclusion of the NEH planning grant on 2016 June 30, this plan acknowledges:

1. The need for a paid Program Manager to oversee a number of initiatives to continue the momentum gained during the planning grant

2. The need for a number of working groups to continue to volunteer time to TARO in order to support and sustain the initiative

3. The recognition that this grant has allowed the Steering Committee to make tremendous strides in determining audience needs, functional requirements, a mission statement, institutional vision, goals, and overall direction. However, the formal adoption of an organizational home remains unresolved

Implementation plan for the next stages: Phase 1: Immediate or Short Term Recommendations for Action (Start FY17)

Short term goal 1: Solidify an organizational home and the identity of the program Short term goal 2. Work with governance group

Phase 2: Modernize and Update Website and Infrastructure (Flexible start based on funding available, likely target May 2018) Phase 3: Exploring and Expanding Services

Phase 1: Immediate or Short Term Recommendations for Action (Start FY17) This phase begins immediately and provides the bridge between the conclusion of the NEH planning grant and the first phase of implementation. Key elements include: Funding a bridge Project Manager position: In order to move successfully toward implementation, the project needs a part- or full-time Project Manager to ensure that the project moves toward a sustainable future. University of Texas Libraries Director dr. haricombe has been approached to see if multiple partners at UT would be willing to provide joint funding for a term bridge position to last 1.5 years, with work to beginning in Fall 2016 and scheduled to run through May of 2018. A draft of the position description is available as Appendix G.

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The two most important immediate initiatives for the Program Manager to work on are to: Short term goal 1: Solidify an organizational home and the identity of the program: The organizational home is as of this writing unclear and requires additional conversation and negotiation. Without an organizational home, or an agreement such as one that would apply during a grant period with an organization that is willing to act as a fiscal agent, TARO doesn’t have the ability to hire, manage, or fire an employee as it has no formal legal status. TARO as it stands now could not begin to accept membership dollars or fundraise TARO has not filed as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. To date, there has not been a need to form an independent organization and at the planning meeting held in Austin on January 28, 2016 there was discussion about the burden of what running a non-profit entails. Filing audited financials annually, creating an independent governance structure, fundraising independently, managing staffing, finding offices and managing infrastructure. It would be a significant leap forward in terms of time, and commitment and the return on investment uncertain Choice A: TARO continues as an offering of UT, funded by and through mechanisms of UT (e.g. Office of Sponsored Programs when there are grant opportunities) although it would be highly recommended that there would be written and formal agreements created We should note that an informal, and very positive relationship with the University of Texas has existed for many years. The University of Texas at Austin Libraries served as the requesting institution for a research grant in 1999. The project partners on that grant included the Texas Digital Library Alliance, Rice University, Texas A&M University, Texas State Library and Archives, Texas Tech University, University of Houston, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. This 1999 grant funded a central server and search engine for TARO and it was installed at UT Austin. TARO has continued with its original technical set up and user interface since then but expanded its membership to archival repositories across the state. With this current arrangement offering 5% of a programmer’s time, no changes or upgrades are possible, only the routine upload of XML files in the existing framework. Advantages: Stability, no need to develop complex governance structure since role of participating institutions would be advisory; low or no fees for participating institutions. Disadvantages: Participating institutions may have less voice in how the program develops since University of Texas has the ultimate authority; TARO is currently vulnerable to funding changes and changes in administrative interest and support; the continuity of the current situation limits TARO’s ability to grow and adapt consonant with the mission and vision statements. Choice B:

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A second option for TARO to pursue with a lower burden in terms of overhead and many advantages would be to align with and to become a program of another non-profit entity that is already formed within the state. This would allow TARO to follow the governing structure of the non-profit they were joining, to take advantage of infrastructure, technology and potential staff resource sharing. Theoretically, office space would be already in place and fiscal management practices and membership structures already developed. Ideally, the non-profit would have similar audiences and interests in the cultural community TARO becomes a program of the Texas Digital Library, housed at the University of Texas. Advantages: Participating institutions can be part of an advisory group to direct initiatives; TARO can model existing TDL membership and fee structures; there is the potential for cost sharing of program staff (both administrative and technical e.g., LSTA funds might be used to fund a shared programmer); there are stronger possibilities for open-source initiatives and statewide collaboratives within the LAM community; and opportunities for visibility and advocacy at the state level for funding and support. Disadvantages: Possible perception of loss of community among archivists who have focused on a particular community of practice Choice C: A third option is to become a program of a state-owned entity but with fluctuations in state funding and the difficulties over the past few years in creating positions within the state this was discouraged when discussed with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission Archivist Short term goal 2. Work with governance group: Based on the findings of the planning grant, the Program Manager should work with this group to establish the governance practices for the ongoing sustainability of the TARO project that are consonant with the organizational home. These will include but not be limited to: Additional goals during the Intermediate / Short Term Establishing strong communications practices: One of the key lessons learned from the planning grant is a continued need for clear and continuous communication between the project, its participating institutions, and its component committees or working groups. The Program Manager should help the group establish clear practices and utilize appropriate infrastructure. Complete conversion to XML schema compliance: At the conclusion of the planning grant, about 50% of TARO repositories will have gone through the process of converting their existing files from dtd format to schema, and becoming able to submit new schema compliant files. This work will need to continue and be completed before implementation of a new platform for TARO. Participants include UT Libraries programmer Minnie Rangel and Steering Committee co-chair Amanda Focke, working directly with TARO repositories.

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Facilitate integration conversations with Texas LAM community: Consider effective integration of EAD finding aids with other systems and portals for unique and special collections in Texas and beyond, including both harvest mechanisms for finding aids as a whole (e.g. ArchiveGrid, export of MARC records to integrated library systems and/or harvest of finding aid metadata into discovery layers) and emerging means by which finding aid metadata can be successfully re-used to provide context for digital objects in environments like the Texas Digital Library, Portal to Texas History, and the Digital Public Library of America. Having these conversations more immediately is essential to ensure that implementation considers the broader landscape and does not result in an infrastructure that has inherent limitations or dead-ends. Get implementation funding for Phase 2: The Program Manager should work with the organizational home and the participating institutions to structure and create one or more means of getting implementation funding for Phase 1, including, but not limited to, national and regional grants, cost share from participating institutions, and direct funding from participating institutions. Using the Google doc spreadsheet created by the TARO Steering Committee and working with participating institutions begin to create a calendar and timeline for grant inquiries, drafts, reviews, and applications: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cwAOzugzzLVWi0_YToqFL-f9gBIXTgn9lhlommd44Jw/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=0

Phase 2: Modernize and Update Website and Infrastructure (Flexible start based on funding available, likely target May 2018) This phase will implement new infrastructure based on the High-Level Requirements for TARO’s Website. These functional requirements have been developed in order to support the group’s pursuit of its mission and vision for the benefit of its identified primary and secondary audiences. The details of the requirements are drawn from the Webtex Subcommittee’s final report on platforms evaluated. The requirements, like this implementation plan, were written in two phases. The first phase includes the core functions needed for a new infrastructure to be viable. The second phase includes functionality that requires more time to develop and will involve more complex organizational and technical development Key elements include:

● Continue funding the Program Manager position to ensure that the initiative meets or exceeds its goals

○ Phase 2 should include cost share from participating institutions and some direct funding from participating institutions

○ Begin to develop membership models for ongoing support of staff and infrastructure ● Creation of detailed technical functional requirements document for programmers to be able to

modernize and update the website and infrastructure on the XTF platform

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● Site name and graphic identity: The new version of the website should have a name and graphic identity that clearly communicates to end users the purpose, content, and scope of the site. The Online Archive of California, Northwest Digital Archives, Rocky Mountain Online Archive, Rhode Island Manuscripts and Archives Online and Texas Archival Resources Online all developed in the late 1990s and the names of organizations and websites have all reached about 15 years old. Most of those that are being maintained are now being renamed, rebranded and seriously redesigned--as TARO desires to do as well. Based on user testing the name “Northwest Digital Archives” made no sense to users for the NWDA site. The California site was redesigned in 2008, and is simply known by its acronym OAC, instead of the “Online Archive of California” and increasing is integrated into Calisphere. The RI repository was envisioned as a regional site but has never managed to move beyond its borders. The “Rocky Mountain Online Archive” is nominally supported by the University of New Mexico but partners in Colorado and Wyoming have little or no say in the direction or plans for the site. Based on extensive user testing, the NWDA has recently been redesigned, rebranded and re-invented as “Archives West.” The name “Texas Archival Resources Online” is, as the other EAD finding aid repositories of its age probably due to be revisited. The ‘Archival Resources Online’ concept is outdated and likely does not accomplish the goal of the purpose, content and scope of the website. Use the process outlined in the Functional Requirements to find a new name and graphic identity.

● Build and test infrastructure: Build the infrastructure based on the Functional Requirements document, including extensive testing and validation with primary and secondary end users.

● Conduct data normalization: Further refine the work done in the planning grant. Articulate the extent to which dates, subjects and name headings could be normalized across TARO (such as spelling typos in genre terms) and in which cases individual repositories would need to be involved in any changes (such as comparing similar personal name headings). Explore methods of ongoing maintenance of such changes, given that the future platform is not likely to include authority control.

● Explore, as feasible, implementation of EAD3 as part of implementation, as well as application of <controlaccess> terms.

● Build and implement training and documentation needed to support the work of participating institutions. Training could occur at Society of Southwest Archivists annual meetings as well as at other events and meetings throughout the state

● Plan for and fund Phase 3: Exploring and Expanding Services. Facilitate conversations with participating institutions about the functionality proposed for Phase 3 and evaluate new and existing user needs that may have evolved since 2016

● The Program Manager should work with the organizational home and the participating institutions to structure and create one or more means of getting implementation funding for Phase 3, including, but not limited to, national and regional grants, cost share from participating institutions, and direct funding from participating institutions.

Phase 3: Exploring and Expanding Services

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This phase may implement additional services based on needs of the TARO community that have evolved and grown as the program grows and evolves. Projected areas that may be re-visited again in the future could include programs such as:

● Digital objects: Implement the desired results identified in the integration and planning conversations of Phase 2.

● Archival collection management: Implement any desired results identified in planning conversations of Phase 2.

Additional tasks ● Begin implementation of a membership model to phase in direct funding from participating

institutions to support infrastructure and staffing for ongoing development and maintenance of the Program

● Development of 3 year strategic plan including program and funding goals, using outcome based evaluation strategies

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Appendix B

High-Level Requirements for Modernizing and Updating Website and Infrastructure Leigh Grinstead, Project Manager, and Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Consultant July 31, 2016

Background and Purpose These high-level requirements for TARO’s Website are intended to support the group’s pursuit of its mission and vision for the benefit of its identified primary and secondary audiences. The details of the requirements are drawn directly from the Technologies and Website (Webtex) Subcommittee’s final report on platforms evaluated. Updates to TARO’s website will occur during Phases 2 and 3 of the Implementation Plan (Phase 1 consists of short-term tasks to occur before an implementation grant is submitted). Phase 2

Website Usability and Accessibility Outcomes: The redesigned website built on the XTF platform should conform to all generally accepted usability and accessibility requirements Process:

● Identify usability requirements (e.g. Nielsen and others) ● Identify accessibility requirements, particularly for publicly-funded institutions that must conform

to requirements with Department of Justice oversight ● Ensure that web designer(s) produce only usable and accessible designs and test them using the

relevant tools early in the design process ● Document the usability and accessibility of the site and communicate to participating institutions

Search Outcomes: Provide both an effective simple (keyword) search and advanced search (facets include date and institution) Process:

● Ensure that metadata supports advanced search: normalized dates to level specified by best practices, completely consistent institutional/repository names

● Create a clear working definition of an “effective” simple search. If this means search precision, one approach would be to define a successful degree of precision (e.g. a search on a name of a

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known collection that appears in title or creator should appear in the first three results). If this means something else, define. Test proposed approaches with primary end users.

● Create a clear definition of advanced search and what constitutes a successful one. What does an advanced search provide that is not present in the combination of advanced searches for primary or secondary users?

○ If it is primary users, create clear search pathways that require an advanced search. Test proposed approaches with primary end users.

○ If it is secondary users, work with participating institutions to create clear search pathways that require an advanced search. Test proposed approaches with secondary end users.

● In concert with the name and graphic design process, design a homepage that can contain both simple and advanced search without becoming cluttered

Browse Outcomes: Provide a browse entry point that includes collection (title), geographic area, institution, and subject Process:

● Ensure that metadata supports complete and accurate browse: ○ Consistent (DACS-compliant) <unittitle>s in <archdesc><did> ○ Geographic area: Clarify whether this means the geographic location of the collection

(e.g. the institution that holds the collection) or the subject coverage (which will require consistent metadata to be useful). Determining which this is may require testing with end users.

○ Completely consistent institutional/repository names ○ Presence of <controlaccess> headings that are accurate and use vocabularies consistently,

including but not limited to a project-specific set of browsing terms ● In concert with the name and graphic design process, design a homepage that can contain

multiple browsing points without becoming cluttered ● Test proposed design and process with priority end users

Results and Refine Outcomes: Provide the means to refine search results and narrow results E.g., to specific or preferred repositories, geographic or temporal limiting. Keep results in context—showing where a particular keyword appears within finding aids. Process:

● Current specifications in the Webtex report state “sort results by different facets.” Clarify what this means: What are the facets most needed? The group should employ interviews or focus groups with end users to clarify this point.

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● Ensure that metadata supports complete and accurate sort by facets (the details of this will depend on the facets)

● Clarify the relationship of refine/sort and the advanced search; develop and test the search pathways of primary and secondary end users

Display of Collections and Components Outcomes: Display of collections as a single file regardless of size, with sensible expand-contract options and display of component-level information, links to related collections via subject headings, and format options that include HTML, PDF, and XML; provide means to share finding aids via email and citation export Process:

● Verify upper-limit size of largest files (the Webtex report suggests that this is 5-11 MB) and greatest degree of hierarchical complexity (the degree of hierarchy is often more of a technical challenge than sheer size for loading and display)

● Identify proposed approach to expand-contract options and test wireframes with priority end users ● Identify proposed approach to links to related collections (via <controlaccess> terms) and test

with priority end users

● Identify proposed approaches to display of component-level information and test with priority end users

● Identify needs for retrieval of PDF and XML, and provide usable means to retrieve PDF and XML that supports those needs

● Provide usable means to share finding aids via email and citation export

Institutional Identity Outcomes: Providing clear institutional identity on a federated site is a critical component of usability when the site is primarily a means for pointing to physical collections rather than providing online access. Clarifying this is essential to avoiding unproductive focus on elements that provide little benefit to end users and may reduce usability (e.g. logos, customized display) Process:

● Facilitate a conversation with participating institutions about institutional identity does (and does not) mean

○ This conversation should include some dialogue about the ability to customize display by institution, which may reduce consistency (and thus usability) of displays and increase technical overhead costs, but which also may offer advantages in working with complicated files or accommodating other institutional needs. There should be a strong understanding of what the needs are beyond producing specific outcomes

○ The group should come to an informed conclusion that all participating institutions can understand and support

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● Identify proposed approach to display of institution name and contact information and test with priority end users

● Communicate and verify the approach with participating institutions ● Ensure that finding aid metadata supports the proposed approach (e.g. completely consistent

institutional/repository names and contact information)

Search Engine Optimization Outcomes: The current TARO site has excellent search engine exposure. The revised site must provide continuity in search engine exposure so that search engines continue to drive traffic to the site effectively Process:

● Design a process for search engine optimization that will provide continuity as the infrastructure changes

● Test and monitor degree of search engine exposure during changes; make changes as needed to provide necessary continuity

Participating Institution Interaction: Submission Outcomes: Participating institutions need a submission system that accepts single or batch submissions; accepts files up to 11 MB; and provides easy re-upload of edited files. The system may also need to accept files other than EAD, including JSON, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core Process:

● Write more complete specifications and validate with participating institutions ○ The need to accept file types other than EAD is currently unclear and should be clarified

● Choose an appropriate infrastructure ● Build and test with participating institutions

Participating Institution Interaction: Compliance Checking Outcomes: Participating institutions need a means for compliance checking that accepts schema-compliant EAD, provides comprehensible feedback with error and line number, and provides a mechanism to preview in the relevant stylesheet Process:

● Write more complete specifications and validate with participating institutions ● Choose an appropriate infrastructure ● Build and test with participating institutions

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Integration Outcomes: Consider effective integration of EAD finding aids with other systems and portals for unique and special collections in Texas and beyond, including both harvest mechanisms for finding aids as a whole (e.g. ArchiveGrid, export of MARC records to integrated library systems and/or harvest of finding aid metadata into discovery layers) and emerging means by which finding aid metadata can be successfully re-used to provide context for digital objects in environments like the Texas Digital Library, Portal to Texas History, and the Digital Public Library of America. Process:

● During the bridge phase (2016-2017) work with participating institutions and broader Texas library-archives-museum community to understand the broader landscape of cultural heritage and where finding aids are most effectively integrated

○ This conversation would benefit from a training component that helps all participants understand how metadata for unique collections moves (or does not) through varying infrastructures

● Ensure that the infrastructure provides a means to harvest raw XML of all finding aids for ArchiveGrid and other purposes

● Ensure that the infrastructure supports OAI-PMH harvesting ● Develop a clear understanding with all participating institutions about the provision of MARC

analogs and/or relationship with discovery layers, and ensure that the infrastructure provides a means for both

● Clarify the need to accept formats other than EAD; depending on outcomes of that conversation, ensure that the infrastructure has export capabilities in a variety of formats, including JSON, EAD, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core

● Have near-term conversations with the Texas Digital Library and Portal to Texas History about re-use of finding aid metadata for digital objects; connect with the DPLA initiative on archival description (white paper to be released in the second half of 2016)

Name and Graphic Identity Outcomes: The new version of the website should have a name and graphic identity that clearly communicate to end users the purpose, content, and scope of the site. “Texas Archival Resources Online” is potentially outdated and may not accomplish these goals. Naming a website like this one is more complex than many of us have ever imagined; for a useful overview of how names are generated, see http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/title-tk/. Process:

● Explore retiring the current name based on user research data and commit to updating the graphic identity of the site and make clear to all project partners that this will be the case, and that the process will be driven by the needs and desires of users. While it’s always important to bear in

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mind the needs and preferences of the participating institutions, the site’s primary audience is researchers--and they need to drive the choices.

● Use the mission, vision, and audience statements to work with a professional individual or firm experienced with website design and naming to generate a list of options for name and design. Making use of a professional firm will be critical to the success of the re-naming and branding endeavor. This should not be undertaken as a graduate project as it requires professional-level expertise.

● Do preliminary testing with focus groups composed of the identified priority audience; narrow options based on results

● Solicit more feedback from participating institutions; narrow options based on results ● Come to a final decision based on feedback received; communicate decision to participating

institutions ○ If user studies indicate that a name change is necessary, a name change will change the

URL which will impact member repositories who link to specific finding aids in their digital repositories and/or websites

● Integrate new name and designs into site revision process

Phase 3: Explore Expanding Services

Digital Objects Outcomes: Provide persistent links to digital objects at the component level to digital asset management systems; Provide ability to search and browse by presence of digital objects; Provide in-finding aid viewers for common media types (visual materials, moving images, audio); implement the desired results identified in the integration conversations of Phase 2. Process:

● Provide clear instructions for linking to digital objects in best practices that provide necessary consistency

● Offer training on links to digital objects to facilitate consistency ● Develop approach to search, browse, facet, and display of digital objects in finding aids; test with

priority end users ● Build and implement in production system

Archival Collection Management Outcomes: Provide archival collection management capabilities that include accessions and location management, processing and other management functions, donor information, patron data, usage, and report generation. The collection management functions must be appropriately separated by institution (e.g. institutions can’t see each other’s donor information), but should take advantage (where possible) of re-usable metadata (e.g. shared name and subject records). This is a potentially complex initiative that

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may not be supported by currently available systems, although there are open source collection management systems outside of the archival community that do have shared authorities and the code could be adapted, CollectionSpace is one. It is, and will continue to be of great importance to provide infrastructure and workflows that make collection exposure accessible for all types of participating institutions Process:

● Write more complete specifications and validate with participating institutions ● Choose an appropriate infrastructure ● Build and test with participating institutions

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Appendix C

Desired Functional Requirements for TARO

Front end

Digital Objects Link out to digital objects hosted by member institutions (persistent URIs); talk to Fedora repositories

Provide in-finding aid viewers for digital objects referenced (A/V, image, text, some born-digital)

Finding Aid Display

Accordion display for inventories -- collapse and expand sections

Logical display of box/folder information

Large finding aids can display in a single file

System provides finding aids in several formats , including .xml, .pdf, & email.

System has the potential for customizing stylesheets to meet institutional display needs

Searching and Browsing Multiple, easy to navigate, browsing options

· By collection

· By digital objects

· By geographic area

· By institution

· By subject

Effective simple search feature

Advanced search options , including the ability to limit searches by multiple facets

· By date

· By collections with digital objects

· By repository

Ability to search within a finding aid

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· Highlight search terms in the text of the finding aid

Ability to search non-roman characters

Ability to sort results by different facets

Linked subject headings from finding aids - providing results for all other finding aids with those subject headings

Sharing Export citation (Zotero, EndNote, etc.)

Ability to email and bookmark results

Website Website uses accessible design

Breadcrumb trail navigation

Map and list of participating repositories

Social networking integration

Back end

Authority Control System allows the use of multiple authority systems , both published and local

Able to dynamically pull values from controlled vocabularies hosted (externally) by authorities such as Geonames, Library of Congress and the Getty

Collection Management Import accession data

Collect and track donor information

Create deeds of gift

Appraisal management

Record condition

De-accessioning

Separations and destructions

Prioritize processing order

Manage locations

Manage restrictions

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Manage rights

Manage loans and exhibits

Track reference requests and use of collections

Track patron information

Generate reports

Data Import, Export, Validation, and Reuse System provides an API for the repository

System can import collection data in several different formats: JSON, EAD, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core

System can export collection data in several different formats: JSON, EAD, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core

System can import special characters/diacritics

System supports batch import/export

System facilitates OAI-PMH harvesting of the data in the repository

Submission and Validation System accepts schema-compliant EAD

Ability to preview public view of the EAD file

User-friendly file upload process, including real-time updates

System provides clear notification when EAD is not properly formatted , including specific problem and line number

System allows easy editing/reloading of existing EAD finding aids

System can handle large files (at least 5-11MB)

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Appendix D

TARO Implementation Budget (draft) Current budget figures are estimates for an 18 month implementation term and are subject to change as some initiatives may overlap. A finalized budget for the implementation phase will be developed as TARO’s institutional home and staffing are established.

Description of Activity Grant funds In-kind Notes

STAFFING Program manager @ $60k plus $22k fringe 123,000 1.5 years

Lead developer/programmer @ $60k plus $22k fringe 123,000

1.5 years. Responsible for programming that will create the finding aid submission system

Part time Digital Collections Librarian @ $60k plus $22k fringe for 1.5 years 50% time 61,500

Explore potential for creating an ongoing, in-kind position funded by TARO repositories

Programming support at UT Libraries 4,500 5% FTE (2 hrs/wk x 75 wks @$30/hr)

TARO Steering Committee members 22,500

5 members: Chair, co-chair, 3 at-large members (5 members x 10 hrs/month x 18 months @$25/hr)

Metadata cleanup and consistency analysis 6,250 To be completed by TARO working group members (250 staff hours at $25/hour)

TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE Software: XTF, Metadata Hopper, script language such as Django, XSLT, HTML / CSS 0 0 open source / no cost

Hardware: servers, staff computers 10,800

A host running in AWS 24/7 for the shared XTF server + ~200GB of storage and a 2nd development server to support ongoing system support ($1000-$1200/yr) and staff computers ($3,000 per TARO staff member)

Webinar license for TARO member training 1,500 AnyMeeting Pro 100 2 years

OVERHEAD ALLOCATION

Administration, finance, facilities, phone/internet for staff TBD

To be resolved with the formalization of an institutional home for TARO. Probably estimate of UT or TDL overhead

TRAINING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT Development of TARO training curriculum for repositories in the post-implementation 500

Depending on the project’s schedule, this training may be given by the TARO program

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phase (in-person version and webinar versions)

manager. If so, it would not incur an additional expense

Travel and honorarium for trainer 2,500 for conducting in-person training twice ($1k each) and webinar twice ($250 each)

Conferences and Travel (stakeholder communications, networking with peer organizations, connections with national level initiatives) 16,500

Includes: 3 steering committee meetings in Austin (ca $7500 based on TARO NEH grant); funding for 2 reps from XTF installation to advise (1 trip, $1500 each person airfare / 2 hotel nights / meals = $3000); funding for TARO Proj Mgr and Developer to present at SAA (August - $1500 each person x 2) and SSA (May- $1500 each person x 2) $6000

OTHER EXPENSES Public interface design & development, TARO re-naming research outsourced to marketing web development firm 60,000 Based on Chicago Consortium’s experience

Usability testing: User personae development 1,250

By TARO working group. Basic personae and tasks already defined, and could refine further. (50 staff hours @ $25 each)

Usability testing: with priority end users 2,500 In-kind by TARO members’ UX offices. (100 staff hours @ $25 each)

Total: $387,000 $49,300 (+TBD

costs)

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Appendix E TARO Implementation Workplan

First year (with bridge funding):

● Hire TARO Program Manager ● Complete conversion to XML schema compliance ● Finalize organizational home and complete agreements ● Write implementation grant(s) and identify possible in-kind resources ● Facilitate integration conversations with Texas LAM community (ongoing throughout grant term) ● Convene working groups for Implementation Projects (Metadata Assessment, Outreach &

Education, User Interface and Usability Testing) ● Recruit new TARO membership (ongoing)

First year alternate scenario (without bridge funding): Note that this alternate timeline may be extended as all work will be accomplished by volunteers from various TARO repositories.

● Complete conversion to XML schema compliance ● Finalize organizational home and complete agreements ● Write implementation grant(s) and identify possible in-kind resources ● Facilitate integration conversations with Texas LAM community (ongoing throughout grant term) ● Convene working groups for Implementation Projects (Metadata Assessment, Outreach &

Education, User Interface and Usability Testing) ● Recruit new TARO membership (ongoing)

12-18 months:

● Metadata consistency analysis and cleanup assessment ● Metadata Researcher site name and identity (involve naming professionals and graphic designers) ● Hire technical and programming staff ● Determine specifications for server and other technical infrastructure ● Purchase or lease server and other technical infrastructure (software, hardware) ● Initial interface testing and evaluation (User personae development, UI testing with priority end

users) ● Interface development ● Organize finding aids from new TARO members for conversion ● Explore EAD3 integration options ● Begin implementation of any changes based on organizational home agreements, such as

possible membership models 18-24 months:

● Follow up interface testing and evaluation (UI testing with priority end users)

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● Follow up interface development ● File migration to new infrastructure ● Continue implementation of any changes based on organizational home agreements, such as

possible membership models 24-36 months:

● Create and present training modules for new TARO system (Outreach and education committee) ● Provide geographically dispersed backup for files ● Provide ArchiveGrid harvest mechanism ● Write 3 year strategic plan

36 months+:

● Project staff write and deliver papers; demonstrate work at conferences and meetings ● Networking with peer organizations, connections with national level initiatives ● Ongoing training (Outreach and education committee)

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Appendix F Texas Archival Resources Online Bridge Governance Plan October 2016 [proposed] Section 1: Governance

A. Structure – The governance structure of Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) shall consist of a steering committee elected by TARO member institutions.

B. Authority – The Steering Committee shall have the authority to act on behalf of TARO to carry out business of the consortium.

Section 2: Steering Committee

A. Composition – The steering committee shall consist of a Chair, Chair Elect, Secretary, three At-Large Members with one representing academic institutions and one representing non-academic institutions, and the Immediate Past Chair, all representing current TARO member institutions. A representative of the institution hosting TARO (currently the University of Texas Libraries) will serve in an advisory capacity. All members of the steering committee shall be elected, except the host institution representative who will be selected by the host institution.

B. Voting – The Chair Elect, Secretary, At-Large Members, and the Immediate Past Chair shall be

voting members of the Steering Committee. The Chair shall only vote in the event of a tie.

C. Terms of Office: a. The Chair shall serve for one (1) year. b. The Chair Elect shall serve a one (1) year term and shall succeed the Chairperson for a one

(1) year term. c. The Secretary shall serve a two (2) year term and may serve two (2) consecutive terms. d. The At-Large Members shall serve a two (2) year staggered term and shall not serve

consecutive terms. e. The Immediate Past Chair shall serve a one (1) year term.

D. Succession of Officers:

a. The Chair shall assume the position of Immediate Past Chair at the end of his/her term. b. The Chair Elect shall assume the position of Chair at the end of his/her term.

E. Duties of the Steering Committee – The Steering Committee is required to meet at least six times

per year and members of the Steering Committee are required to attend all regularly scheduled meetings.

a. The Chair shall:

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i. Call and preside at all meetings of the Steering Committee. ii. Work with the Secretary to prepare and distribute agendas for meetings of the

steering committee. iii. Vote only to break a tie of the Steering Committee. iv. Ensure that written reports on the progress and activities of TARO are distributed

to TARO members annually. v. In collaboration with the Steering Committee, establish Ad Hoc Subcommittees as

needed, including appointing chairs, communicating a charge and timeline for each. Such subcommittee may be for topics such as Standards, Website / Technologies, Governance, Funding and Sustainability, Education and Outreach, Maintenance, or others as required.

b. The Chair Elect shall: i. Preside at all meetings in the absence of the Chair. ii. Complete the term of the Chair in the event the Chair is unable to do so. iii. Act as Parliamentarian and ensure the Bylaws are followed. iv. Vote in Steering Committee votes. v. Assume other duties as assigned by the Chair.

c. The Secretary shall: i. Receive agenda items and circulate agendas prior to meetings. ii. Send notices of meetings. iii. Record minutes of the Steering Committee. iv. Distribute meeting minutes and reports to TARO member organizations. v. Communicate action items to the appropriate parties for follow-up. vi. Maintain and organize appropriate records. vii. Vote in Steering Committee votes.

d. The Immediate Past Chair shall: i. Chair the Nominating Committee. ii. Other duties as assigned by the Steering Committee. iii. Vote in Steering Committee votes.

e. The At-Large members shall: i. Advise the Steering Committee. ii. Vote in Steering Committee votes.

F. Vacancies – In the event a member of the Steering Committee cannot complete his/her term, the

Chair shall appoint a member from a TARO member organization with a ⅔ or more approval vote from the Steering Committee to complete the term until the next scheduled election is held.

Section 3: Nominations and elections

A. Nominations – A call for nominations will be issued two months before the scheduled election. Steering Committee members may be nominated until two weeks before an election. Self-nomination is permitted. Candidates for the Steering Committee will provide brief statements detailing their reasons for running and provide a summary of their qualifications to

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the Nominating Committee. These statements will be distributed electronically to TARO members at least one week prior to the elections.

B. Voting – Each member, being a TARO representative at a TARO repository, may submit one vote. The call to vote will be distributed on the taro-lib listserv, inviting members to vote using an online ballot.

C. Elections – Elections will be held annually in November.

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Appendix G

TARO Program Manager Job Description Term position (1.5 years), for work to be completed Fall 2016-May 2018 Salary: $60,000/year, with additional 25% fringe ($22,500 for grant term) = $112,500 Position description: Purpose: Lead the “Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) Consortium to the 21st Century Project” in which a new vision is implemented for TARO, the online statewide consortium for archival finding aids. TARO (www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/) has not been updated since its debut in 1999, and although it still functions and is heavily used, it is due for significant updates. In 2015, TARO received an NEH grant to support the consortium as it planned for a redesign of the existing website and engaged essential questions of mission, vision, and long-term sustainability. The TARO program manager will lead the consortium as it enters the implementation phase of the project, a critical time for its long-term sustainability. Essential functions: The TARO Program Manager will serve as the central coordinator of the TARO project. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in project planning and management, grant writing and administration, a successful track record of taking projects into sustainable programs, and in-depth knowledge of archival practice and descriptive tools, as well as excellent oral and written communication skills. Communication with the TARO Steering Committee and project working groups will occur using both in-person and distance venues. During the project term, the TARO Program Manager will:

● Communicate with statewide partners and stakeholders through regular channels, including, but not limited to, blog postings, email, webinars, recordings, brown bag sessions, and public speaking engagements

● Exercise significant leadership in establishing a long-term institutional home for the program ● Research and write requests for grant and non-grant funding, monitor progress and facilitate

submission of grant initiatives ● Provide oversight of TARO’s DTD-to-schema compliance ● Work with committee chairs to develop annual work plans, goals and objectives. The Program

Manager will also perform annual evaluation of goals and report on progress to the Steering Committee, the institutional home and funders

● Establish parameters for and work with end users to develop the researcher-facing functionality for the new version of TARO including search, browse, and retrieval, and name and graphic identity

● Develop annual project budget for TARO in cooperation with Steering Committee ● Identify and liaise with potential partners within the state (e.g., Texas Digital Library, Portal to

Texas History, Handbook of Texas) ● Liaise with other regional consortia for possible collaboration and potential business opportunities

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● Investigate how resources available at the University of Texas School of Information (e.g., independent studies, archives courses) could be utilized to achieve project objectives

● Provide monthly progress updates to UT Libraries and the TARO Steering Committee Required education: Masters Degree in Library & Information Science, or related fields such as management information systems Required skills: Demonstrated successful project management, a successful track program of the leadership and management competencies to take projects to sustainable programs, strong written and verbal presentation (narrative and technical styles), grant writing and management, knowledge of EAD/XML. Solid knowledge of archival practice and national standards. Preferred skills: Familiarity with TARO and with other significant organizations in Texas and the United States. Knowledge of metadata standards such as Dublin Core, METS, EAC-CPF, and controlled vocabularies such as LCNAF, LCSH, FAST, AAT, VRA; experience with projects using XSLT/css.

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Appendix H

Working Group Charges: TARO Infrastructure Development and Associated Charges

● Steering Committee: Develop a collections development policy for TARO. Work will include contact with representatives of archives around the state who are not participating in TARO to assess holdings and current barriers to participation.

● Governance Working Group: Update strategic plan and mission statement for TARO and draft bylaws. Draft guidelines for participation in Steering Committee and working groups (e.g., nominations process, length of terms). Consider the use of fixed-length terms to encourage broader geographic and institutional representation. Investigate the possible role of a TARO advisory council comprised of scholars, educators, and other archives users.

● Maintenance Working Group: Advise on the technical maintenance of the platforms tested during the planning grant, create documentation for how each platform would be supported on the administrative side after implementation, and interact with the contributing repository side. This documentation will inform platform selection decisions.

● Funding & Sustainability Working Group: Design three potential models for TARO’s future sustainability (including instituting a fee structure) and outline the level of services provided to members with each model and potential cost. Poll all current member repositories and create a document summarizing membership attitudes towards ensuring TARO sustainability. Explore avenues for implementation funding following Foundations grant. Address need to keep TARO membership involved and invested in TARO’s future.

● Technologies & Website Working Group: Develop functional specifications for TARO website revisions to guide technical developers during project implementation; this document will be used to critically examine software functionality of test platform instances (XTF, ICA-AToM, ArchivesSpace) during pilot testing. The group will build from an early functional requirements document created during TARO Strategic Visioning (see Appendix G); comments from preliminary user and repository studies conducted in Spring/Summer 2014; and studies by similar consortia. The group will configure test platform instances, with assistance from the UT Technical Team . The functional requirements document will be revised following completion of the outsourced usability assessment.

● Outreach & Education Working Group: Update list of TARO contacts at all repositories, post on wiki and TARO, and create contacts group email list. Formalize procedures for sharing information with all TARO members through TARO listserv. Identify potential new TARO members and send introductory email. Identify and approach repositories who are experiencing technical incompatibilities with current TARO system. Initiate contact with repositories that have processed collections with grant funding, but are not TARO contributors. Recommend process for onboarding new TARO members, including recommendations for number of TARO members accepted per year and procedures for transitioning responsibility for member training from UT Libraries to a designated TARO group. Review training webinars prepared by similar archival consortia in preparation for the creation of TARO training materials during the grant implementation phase.

● Standards TARO Working Group Working Group: Draft EAD Best Practices guidelines that comply with the newly-released EAD3 schema and updated DACS ( Describing Archives: A Content Standard) rules. Work will draw heavily from existing documents from other consortia, including NWDA and Arizona Online. Consider how these consortia have handled repositories’ use of

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different standards for controlled vocabulary (e.g., Library of Congress subject headings vs. Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus terms). Guide will include clear examples of correctly-entered controlled access terms and use of controlled access tags (e.g., <persname>, <corpname> <subject>). The group will discuss the possible role of broad thematic (e.g., Education, Arts & Humanities) and geographic (e.g., West Texas) browse terms that will provide easy entry points to TARO finding aids.

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Appendix I

What is TARO? (Texas Archival Resources Online)

June 2016

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Contents

About this Document General Purpose Statement Mission Vision Audience Historical Background What’s in TARO? Subject Strengths Standards and Best Practices Governance Collaboration Disposition and Digital Preservation Requirements for Participation Application Process

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About this Document This articulation of the TARO consortium’s principles and scope was created collaboratively by the TARO steering committee and grant project manager, with input from the entire TARO membership during the 2015-2016 grant period. The document is designed for remix and reuse for purposes including fundraising, organizing, outreach, and presentation.

General Purpose Statement Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) is a consortial program that facilitates access to historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more from member (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/about.html) archives, libraries, and museums across Texas to inform, enrich, and empower researchers all over the world. The primary service currently provided by TARO is a freely accessible platform for searching finding aids from repositories across Texas.

Mission TARO brings together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more from archives, libraries, and museums across Texas to inform, enrich, and empower researchers all over the world to discover information for educational and professional purposes as well as for personal enjoyment.

Vision TARO fosters a culture of collaboration among Texas archives, libraries, and museums allowing participants to overcome challenges together. TARO is a community responsive to changes in technology, demographics, and resources, and enhances the field of archival practice by anticipating the needs of 21st Century researchers.

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Audience While there are more than one million unique users annually, TARO is most heavily 1

used by professional researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, humanities and history faculty, genealogists, and historians. TARO has proven a rich resource for a wide variety of secondary users including the creators of TARO records themselves: 2

TARO members and research archivists who often act as mediators of the content for primary users.

Historical Background Since the wide adoption of the Internet in the 1990s, archives around the country began to seek ways to provide online access to their finding aids. After several years of development by staff from the University of California, the Society of American Archivists, the Library of Congress and other institutions, the guidelines for Encoded Archival Description (or EAD) were released in 1998. Subsequently, several state and regional consortia launched websites with member repositories’ EAD finding aids, providing patrons with the ability to search the holdings of multiple repositories at once. Examples include the Online Archive of California, the Northwest Digital Archives and Arizona Archives Online. TARO was first supported from a research grant from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) Board of the State of Texas in 1999. The University of Texas Libraries (UT Libraries) served as the requesting institution, with project partners including the Texas Digital Library Alliance, Rice University, Texas A&M University, Texas State Library and Archives, Texas Tech University, University of Houston, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. With these grant funds, UT Libraries established the TARO website, outsourced encoding of several hundred finding aids and provided training to member repositories. Repositories began contributing their own hand-coded finding aids in 2002.

1 May 2014 statistics show that most researchers come from the United States (67%), but also hail from Germany, China, South Korea, France, Vietnam, Great Britain, Ukraine, Russian Federation, and Canada (complete TARO statistics are online). In 2013, TARO finding aids were accessed by over 581,483 unique visitors (with 1,184,469 visits and 7 million page views). 2 The never-ending list includes authors, documentarians, artists, property owners, consultants, architects, government agents, lawyers, marketers and advertisers, corporate historians, fashion designers, etc...

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TARO’s content benefits tremendously from decades of federal grant funds supporting collections cataloging. Some notable projects include:

● The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded the Morris Leopold Ernst Papers at the Harry Ransom Center (2009-2012), the Tom C. Clark Papers at UT’s Tarlton Law Library (1984-1985), and the establishment of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center with the papers of Houston Mayor Oscar Holcombe, Congregation Beth Israel, the Imperial Sugar Company, the League of Women Voters of Houston, the Santa Fe Railroad, artist Emma Richardson Cherry, businessman T.W. House, and architect Alfred C. Finn (1973)

● The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) funded the “History Revealed” Hidden Collections project which produced 1,500 new finding aids at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (2009-2011), the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association collection at Texas Tech’s Vietnam Center and Archive (2006), the President’s Office Records at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (2004), and the Robert Runyon Photograph Collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History (1988)

● The Department of Education, Higher Education Act Grant, Title II-C funded the “Cataloging and preservation rehousing of American and British architectural drawings and archival materials” project which processed over half of the collections at the Alexander Architectural Archive at the University of Texas at Austin.

● The Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funded the Fannie Ratchford photograph collection, the Prints of Early Texas Cities collection, and the William Deming Hornaday photograph collection all at Texas State Archives

On average, 500 finding aids have been added to the site per year since 2003, and the content within TARO continues to actively expand, with hundreds of new finding aids added in 2015. TARO’s content benefits tremendously from prior investments in collections processing and preservation and UT Libraries continues to contribute 5% of one FTE programmer’s time to maintain TARO, with 23 days each year for programming updates, weekly batch uploading of new finding aids, monthly statistical reporting, and periodic troubleshooting of maintenance issues and new member training. In March 2015, an NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant, Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) to the 21st Century Collaborative Planning Project, was awarded to the UT Libraries with a start date of July 2015.

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What’s in TARO? TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) makes descriptions of the rich archival, manuscript, and museum collections in repositories across the state available to the public. The site consists of the collection descriptions or "finding aids" that archives, libraries, and museums create to assist users in locating information in their collections. 3

Consider these an extended table of contents which describe unique materials only available at the individual repositories. In most cases, the collections themselves are NOT available online. TARO accepts finding aids from Texas archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural agencies with publicly accessible and described collections , and makes them available 4

to the public. These finding aids describe a variety of media, including, but not limited to: text and manuscript documents, photographs, postcards, artifacts, architectural drawings, art reproductions, illustrations, sound, video, and representations of 3-D items. Some finding aids may describe and link to digital objects. The finding aids on the TARO site do not represent descriptions of the entire holdings of any of the repositories. TARO is built on Encoded Archival Description (EAD), the XML data structure standard for finding aids. TARO makes the finding aids available online in HTML.

Subject Strengths While collections are physically located in Texas, they are not limited to Texas subjects, and may be international in scope. Each member institution follows their own collection development policy . TARO provides access to an aggregation of members’ finding aids 5

resulting in a combined strength in the following areas: agricultural and natural resources, architecture, art, humanities and social sciences; business, economics, finance, education, government and law. A great number of collections also focus on topics such as immigration, landscapes and nature, literature, religion, sciences and technology, social life and customs, as well as sports and recreation. Texas-specific topics found within TARO include the Republic of Texas and statehood, peoples of Texas, the Texas revolution, the Mexican war, and Texas cities and regions.

3 Society of American Archivists glossary entry for Finding Aid. http://www2.archivists.org/glossary/terms/f/finding-aid Accessed January 6, 2016. 4 A full list of current TARO members is available at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/about.html. 5 http://www2.archivists.org/glossary/terms/c/collection-development Accessed 13 June 2016.

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The scope of primary source material represented in TARO is as historically-rich and diverse as the state itself, including:

● Manuscripts of world-renowned artists & literary figures ● Records documenting Spanish Colonial Texas ● Film footage of the environmental & economic impacts of natural disasters ● Field recordings of Texas folk music traditions ● Photographs documenting major events of the Civil Rights Movement

Standards and Best Practices TARO uses Encoded Archival Description (EAD), and members use TARO-approved standards and procedures to develop and disseminate EAD finding aids. In 2016, TARO will adopt EAD Best Practices Guidelines that comply with the EAD 2002 schema and DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard) 2nd Edition. TARO supports its members with basic tools and training documentation to ensure a quality resource for users, and is committed to the adoption of newly-accepted professional standards.

Governance The TARO consortium is currently led by an all-volunteer Steering Committee composed of stakeholders from participating repositories, advised and assisted by technology and administrative staff at UT Libraries. During the 2014-2016 NEH planning grant period, a project manager was hired and several working groups were formed. A 6

new, more formalized governance structure is under development. Goals for this new structure include formalized terms and diversity of representation.

Collaboration TARO seeks out collaboration with other organizations and programs when members identify common interests that serve the needs of contributors and end users. The 7

consortium supports shareable and portable finding aid metadata in the spirit of openness and of facilitating modes of research either in development or not yet imagined. TARO shares this metadata, in whole or in part, with outside entities that make said metadata publicly and freely available in ways that enhance access and exposure.

6 http://blogs.lib.utexas.edu/taro/taro-subcommittees/ 7 Adaptation of language taken from the Alliance statement on collaboration https://www.orbiscascade.org/sharing-finding-aid-metadata-1

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Disposition and Digital Preservation Content may be removed from TARO if material becomes unavailable due to technical difficulties, content is deemed inaccurate, information is determined to be in violation of copyright or other intellectual property rights, or for other reasons determined to be appropriate to staff and administration. TARO makes appropriate provisions for geographically distributed and complete backup of all files that it hosts.

Requirements for Participation Potential participating institutions must have:

● Collections described on TARO should be in the legal custody of their respective institutions

● Adequate staff to support ongoing work and governance of TARO, at a minimum, providing one representative who can be engaged in the TARO community listserv and serve as a repository point person for any errors or other finding aid questions which may arise

● Collections that are open and accessible to the public for the purpose of education, research, and/or public programming, as evidenced by the number of days on which the institution is open to the public, the capacity to support access and use, and the availability of staff for this purpose 8

● Willingness to release copyright of finding aids so the metadata can be reused and repurposed

Application Process Institutions interested in participating in TARO should submit a letter of interest to the Co-Chairs of the TARO Steering Committee via email by May 31 (for a July start) or November 30 (for a January start). Letters of interest should include:

● Description of your institution’s collections ● Current mode of finding aid creation, including the degree of EAD adoption, if any ● Designated contact person ● Evidence of a web presence

8 Language from National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions guidelines on page 7. Accessed March 8, 2016

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Applications will be reviewed by the TARO Steering Committee in June and December to assess the level of technical support required to onboard new members, the commitment to EAD encoding, and the description of collections. Repositories that have received state and federal funding for collections processing will receive priority consideration. The number of new applicants accepted to TARO per year will vary according to the current capacity of new applicants and TARO’s capacity to manage its resources and multiple new partners. As a general practice, new members will be accepted twice a year (July and January) in cohorts, with variations possible as current TARO initiatives and staffing allow.

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Appendix J

TARO: Platform Evaluation Worksheet

Instructions: Your platform evaluation worksheet has 3 sections:

1. Evaluation Matrix: The matrix is divided into sections mapped roughly to the user stories

provided in your evaluation packet.

a. Indicate how you would prioritize each criterion (High / Medium / Low)

b. Indicate the availability of the criterion for the platform you are evaluating (Yes / No /

n/a)

2. Follow-up Questions: Follow-up questions are short-answer questions that address topics

related to the new TARO platform that cannot be addressed using the other evaluation tools

provided.

3. Comments: The comments section is entirely free form. We ask that you provide feedback

about the evaluation process, the TARO planning grant, your institutional orientation towards

TARO, etc.

Evaluation Matrix

Front End

Category Criterion Prioritization Archives

Space AtoM

XTF Notes

Digital Objects

Link out to digital objects hosted by member institutions (persistent URIs); talk to Fedora repositories

Provide in-finding aid viewers for digital objects referenced (A/V, image, text, some born-digital)

Finding Aid Display

Accordion display for inventories -- collapse and expand sections

Logical display of box/folder information

Large finding aids can display in a single file

System provides finding aids in several formats, including .xml, .pdf, & email.

System has the potential for customizing stylesheets to meet institutional display needs

Searching and Browsing

Multiple, easy to navigate, browsing options

● By collection

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● By digital objects ● By geographic area ● By institution ● By subject

Effective simple search feature

Advanced search options, including the ability to limit searches by multiple facets

● By date

● By collections with

digital objects

● By repository

Ability to search within a finding aid

● Highlight search terms in the text of the finding aid

Ability to search non-roman characters

Ability to sort results by different facets

Linked subject headings from finding aids - providing results for all other FAs with those subject headings

Sharing Export citation (Zotero, EndNote, etc.)

Ability to email and bookmark results

Website Website uses accessible design

Breadcrumb trail navigation

Map and list of participating repositories

Social networking integration

Back End

Category Criterion Prioritization Archives

Space AtoM XTF

Notes

Authority Control

System allows the use of multiple authority systems, both published and local

Able to dynamically pull values from controlled vocabularies hosted (externally) by authorities such as Geonames, Library of Congress and the Getty

Collection Management Import accession data

Collect and track donor information

Create deeds of gift Appraisal management Record condition De-accessioning

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Separations and destructions

Prioritize processing order Manage locations Manage restrictions Manage rights Manage loans and exhibits

Track reference requests, use

Track patron information Generate reports Data Import, Export, Validation, and Reuse

System provides an API for the repository

System can import collection data in several different formats: JSON, EAD, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core

System can export collection data in several different formats: JSON, EAD, RDF, MARC, CSV, MODS, METS, Dublin Core

System can import special characters/diacritics

System supports batch import / export

System facilitates OAI-PMH harvesting of the data in the repository

Submission and Validation

System accepts schema complaint EAD

Ability to preview public view of the EAD file

User-friendly file upload process, including real-time updates

System provides clear notification when EAD is not properly formatted, including specific problem and line number

System allows easy editing / reloading of existing EAD finding aids

System can handle large files (at least 5-11MB)

Follow-up Questions 1. What are your thoughts on system backup and redundancy? Please articulate your backup

and redundancy expectations for the new TARO platform.

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2. Please share your thoughts regarding the role that TARO should play in providing additional

training and ongoing user support for the platform. Are there specific topics (re: standards,

technologies, data normalization workflows) you would like TARO to provide training on?

3. If the new TARO platform is an archival collection management system, do you any concerns

or expectations regarding the combined storage of collection data across multiple institutions

(re: accession records, unfinished finding aids, etc.)?

4. What are your thoughts regarding the new TARO platform? Would you prefer to have a

modern publishing platform (re: TARO continues to publish but finding aid creation takes

place within each institution) or would you prefer to have the ability to use the shared archival

collection management system in addition to the publishing platform? Consider both how

TARO has fit into your archival descriptive workflow/practice in the past, and how TARO

might increase its service footprint? Also consider which services would justify an annual

subscription fee to TARO in order to support its ongoing development and maintenance.

5. Please describe your evaluation experience. Were the instructions easy to understand? Did

you feel that the evaluation packet was a useful tool in exploring the platform?

Comments Please use the space below to express any additional thoughts or suggestions about the evaluation

process, AtoM, or anything TARO related.

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Appendix K

Sample Blog Posts and Newsletter Announcements

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Appendix L

Outreach and Education Schema Planning

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Appendix M

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Appendix N

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Appendix O

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Appendix P

TARO Platform Evaluation User Personae

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Appendix Q Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) Summary Report: Consortial Documentation Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Orbis Cascade Alliance, Consultant Final Version, 2015 December 29/Revised 2016 January 10 Executive Summary The following report on consortial documentation includes three areas of focus: Encoded Archival Description (EAD), archival collection management tools and practices; and digital object metadata and relating digital objects with EAD finding aids. EAD is TARO’s clear interest at this time since the existing program is EAD-focused. Archival collection management and digital objects may or may not become a central consideration depending on the direction the group decides to take. Clearly, there is a great deal of existing documentation that leaves little need to reinvent the wheel. There are also clear areas for possible collaboration, particularly in the potential transition from EAD 2002 to EAD3. The existing intersections between the consortial documentation already available show some obvious pathways toward shared approaches that would be beneficial to TARO and a number of other groups. This overview of existing documentation suggests several things:

● Should the group decide to move ahead with EAD3 implementation, and considering that almost all western EAD documentation is ultimately related to and derived from the RLG/Online Archive of California/Orbis Cascade Best Practices, the group should consider one or more partnerships with other groups undertaking similar projects. The group should likewise consider contributing to the EAD FAQ project of the EAD Roundtable of SAA.

● Whether to include archival collection management capabilities and the extent to which the group integrates digital object access or representation are of critical importance to mission.

● The extent to which finding aid and related metadata is open and shareable is a critical policy decision that will affect both infrastructure and metadata requirements.

Encoded Archival Description Consortial Documentation A number of consortia have documentation for their EAD best practices that is openly available. The following list includes only that which is openly available, or for whom there is a clear contact; there may be other examples not on public websites. Arizona Archives Online: http://www.azarchivesonline.org/xtf/AAO_best_practices_v3.1.pdf

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Created in 2011, and based largely on the Orbis Cascade Alliance’s (then NWDA) guidelines. Assumes use of DTD and EAD 2002. California Digital Library (Online Archive of California): http://www.cdlib.org/services/access_publishing/dsc/contribute/docs/oacbpgead_v2-0.pdf Created in 2005, but 2011 CDL documentation suggests that it is still in use to some extent. However, Online Archive of California IT staff bases its work on normalization rather than insisting on compliance to best practices. Assumes use of DTD and EAD 2002. Orbis Cascade Alliance: https://www.orbiscascade.org/file_viewer.php?id=2923 Updated early 2015. Assumes use of DTD and EAD 2002. Maintained for participants in its EAD database, Archives West. The Alliance’s EAD Database Working Group (https://www.orbiscascade.org/ead-database-working-group-fy16/) is currently mapping these Best Practices to EAD3 so that the group can consider the impacts of EAD3 adoption, and may consider working with the Utah Manuscripts Association on a joint project. The group also maintains documentation on the use of Oxygen (https://www.orbiscascade.org/file_viewer.php?id=573) and XMetaL (https://www.orbiscascade.org/file_viewer.php?id=579) and makes clear options for varying workflows for producing and maintaining EAD (https://www.orbiscascade.org/file_viewer.php?id=2777), methods for producing container lists using Excel (currently offline), and a web-based encoding template (on a password-protected utility site). OHIOLink: https://sites.google.com/site/ohioead/s Revised 2012. Assumes use of DTD. Best Practices document paired with EAD Starter Packet to support participation in OHIOLink’s EAD site. Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries: http://vaheritage.org/files/2013/09/VHBPG2006.pdf Documentation not publicly available Rhode Island Archives & Manuscripts Online: http://www.riamco.org/ Documentation not publicly available Rocky Mountain Online Archive: http://rmoa.unm.edu/pdfs/RMOApractices.pdf Created 2007. Whether this is based on DTD or schema is unclear. Based on documentation and practices of Online Archive of New Mexico. Smithsonian Institution: http://sova.si.edu/ Documentation not publicly available, but contact Nancy Kennedy (KennedyN@si.edu) or Barbara Aikens (AikensB@si.edu). Utah Manuscripts Association: Existing EAD Best Practices based on Orbis Cascade Alliance guidelines. https://lsta.lib.byu.edu/lstawiki/index.php/Main_Page

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Virginia Heritage: http://vaheritage.org/files/2013/09/VHBPG2006.pdf Updated 2006. Assumes use of DTD. Archival Resources in Wisconsin: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/wiarchives/ No standards apparent online. Other EAD Documentation Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/rr/ead/lcp/ Year of creation or update unclear. Assumes use of schema; based on the RLG guidelines (which are no longer available). Not surprisingly, the majority of the available documentation was written to facilitate the adoption or use of EAD 2002. With the long-anticipated release of EAD3 last summer and the availability of the transformation stylesheets (https://github.com/SAA-SDT/EAD2002toEAD3), groups will almost certainly begin to consider adoption and may work together. For instance, the Orbis Cascade Alliance and the Utah Manuscripts Association are currently beginning discussions about how to collaborate on their consideration of EAD3 and possible adoption of the standard. As the TARO project develops, the group should consider opportunities for collaboration. As the group considers EAD3, it should consider both consulting and contributing to the EAD3 FAQ, a project of the EAD Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists (http://www2.archivists.org/groups/encoded-archival-description-ead-roundtable/frequently-asked-questions-about-ead-and-ead3) Two other efforts should also be considered:

● EAD3 Study Groups: A project of the EAD Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists (http://www2.archivists.org/groups/encoded-archival-description-ead-roundtable). Includes a group focusing on minimal-level EAD needed for end users that may lead to conversations on a national standard. Contact for this group is Cory Nimer, Brigham Young University, cory_nimer@byu.edu .

● Open Finding Aids Initiative: A group considering the application of clear rights statement to finding aid metadata to promote sharing of metadata. Expecting to submit a request for revision to EAD3 in 2016. Contact for this group is Merrilee Proffitt, OCLC Research, proffitm@oclc.org.

Archival Collection Management Should TARO decide to add archival collection management to its services, the group will need to produce and maintain documentation for using collection management systems in ways that most efficiently create the desired outputs. This is an important service and added value, especially for smaller institutions. However, given the current list of commonly available tools, consortial functionality and costs of implementation will be important considerations. It would

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also be possible to use collection management software solely for the management of finding aids, not for other uses such as creating accession records. The following list focuses on publicly available documentation for the systems under consideration by the group. There are other options, most of which are vendor-supported rather than open-source. ICA AtOM https://www.ica-atom.org/ Full user manual openly available at https://wiki.ica-atom.org/User_manual; custom documentation avaiable for a fee. This is a Canadian organization, so documentation assumes use of RAD rather than American standards; documentation would likely need mild to moderate updates to be fully usable. The AtOM site also has a very active Google user group. ArchivesSpace Basic ArchivesSpace documentation for installation is available at http://archivesspace.github.io/archivesspace/user/getting-started/; technical documentation is available at http://www.archivesspace.org/technicaldocumentation There is additional documentation, particularly focused on migration, at http://www.archivesspace.org/importexport, and https://github.com/archivesspace/archivesspace/tree/master/backend/app/exporters/examples/accession. Full ArchivesSpace documentation is only available to institutions or consortia with a business relationship with ArchivesSpace or LYRASIS. For individual institutions, that means an individual ArchivesSpace membership or LYRASIS hosting of AS; for consortia, that means a Registered Service Provider agreement with AS or a consortial hosting arrangement with LYRASIS (the latter provides full documentation access because LYRASIS is an RSP). A number of organizations have created and shared documentation during their implementations or pilots of ArchivesSpace. A selection of that documentation includes:

● Orbis Cascade Alliance (AS pilot): https://sites.google.com/site/ccdarchivesspace/ ● Rockefeller Archives Center (AT to AS migration):

http://rockarch.org/programs/digital/bitsandbytes/?p=1265 ● Chaos to Order (AS in a number of different scenarios, contributions from many

individuals); https://icantiemyownshoes.wordpress.com/category/archivesspace/ ● Yale University (AS implementation at an institution heavily invested in the application):

http://campuspress.yale.edu/yalearchivesspace/ ● University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library (AS implementation):

http://archival-integration.blogspot.com/2015/04/implementing-archivesspace.html Digital Objects, Metadata and Finding Aid Relationships

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Should TARO decide to include digital objects in its aggregation, it will need to have standards in place for the objects, metadata, and relationships with finding aids. Although there are a plethora of options for digital object metadata standards, the likely relevant ones are as follows: Digital Objects and Metadata With the Texas Portal to History already in place, it would only be sensible to adopt or integrate with their standards, http://texashistory.unt.edu/about/portal/best-practices/ Additionally, there are the updated Dublin Core Best Practices (originally the Western States Dubln Core Best Practices), http://www.lyrasis.org/LYRASIS%20Digital/Pages/Preservation%20Services/Resources%20and%20Publications/Digital%20Toolbox/Metadata.aspx. Although these date to 2006, they still serve as a very useful starting point. The group should also consider national and international level practices including the Digital Public Library of America’s Metadata Application Profile (MAP) and Europeana’s practices. Finding Aid Relationships Should TARO decide to include digital objects along with finding aid metadata, the group will need to consider standards that support a scalable and user-centered approach that allows the presentation of finding aids with associated digital content. To simply put whole finding aids and digital content side-by-side in a discovery interface, one common approach, loses context and makes no use of the structured metadata available in EAD. Some approaches to relating finding aids and associated digital content includes the following: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill: http://www2.lib.unc.edu/dc/watson/archivalmassdigitization/index.html?section=introduction UNC’s approach came out of a Mellon-funded study of the Southern Historical Collections, but became the basis for the institution’s large-scale digitization program. The program uses UNC’s locally-hosted EAD finding aids as the framework for digitization, management, and presentation of whole digitized collections. A carefully thought-out, fully scaled program. The program’s specific approaches to digitization, metadata, and management are well documented at the link above. Smithsonian Online Virtual Archive (SOVA): http://sova.si.edu/ The Smithsonian’s approach to digitization and contextualization has its roots in the Archives of American Art, which began digitizing entire collections and using EAD finding aids as the framework for management and presentation at least seven years ago. SOVA was launched last summer as the Smithsonian’s first institution-wide EAD program. The program’s specific approaches to digitization, metadata, and management are well documented; for more information contact Nancy Kennedy, KennedyN@si.edu.

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Orbis Cascade Alliance, Archives West: http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ The digital object module in Archives West is the result of an IMLS-funded National Leadership Grant for contextualizing digital content with EAD finding aid metadata. Collections that have associated digital content present this at the collection level. The approach uses OAI sets linked from the finding aid that are then filtered according to which digital objects have pointers back to the finding aid. No institutions at the Alliance have a comprehensive approach to mass digitization of entire collections, so this presentation does not relate any level of detail in the finding aid or rely on an existing central hosting system for digital content. Because this approach relies on the archival concept of “collection,” it does not account for digital collections that do not have finding aids. The underlying metadata is documented in the Alliance’s EAD Best Practices, https://www.orbiscascade.org/file_viewer.php?id=2923 California Digital Library, Calisphere: http://calisphere.cdlib.org/ This newly-launched version of Calisphere employs a new approach to relating collections and digital content. It effectively links digital objects with collection-level metadata from the EAD finding aids in the Online Archive of California, but also accomplishes what Archives West does not: accommodates the non-archival notion of “collection.” The underlying approach to the site is not readily documented online, but CDL staff are always generous with their knowledge; contact Sherri Berger, Sherri.Berger@ucop.edu. The DIgital Public Library of America currently has a working group examining ways in which to relate and display finding aids and digital content. The group plans to complete its work and disseminate a white paper in mid-2016.

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Appendix R Bridge projects and next steps, 2016-2017

Steering Committee:

● Continue discussions with UT Libraries to formalize agreement of organizational home at UT Libraries

● Continue to monitor progress of schema compliance project ● Talks with other consortium

Funding and sustainability:

● Work with UT Libraries/other institutions to secure funding for bridge program manager position

● Deeper involvement in development of implementation grant if funds for bridge program manager cannot be secured

● Seek out and review implementation grant requests from consortia/other groups that have taken on similar projects with goal of fleshing out our own implementation plan

Governance:

● Approval of governance doc to come, need to revise and promote to members Maintenance:

● Continue working to convert all repositories to Schema Outreach and education:

● Develop webcast training for use of new standards (Best Practices Guide)? ● Develop ½ day training workshop to coincide with SSA 2017? ● Continue support of repositories during schema conversion

Standards:

● Further analysis of lists of all-TARO controlled vocab created by capstone project using Refine. Could include making lists of approved terms for the most commonly-used headings for each type of controlled vocab and post these for TARO users.

● Investigate FAST subject headings. Work might include phone conferences with other consortia like ArchivesWest and Chicago to discuss their controlled vocab. Also possibility of webinars--this is in September: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=olweb&Template=/Conference/ConferenceList.cfm&ConferenceTypeCode=X

● Devise assessment for level of repository adoption of Best Practices Guide

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● Review new EAD3 report (from July 2016) “Implementing EAD3: Search and Exploration” and summarize finding for Steering Committee. Note that one of the writers of the report is a PhD student at UT. It’d be interesting to talk with her either during a standards call or perhaps with the larger Steering Committee.

Webtex:

● Outreach to organizations using XTF, finding an “expert” (especially a programmer) who might be able to answer questions that come up

● Continue to refine functional requirements doc for programmers during implementation Questions: Are there any steps we can take during the year to fix controlled vocab? Any way to do a global find and replace? Are there tasks listed here that are good for committees to work on or are they one person jobs? We can update the committees accordingly about the work of the coming year.

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Appendix S

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Appendix T

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