MWDL

Data Cleaning with OpenRefine
2024-10-24 14:00 - 16:00 UTC | University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library, 295 1500 E, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, United States
Interested in OpenRefine? Join Marriott Library’s own Research Data Librarians, Kaylee Alexander and Madison Golden, on October 24 for this FREE 2-hour workshop on this powerful data cleaning tool! This workshop is a part of a fall learning series by DELPHI, the University of Utah Data Exploration and Learning for Precision Health Intelligence Data Science Initiative.
Details:
What: Before you can analyze data you need to clean it. Data cleaning identifies errors and corrects formatting to create consistent data. This step must be taken with extreme care and attention because without clean data the results of analysis may be false and non-reproducible.
OpenRefine is a powerful free and open source tool for working with messy data: cleaning it and transforming it from one format into another.
This Data Carpentry workshop will teach you to use OpenRefine to clean and format data effectively and automatically track any changes that you make. Many people comment that this tool saves them literally months of work trying to make these edits by hand.
Who: The course is aimed at graduate students, postdocs, staff, faculty, and other researchers across campus who are interested in learning how to use OpenRefine for data cleaning. You do not need to have coding experience or any previous knowledge of OpenRefine to attend this workshop.
Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop onto which they can download OpenRefine. Please download OpenRefine before the workshop).
Contact: Please email andrew.george@hsc.utah.edu or rebecca.barter@hsc.utah.edu for more information.

Conference of Intermountain Archivists (CIMA) Fall Caucus 2024
2024-11-19 10:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Registration is now open for the 2024 CIMA Fall Caucus! This year, we’re celebrating the things that make us enthusiastic about archives. Connect with your colleagues and discover new ideas. The caucus will be held virtually via Zoom on Tuesday, November 19th from 10AM to 1PM MST.
Presentations should be about 30 minutes, but individuals with ideas for shorter presentations are encouraged to submit their ideas, you can team up with a friend or ask to be paired for panel discussion.
Call for submissions open through Friday, October 4!
Registration page.

MWDL Governing Body Meeting
2024-11-21 14:00 - 15:30
MWDL’s Governing Body will meet Thursday, November 21 at 2PM Mountain (1PM Pacific). Our current Governing Body membership is:

DPLA Harvest
2024-11-26 - 2024-12-01
DPLA will update MWDL’s metadata in the final week of November, 2024. This is our 4th and final ingest for the year.
Please submit any new collections by Wednesday, November 20th.

DPLA Network Council Quarterly Meeting
2024-12-05 11:00 - 12:30
DPLA’s Network Council will have its 4th and final quarterly meeting on December 5, 2024 from 11 AM to 12:30 PM (Mountain Time).

CFP: Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference, May 2025
2024-12-06
The Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference and the Minnesota Digital Library Annual Meeting will be held jointly on May 6–7, 2025. It will be an in-person event held in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the Union Depot. The theme for the conference is Digital Directions: Lessons Learned and Future Pathways. Although the event is focused on the Upper Midwest, we welcome and encourage proposals and attendees from across the country.
Help us make this a great conference! Consider sharing your experience and expertise by submitting a program proposal. The planning committee has created a list of potential topics, but proposals on any topics relevant to digital collections are welcome. The deadline to submit proposals is Friday, Dec. 6, 2024.
Learn more: z.umn.edu/umdcc25.
Contact Planning Committee Co-Chairs Molly Huber (mollyh@umn.edu) and Sara Ring (ring0089@umn.edu) with any questions.

The ABC’s and 123’s of Metadata Sharing & Harvesting - Coffee Chat!
2024-12-12 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
Whether you can tell OAI-PMH from JSON at a glance or if this is your first metadata harvesting rodeo, the DPLA Outreach & Assessment Working Group invites you to join the Metadata Harvesting Coffee Chat! We’ll get together on Thursday, December 12 at 11:00AM MT/10:00AM PT to share experiences, build community, and commiserate about various metadata sharing methods. Please come with questions and thoughts to discuss with the group. See you there!
You can read up on DPLA’s ingest system on their Github repository.
Please register here.

CFP: 2025 Spring Conference, Conference of Inter-mountain Archivists (CIMA)
2024-12-13 17:00 | Boise, ID
The Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists will hold its 2025 Annual Meeting on April 30-May 3, 2025, in Boise, Idaho.
The Program Committee invites session proposals touching on the theme “Remember, Respect, Record.” Join us as we explore how archivists preserve the records that enable us to remember the past, respect the present, and record our stories for the future.
The Program Committee encourages submissions from newer professionals, first-time presenters, and colleagues from non-academic institutions. Presenters may submit more than one proposal but may expect to present only one session or poster. The conference will be a hybrid in-person/virtual event. In-person and virtual presentation proposals will be considered.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

Archival basics (we hope to build a track focusing on this) incl: Accessioning, Arrangement and description, Donor relations, Reference and access, Reappraisal
Primary source literacy
Working with the community
Working with students, interns, volunteers, etc.
Technology and the archives (AI related sessions are welcome)
Exhibits

Possible Session Types

Roundtable Discussion: at least two speakers make brief introductory remarks on a chosen theme and then lead a discussion.
Lightning Talks: multiple presentations that range from 5-10 minutes in length.
Work-in-Progress Session: two to three speakers report on projects in progress.
Standard Presentation: two to three speakers presenting on a common theme.

Session Lengths
60 minutes. Please be mindful of leaving ample time for questions and answers.
Proposal Submission
The deadline for submitting session proposals is Friday December 13, 2024, at 5:00 pm MST. Use the Call for Proposals form to submit your proposal. We have provided a Google Sheet to facilitate collaboration and session development that is available here.
A separate call for poster presentations will be made in early 2025.
Direct any questions to the Program Committee Chair at brittany.ayers@churchofjesuschrist.org

DPLA's 2025 Kickoff
2025-01-09 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
Join DPLA as they announce new initiatives for 2025 and beyond, and share how you can get involved.
In 2025, DPLA will be rolling out new grant programs, as well as the first DPLAfest in years, and begin planning the transition of the cultural heritage work’s new home—and they will collaborate with our community to design and plan these exciting projects.
This is open to the public and all are invited to help us build the new DPLA, regardless of prior experience, institution, membership status, etc.!
Registration is open now.

Job Posting: Digital Collections & Metadata Specialist, University of Montana Library
2025-01-10 - 2025-02-03
The University of Montana in Missoula is seeking a Digital Collections and Metadata Specialist to help enhance access to materials in the Mansfield Library’s Archives and Special Collections. This is a full-time classified staff position with benefits. Minimum education is a Bachelor’s degree and two years of related work experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Experience with or advanced knowledge of metadata creation for library and/or archival materials is required, along with other qualifications. The full position announcement is available from the University of Montana’s Job Opportunity website.
Apply by Sunday, February 2, 2025 for full consideration.

Call for Participation: New DPLA Committees
2025-01-10 - 2025-02-04
Pursuant to DPLA’s transition to its new institutional home, Free Library of Philadelphia, 2 new committees are forming and anyone in our community is welcome to serve.
Please visit this link to read more about the Grants and DPLAFest committees.

2025 Virtual Member Meeting
2025-01-29 14:00 - 15:30 | Zoom
Join us for the 2025 MWDL Virtual Member Meeting! This is a chance to get together, network, and hear what our colleagues have been working on.
We’ll meet via Zoom on Wednesday, January 29th 2025 at 2PM Mountain/1PM Pacific.
Agenda forthcoming!
Registration closed 1/17/2025.

Job Posting: Program Manager - Digital Operations Manager, Montana State University
2025-01-30 - 2025-03-01
Montana State University Library is currently accepting applications for Program Manager – Digital Operations Manager.
The Program Manager provides key project management for unique digital collections. This includes leading and and facilitating a cross-departmental team, acting as liaison with clients when launching projects, and staying up-to-date with digital library technologies, equipment, and techniques.
Full consideration began on 1/24/2025 but remains open until the position is filled. Full details here: Program Manager

RootsTech 2025
2025-03-06 - 2025-03-09 | Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
It’s baaaack! Discover your family’s roots at this year’s RootsTech, either in-person in downtown Salt Lake City or virtually.
Online attendance is FREE and registration is open. If you want to visit the Salt Palace, there are single and multi-day options available.
MWDL is a online exhibitor for this event!

USHRAB Grant applications - open now!
2025-03-10 - 2025-04-16
The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board’s 2025 grant funding round is here!
Do you work in a museum, historical society, library special collections, university or other non-profit with documentary collections of historical value? The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board (USHRAB) is awarding grants of up to $7,500 for time-limited archival projects.
Applications are due April 15. Learn more at ushrab.org

Western History Association - Award deadlines approaching!
2025-03-14 - 2025-07-01
Heads up, western US history scholars!
The Western History Association strives to be a congenial home for the study and teaching of all aspects of North American Wests, frontiers, homelands, and borderlands. Their mission is to cultivate the broadest appreciation of this diverse history.
Two of WHA’s awards have deadlines coming up fairly soon.
First, the Autry Public History Prize is awarded annually to media exhibits, public programs, or written works that contribute to a broader public reflection and appreciation of the past or serve as a model of professional public history practice in the history of the North American West. The award consists of a $1,000 prize and a certificate to the award recipient. The prize is made possible by the generous support of the Autry Museum of the American West. The deadline to submit is April 15, 2025.
The WHA Council created the Louise Pubols Public History Prize to honor Pubols’ prize-winning publications, landmark exhibitions, and extraordinary service to the WHA. In keeping with Louise’s deep commitment to public history, the Pubols Prize will support the attendance of a public historian to the WHA’s annual meeting [in Albuquerque, NM, October 15-18, 2025]. The overwhelming generosity of donations from Louise’s friends and family fully-funded this prize in the fall of 2017 in its inaugural year. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2025.
The prize will include complimentary registration, a ticket to the Awards Banquet, and $500 to offset travel expenses to this year’s WHA Conference.
You can learn more about all of WHA’s awards on their Awards overview page.

CfP: DLF Forum 2025
2025-03-18 - 2025-04-14
DLF Forum 2025 will take place in Denver, CO, November 16-19.
DLF invites proposals on all topics related to digital libraries, encompassing case studies, “fail and learn” opportunities, practical application, methods, projects, ethics, research, and learning in any area, including, but not limited to:

Digital humanities
Digital scholarship
Digital pedagogy
Digital collections and DAMS
Digitization, digital preservation, or reformatting analog to digital format(s)
Born-digital materials
Data curation
Data access
Art information
Community archives
Machine learning / artificial intelligence
Project management
Partnerships, advocacy, and outreach
Race and technology
Accessibility
Copyright
Assessment
Climate change
Open access
Library-based publishing
Future of higher education

Visit the DLF CfP site for more details. The submission deadline for all events is Monday, April 14, at 11:59pm MT.

DPLA Open Board + Community Meeting
2025-03-20 11:00 - 12:00
Want to hear what DPLA is up to these days? Join the DPLA Board of Directors for the next open community meeting, as we review the progress we made in 2024 and early 2025.
We’ll share updates from DPLA and library partners, as well as from our new Grants Committee and DPLAfest Committee. You’ll also hear about how you can be part of what’s coming next.
We hope to see you there. Register at the link provided below!

DPLA Spring Network Council Meeting
2025-04-03 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
DPLA’s Network Council will meet Thursday, April 3.

TPS Western Region Granting open now
2025-04-11 - 2025-11-01
School districts, universities, cultural institutions, library systems and other educational organizations are invited to apply for grants of up to $25,000 to incorporate Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) materials and methods into their existing education and professional development programs for pre and in-service K-12 teachers, librarians, community members, and students.
TPS Western Region is currently accepting proposals for 6-9 month projects completing before 5-31-26.
The deadline for proposals for 6–9-month projects is July 31, 2025. These projects must start no earlier than Sept 1, 2025, and be completed by May 31, 2026.
The deadline for proposals for 6-month projects is Oct.31, 2025. These projects must start no earlier than Dec. 1, 2025, and be completed by May 31, 2026.
TPS Regional Program also offers subgrants under the Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative, named in honor of late Congressmen John Lewis (D-GA) and Amo Houghton (R-NY). Lewis-Houghton Initiative subgrants support projects incorporating music and creative arts-based primary sources and approaches to support student learning about civics, history, and democracy at the middle and high school level. Educational organizations across the country are invited to apply for subgrants to incorporate music, visual art, theatre, poetry, and literature from the Library’s digital collections, as well as arts-based approaches, into secondary civic and history education.
Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program offers grants to a wide spectrum of organizations that plan to integrate the Library’s resources into educational programs and teaching materials. TPS regions award grants of up to $25,000 for projects designed to deliver educational programming centered on resources made available by the Library of Congress.

Quarterly MWDL Collections Roundup
2025-04-14 10:00 - 11:00 | Zoom
Join us for our first ever Quarterly Collections Roundup! Collection managers from MWDL hubs who submitted new collections in late 2024 and early 2025 will be on hand to share more details about the most recent crop of content.
Where: Zoom
When: Monday, April 14 at 10AM Mountain/9AM Pacific
Join Zoom Meeting
ID: 93141102910
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Join by phone:
(US) +1 309-205-3325
passcode: [REDACTED]

Utah State Archives - Summer Internship Apps open!
2025-04-18 - 2025-05-02
Utah State Archives is currently accepting applications for summer 2025 internships through May 1! Please see their blog for more details and application process.

PA Digital Rights Team - Copyright Office Hours
2025-05-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
PA Digital‘s Rights Team will host Copyright Office Hours on May 6 at 12 p.m. Mountain/11 AM Pacific on Zoom (please register in advance). Please bring your questions about copyright and digital collections, including questions about rights statements, fair use, and the public domain. To submit questions in advance, email Ana Enriquez (Head, Scholarly Communications and Copyright, Penn State University Libraries; aee32 [at] psu.edu).
This event is open to all — please share with interested colleagues.

2025 Area Studies Teaching & Collections Symposium
2025-05-07 09:00 - 2025-05-08 16:00
Mark your calendars for the upcoming 2025 Area Studies Teaching & Collections Symposium on May 7-8, 2025 (May 7 at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library and May 8 at Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library). Each day includes unique content! Engage with academic faculty, graduate students, and library professionals across Utah at this FREE symposium exploring ways to build and use area studies collections in higher education.
Hear from scholars specializing in Asian, Latin American, Middle East, Indigenous, and Pasifika Studies. Additional topics include using area studies primary source materials in teaching and scholarship and creating inclusive library collections.
Registration is now open, through April 25, 2025: https://ias.utah.edu/news/2025-library-symposium.php.
Lightning talk proposals are due by February 28, 2025 (to be given May 8 at BYU, Lee Library): https://utah.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cZmTygY6ZSVR8Vw
Contact for questions: uu_astcs@lists.utah.edu

The NEW Michigan Memories
2025-05-15 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
Join DPLA as we spotlight the recent relaunch of Michigan Memories, a website that allows users to search the online collections of cultural institutions all around the state. Michigan Memories is the Michigan-centric counterpart to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), and the new version offers support for exhibits and educational resources about the state of Michigan and the people who live there. Many of our DPLA hubs are initiatives with close ties to state-based memory portals, and Michigan’s challenges and learnings offer useful insight for the whole DPLA Network.
The Michigan Service Hub was created in 2015 as a collaborative project by the Library of Michigan, Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, and the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services. The service hub works with archives, libraries, museums, and historical societies around Michigan to help them share their publicly accessible, online collections more widely through the DPLA and Michigan Memories. Funding for the new site was provided in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library of Michigan.
Register to receive Zoom information.
Speaker Richard C. Adler is the coordinator of the Michigan Service Hub, part of the hub network of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). He has traveled around the state to meet with staff at cultural institutions and work with them to share their online collections with the DPLA and the newly rebuilt Michigan Memories.

Leveraging the Decentralized Web to Preserve Cultural Heritage
2025-05-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom
As part of DPLA’s ongoing effort to serve as a bridge between their institutional partners and emerging technologies, DPLA has started to explore the benefits of decentralized storage. Long-term storage on the decentralized web is one approach to ensuring the protection of cultural artifacts and heritage –– against both natural and man-made threats, such as natural disasters, loss of funding, or technological failures. In this webinar, we will share the results of a pilot project to upload some of our partner content onto Filecoin’s decentralized storage network. During the webinar, we will be joined by speakers from the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) to help the DPLA community understand decentralized storage technology and how they can leverage it for added resilience.
Speaker Jefferson Sankara is a Senior Software Product Engineer at the Filecoin Foundation, where he leads the development of Singularity—the only open-source, end-to-end data onboarding platform for the Filecoin network. With over a decade of experience in product management, data science, machine learning, and blockchain technology, he specializes in creating tools that empower organizations to preserve, discover, and derive long-term value from decentralized storage networks. In this webinar, Sankara will share insights on how libraries can leverage filecoin’s decentralized storage solutions to preserve data securely and reliably. His unique blend of product strategy, technical expertise, and passion for decentralized systems makes him an invaluable voice for libraries exploring Web3 technologies.
Register for Zoom meeting details.

MWDL Governing Body Meeting
2025-05-22
MWDL’s Governing Body will hold its semi-annual meeting virtually on Thursday, May 22. The Governing Body last met on November 21, 2024.
New service terms begin July 1, 2025 and we will be choosing a new Chair. Many thanks to our outgoing Chair, Emily Boss of University of Nevada, Reno! Thanks also to Julia Simic (University of Oregon) as her 3-year term is ending as well.

MWDL 2025 Member Meeting
2025-08-08 09:30 - 16:00 | University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library, 295 1500 E, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, United States
How has another year flown by so quickly? Please join us on Friday, August 8, 2025 for our annual in-person member meeting!
We’ll get reacquainted, welcome new faces, and get caught up with all the latest around the network.
Registration closed July 18. Our agenda will be ready in early August.
Parking will be provided for those driving to campus. The nearest parking is in the West Lot directly across from the Marriott Library West Entrance. Ride share services like Lyft and Uber both operate in Salt Lake City, and the Library is also accessible via public transit.

Call for Proposals: NCPH-AASLH Joint Conference
2025-08-20 - 2025-12-02
Introduction
The National Council on Public History (NCPH) and American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) are excited to announce that the Call for Proposals for their first joint conference is now live, with final proposals due December 1, 2025.
Theme: “The Work of Revolution”
Revolution is at the center of every remarkable societal change. Through formal politics, grassroots organizing, boycott, protest, litigation, war, and a wide range of other mass and individual actions, behind every revolutionary moment are the people working to bring revolutionary ideas into reality. In the face of rapid cultural, social, political, and technological change, history’s importance as a guide for our future has become clearer than ever. Documenting during crises, archiving our collective past, supporting researchers and revolutionaries alike, public historians are part of the landscape of revolution. We bring history to the public because it matters.

Read the full theme statement here. We hope you’ll join NCPH and AASLH in this semiquincentennial year in Providence, Rhode Island—a host city where the ongoing work of revolution is front and center, with revolutionary roots and legacies embedded in self-determination and self-rule—as they reflect on the work of revolutions past and the work that lies ahead as we take stock of our field and consider how we can strengthen and protect it for the future.
Topic Proposals
NCPH invites people looking to connect with co-presenters or seeking feedback on a draft proposal to submit an optional Topic Proposal by October 15, 2025. They’ll post the Topic Proposals received to the NCPH website for a period of feedback from the public history community to help you craft the strongest possible proposal. Then, you’ll resubmit your proposal on AASLH’s Submittable platform for official consideration for the program.
Submitting Your Final Proposal
Your session, working group, and workshop proposals are due December 1, 2025. This year, proposal submissions will be hosted by AASLH on Submittable. Here you can also find explanations of our session formats (combined and streamlined from NCPH’s and AASLH’s formats) and see the review criteria that the Program Committee will use to evaluate proposals.

Webinar: Assessing Opportunities for Engagement with the Wikipedia Workbook for Cultural Institutions
2025-09-11 11:00 - 12:00
Featuring Mary Mark Ockerbloom. The “Wikipedia Workbook for Cultural Institutions” (PDF link) is designed to help Wikipedians, Wikimedians in Residence and interested GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) to survey opportunities for engagement with Wikipedia and its related projects. The Workbook gives an overview of key projects, the ways in which they can and cannot be used, and where to find resources to learn more about using them. Both Wikipedians and GLAM professionals have specialized knowledge and skills. This Workbook attempts to introduce key concepts and information that will be useful to both groups and support more rewarding conversations and collaborations.
The Workbook is organized so that it pairs information with suggested tasks. You can focus on the content that is most useful to you. Major sections include: Using this workbook, Wikipedia articles, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Logic models and metrics, Institutional workflows, and a bibliography of Resources. Sections include topics such as OpenRefine, InteGraality, and dealing with disinformation. The intention is not to teach someone everything they may need to know; rather, it gives starting points for further exploration. The Workbook can help Wikimedians and GLAM partners to assess their resources, identify areas where they can potentially contribute, define their goals, and plan ways to measure their impact.
The Wikipedia Workbook for Cultural Institutions was developed with support from Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, Florida, and is freely available on Wikimedia Commons.
