Here at Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, we enjoy great working relationships with other departments in the Iowa State University Library. Our colleagues in the library play important roles in education, outreach, processing, and in identifying new content to add to the repository.
With the help of the Special Collections and Preservation departments, we are beginning to add historical technical reports and research bulletins to the repository. These reports are identified and provided by Special Collections, then digitized by the Preservation Department. We take care of uploading these reports and bulletins to the repository.
Covers of CARD Reports, 1959–1963
Among their valuable research collections, the Special Collections Department acquires, preserves and provides access to publications created by Iowa State University and its various departments, centers and institutes. Many of these publications, including technical reports and research bulletins, contain valuable information and describe important research that has been conducted on campus.
Due to the rarity and fragility of the materials held in Special Collections, the publications they hold are non-circulating. This means that, in many cases, researchers will only be able to read these reports by visiting the department in person. The repository is a great way to provide access to these publications, making them available to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere.
The staff at Special Collections identifies materials in their collections that fit within the repository’s scope. Our Preservation Department then digitizes the materials and processes the PDFs for deposit. Depending on the number of materials to be digitized, they will either outsource the digitization to a vendor, or do it in-house.
When we get the PDFs from the Preservation Department, we do any final processing of the PDFs necessary, prepare metadata to aid the discovery of these materials, and upload them to the repository.
Over the summer, we added bulletins and reports from the Iowa State University Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station and the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development.
The Agricultural Research Bulletins, published by the Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station, date back to 1914, when Iowa State University was known as Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. These bulletins have proven to be very popular—the most frequently downloaded bulletin is B. W. Hammer and A. R. Johnson’s “The Specific Heat of Milk and Milk Derivatives.” Published in October 1913, this bulletin has been downloaded over 1,200 times!
From the Center of Agricultural and Rural Development, we have added the DAE-CARD Sector Analysis Series. From the 1970’s, the series reported on joint research conducted by CARD and the Royal Thai Government’s Division of Agricultural Economics.
There are technical reports form CARD and Ames Laboratory in the queue. Be sure to visit the repository and check them out!
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University 