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This paper aims to determine if the digital humanities technique of topic modeling would reveal interesting patterns in a corpus of library-themed literature focused on the future of libraries and pioneer a collaboration model in librarian-led digital humanities projects. By developing the project, librarians learned how to better support digital humanities by actually doing digital humanities, as well as gaining insight on the variety of approaches taken by researchers and commenters to the idea of the future of libraries.

The researchers collected a corpus of over 150 texts (articles, blog posts, book chapters, websites, etc.) that all addressed the future of the library. They ran several instances of latent Dirichlet allocation style topic modeling on the corpus using the programming language R. Once they produced a run in which the topics were cohesive and discrete, they produced word-clouds of the words associated with each topic, visualized topics through time and examined in detail the top five documents associated with each topic.

The research project provided an effective way for librarians to gain practical experience in digital humanities and develop a greater understanding of collaborative workflows in digital humanities. By examining a corpus of library-themed literature, the researchers gained new insight into how the profession grapples with the idea of the future and an appreciation for topic modeling as a form of literature review.

Topic modeling a future-themed corpus of library literature is a unique research project and provides a way to support collaboration between library faculty and researchers from outside the library.

When faced with events, such as the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), libraries have a unique opportunity to develop a community facing response through born-digital collections. These collections provide challenges for metadata creation, collection development policies, workflows, and digital preservation. This paper aims to provide an overview of the Utah COVID-19 digital collection, with a discussion of impact and lessons learned.

This paper provides a case study of a born-digital collection initiative undertaken at the University of Utah in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project prompted engagement with the University of Utah communities and people across the state. Workflows, metadata management and partnerships are discussed, to provide a model for institutions developing similar projects during a time of crisis.

While the project was launched with open-ended and flexible goals, the response from the community has been both surprising and gratifying. Statistics and examples demonstrating reuse of collection materials are provided to highlight the impact and potential of community engagement.

Digital collecting projects during a historical event are not new, however the restrictions placed upon people worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic created interesting circumstances for building this collection. Several lessons were learned throughout the project which will be useful for other institutions embarking upon related projects.