Rebecca French

Webinar presented for ALA Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures Abstract Many libraries have uncataloged collections or backlogs which could benefit from batch processing, and much professional development for metadata specialists focuses on software tools that can facilitate this work, but it is not always clear how to get started putting those new skills into action. This

Presentation at the Amigos online conference Moving On: Migrating Library Content and Data Abstract When faced with a library system migration, it can be daunting to know where to begin with data cleanup. In many cases, there is a long list of tasks to tackle before switching to a new system and not enough time

Poster presentation for The Exchange: An ALCTS/LITA/LLAMA Collaboration virtual conference Abstract This poster describes a project to automate portions of JMU Libraries’ workflow for distributing Special Collections finding aids to various discovery platforms. Through the development of a custom Python app called Spaceport, we were able to greatly improve the efficiency and sustainability of this

Presentation at the Music OCLC Users Group Meeting, Norfolk, VA Abstract Have you ever wished you could limit your Connexion batch search results to the one OCLC record with the most holdings? Or hoped for a way to confidently match those search results to existing metadata from your ILS without handling each record one by

Presentation at the Amigos online conference Work Smarter, Not Harder: Innovating Technical Services Workflows Abstract James Madison University Libraries’ workflow for distributing its Special Collections finding aids to various discovery platforms historically involved a significant amount of manual data entry and hand-encoding. Through a series of small steps, we have been gradually improving this process

Co-presented with Jennifer Keach Presentation at the Virginia Library Association Annual Conference, Norfolk, VA Abstract Are you teaching procedures or are you teaching problem solving? Discover an approach to help develop your staff’s strategic thinking skills to meet the needs of the 21st-century library workplace. Explore how to apply learning theory and walk away with

Lightning talk presented at the VIVA Users’ Group Meeting, Virginia Library Association Annual Conference, Norfolk, VA Abstract JMU Libraries distributes its Special Collections finding aids to a number of discovery platforms, a process which historically has involved a significant amount of hand-encoding and manual data entry. We recently developed and implemented Spaceport, a Python app

Co-presented with Tiffany Cole Poster presented at Libraries Showcase, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA Abstract This poster describes a project to develop Spaceport, a Python app that transforms EAD finding aids from ArchivesSpace into EADs for Virginia Heritage, HTML files for the JMU Libraries website, and MARCXML records for the catalog. It outlines the challenges