Digital Archaeology for Libraries - empowering libraries to become sustainable hubs for collective curation using Drupal.

In the extreme pressures of an evolving economy, community institutions such as newspapers cut staff, coverage, and some even go out of business. A library may be the last community resource to fall back on. However, libraries everywhere are facing the perfect storm of declining budgets, an increased demand for supporting their communities and the challenge of continuing to provide services that are relevant in an atmosphere of rapidly changing Web technology. Drupal has been used by CFTW members over the last year to provide a series of local libraries (in hard hit areas such as the Bloomfield Library District in the Detroit area), with a sustainable alternative to their previous web sites, reducing costs and complexity while simultaneously opening the doors for their communities to take advantage of all the Drupal platform offers. The DAFL project seeks to build on this foundation to draw upon acquired expertise and innovations in developing library sites and seeks to refine a turnkey platform that can use a variety of modules to add plug and play services for these local communities.

How will the project improve communities?

DAFL empowers libraries to be the central repository for digital artifacts associated with their communities, as a supplement to the role that newspapers have played and continue to play. By providing a sustainable platform, DAFL empowers libraries expanding their capability to offer traditional information services to their local communities, including tools for learning new skills, engaging in citizen journalism, capturing digital artifacts, and establishing a sustainable community archive. (for example, capturing photographs, videos, articles, and clippings from local events, both past and present).

How is the idea innovative?

DAFL allows libraries in the pilot areas to respond dynamically to community interest and needs as simply as installing and enabling modules in Drupal, which include innovating open source learning curriculums that allow library administrators to easily add (and customize) learning material oriented to local residents. Furthermore, DAFL will leverage and extend the multilingual capability of Drupal to enable communities with diverse multilingual constituencies to provide a way for bilingual residents to extend both news and learning material to additional community residents.

Resources:

• libraryhub.org - an interesting project that has a goal of empowering libraries to help communities.