Digital Commons @ Winthrop University

Enhancing Discoverability: How to describe DigitalCommons content for harvest into cultural heritage institutions

Both institutional repositories and cultural heritage institutions have broadly defined collection development policies. As such, many collections could appropriately reside in both. However, at many institutions digital libraries that support cultural heritage collections are often supported by CONTENTdm, while institutional repository initiatives are supported by another platform--in Clemson's case, DigitalCommons. Librarians at Clemson University identified several key collections that fit both the scope of its institutional repository and digital library. In order to leverage the "google-ability" of the institutional repository with the discoverability that comes with inclusion in the DPLA, we embarked on a process to describe our collection and work with the South Carolina Digital Library to have a pilot collection harvested from Digital Commons to SCDL and DPLA. This presentation will walk through that process and show how others can have their collections harvested as well.