The Hesburgh Libraries and Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame were awarded a 3-year grant that provided funding for a unified, cross-institutional discovery and exhibition platform that promotes serendipitous discovery of digitized cultural heritage materials. Although many digital preservation concerns were outside the scope of the grant, one beneficial output of the project has been renewed discussion and interest around robust digital preservation implementations appropriate for each institutions’ specific needs. From derivative access copies to preservation TIFF images, the lightweight technical solution was designed to meet the discovery needs of the grant partners and also leave room to connect the project with future digital preservation systems and infrastructure. In this paper, we will discuss how our efforts to bring together different types of cultural heritage materials was also informed by an opportunity to consider digital preservation needs. We will describe the flexible, human-centered workflows that the team developed to prioritize education and collaboration, while leaving space for future preservation initiatives. This case study will provide concrete examples of how to bring workflows from disparate library, archive, and museum (LAM) units into harmony while being sensitive to both current, local practices as well as perceived future needs.

Libraries Archives Museums, Digital Collections, Workflow

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