Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum
October 2022
From October 10-12 I had the pleasure of attending the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum in Baltimore, Maryland thanks to a professional development grant from CLRC.
The conference had a wonderfully welcoming atmosphere that helped me meet many practitioners working in the digital library sphere around the country. As an early career professional, one of the greatest challenges thus far has been to make connections outside of my own organization, and this conference enabled me to start building some of those relationships. In the short time since, I’ve already had some great conversations with folks I met at the conference regarding their work and the work we’re doing here at SU, and I’m really looking forward to seeing those conversations continue!
I attended so many fantastic sessions across all three days where people shared work from large academic institutions, small academic institutions, community projects, public institutions—the range of work being shared was as informative as it was impressive! The quality of the work being shared was so high that it’s just not possible for me to pick out single highlights from the program; I was deeply impressed by these practitioners’ commitment to social justice and the shared drive to improve the presentation of materials in their collections and the services to our communities. It is, of course, invaluable to hear the perspectives of other practitioners and the successes and difficulties of other projects in order to bring that information back to my own team so it can inform and challenge our approaches.
On the second day of the conference, I had the opportunity to present some of my own work remediating harmful legacy metadata in a digital collection during a session on metadata and description. I joined three wonderful presenters in the same session who were discussing work of a similar nature at their own institutions. This was the first time I had attended or presented at an in-person conference, and I’m very grateful that CLRC’s support made it possible for me to have such a wonderful learning experience.
Kiley Jolicoeur
Metadata Strategies Librarian, Syracuse University Libraries
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