Reno Reporter

Historical data digitized, preserved and made accessible to serve needs of research communities, public 

University Libraries’ Associate Professor and Head of DeLaMare Science and Engineering Library Tara Radniecki will present and discuss what she considers a timely and quintessential Libraries project as part of the University’s Talks@Tahoe speaker series scheduled for March 8 at 5 p.m. at Prim Library located on the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe campus. The talk is titled, “Preserving Data: The legacy Mt. Rose snow science research of James Church.”

Radniecki will discuss how an interdepartmental team of experts from across the Libraries worked together to digitize, preserve, and make accessible data found in the James Edward Church Papers manuscript collection. This collection resides within the Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives department.

Because we are in the midst of experiencing one of the biggest winters in more than 40 years and since we reside in a high desert environment, it is critical for scientists and researchers to understand how winter snow impacts spring and summer streamflows and water supply. That’s where James E. Church and his snow surveying legacy come in.

Trained in the Classics, Church came to the University of Nevada, Reno in 1892 to teach. While teaching languages and literature he began working to solve the question of how much moisture, or water content, could be found in snow.

His curiosity, love of nature and adventure, coupled with his ability to recognize a need for forecasting streamflow Church figured out and perfected a way to measure snow moisture content along various snow course locations found across the Sierra Nevada.

This helped establish Church as the “Father of Snow Surveying;” a practice still used to this day to measure moisture content in snow.

The Libraries team of experts recently worked with materials from the Church Papers collection to digitize and preserve, as well as share content and data found in Church’s notebooks.

“What began as a Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) project turned into a full-on, interdepartmental project for the Libraries,” Radniecki said. “Dr. Church’s knowledge has been preserved and digitized by skilled members of the Libraries team and access to this information is now available to the public and researchers at home and abroad through the Libraries Digital Archive. We have physical exhibits on display on the third floor of the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, as well as inside the DeLaMare Science and Engineering Library highlighting Church and his work. A complimentary digital exhibit is available to those wanting to dig deeper, or are unable to visit campus.” 

As part of the project, the Libraries explored the idea of using Church’s snow survey notebooks for research. Doing so allows today’s researchers and scientists to compare current snow levels in the Sierra to those of decades ago. This project also aligns with similar initiatives related to the archiving and preservation of climate change information, such as ProjectARCC.

In order to achieve the goal of extracting and using data from Church’s notebooks, the team is working to identify a funding source (or sources) to complete additional work related to this project.

The team has selected a series of notebooks of interest and has separated them from the general collection. If funding is secured, the team plans to run a test of automated handwriting text transcription in a specialized computer program, Handprint. This test will determine if it is possible to convert handwritten notes into computer readable characters. Once these initial steps are complete, the Libraries team will work to identify partners at the University along with external experts who have a long tradition in the use of snow data for science and preserving climate-related data. The team plans to transcribe the notebooks at scale and establish a human-based auditor system. Once complete, the team will share data and results with the Libraries’ researcher communities so these groups can start using the data in their work and analysis.

“From the perspective of DeLaMare and its Research Data Services Team, it is exciting to be able to think about extracting Dr. Church’s data and making it available to University researchers and researchers across the globe,” Radniecki said. “The Libraries is excited to try and pursue this second phase of the project if funding support can be identified.”

The Libraries’ Research Data Services Team is a group of multi-disciplinary librarians available to offer consultations and trainings for students, faculty and researchers throughout the course of their research projects, from planning to sharing data with the public.

“The Libraries recognize many researchers are thinking about how to make data of all kinds accessible and how to store it forever,” Radniecki said. “This project with the Church notebooks allowed the Libraries to experiment with how to do just that. It’s a wonderful project with many potential positive impacts. It’s the perfect example of libraries work and how important the access to historical information can be to current research interests.” 

Original source can be found here.