| Abstract: | Recently, librarians have added new media and scholarly publishing to their portfolio of skills. While the bibliography is part of the traditional purview of librarians, databases are a new venture for librarians, capitalizing on the advent of open access and the availability of open source software. This article presents one such database, Database of the Smokies (DOTS), hosted by the University of Tennessee Libraries. The creation of DOTS required a new librarian skill set and an environment of collaboration between subject specialists and technical experts. To aid other librarians in the creation of databases, this article details the review process which led to the selection of Drupal as the platform and outlines the steps in the initial setup, workflow patterns, content development, crowdsourcing efforts, and publicity. |
