The Dudley Knox Library stands on the campus of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. The library recently received national recognition from the Library of Congress for its Institutional Repository Revitalization Project, which modernized the school's archive of more than 70,000 defense-focused research records. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Zadi Watkins)

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Members of the Digital Strategies and Technology team at the Naval Postgraduate School's Dudley Knox Library pose for a photo in front of Herrmann Hall at NPS in Monterey, Calif. The library team was awarded the inaugural Project of the Year Award from the Library of Congress FEDLINK program for the modernization of the school's digital archives. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Zadi Watkins)

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The interior of the Dudley Knox Library is seen at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. The library's Digital Strategies and Technology team won the inaugural Library of Congress FEDLINK Project of the Year Award for creating a more accessible digital repository experience for the school community. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Zadi Watkins)

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The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK), a nationwide consortium administered by the Library of Congress, oversees the awards for federal libraries and staff throughout the United States. The NPS Dudley Knox Library was recognized for the success of its Institutional Repository Revitalization Project, which improved institutional record-keeping and enhanced discovery, access, and usability of critical defense research archived in its Calhoun database.

“We are honored to receive the first-ever Project of the Year Award offered by FEDLINK, and we are excited to continue this important work,” said Stacy DeMatteo, supervisory librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology at Dudley Knox Library.

According to the FEDLINK award criteria, the Project of the Year Award recognizes initiatives that demonstrate innovation, measurable operational impact, enhanced service delivery, collaboration, and lasting contributions to library and information services within the federal community. The DS&T team’s modernization of Calhoun was recognized for meeting those standards through a combination of technological innovation, workflow redesign, metadata enhancement, and measurable efficiency improvements.

A core mission of Dudley Knox Library is to “assure institutional memory through a centralized repository for the NPS scholarly record and archives.” The DS&T team’s work directly supported that mission by creating a more sustainable, user-centered repository system capable of supporting long-term academic and archival preservation.

Prior to the modernization effort, library staff relied heavily on manual monitoring of websites and databases to identify materials requiring archival preservation. According to project documentation, this process created workflow inefficiencies and increased dependence on individual institutional knowledge during staffing transitions. Following recent retirements, the NPS library’s digital technologies and services units were consolidated under one manager.

The modernization effort addressed a substantial institutional challenge – reorganizing and enhancing more than 70,000 repository records while improving the library’s ability to identify, archive, and preserve newly emerging scholarly and historical materials.

“This project is not just a technical enhancement; it is an important investment in the future of NPS,” said Edward Corrado, NPS librarian. “Calhoun is essential because it provides access to theses, dissertations, reports, and other scholarly content that showcase critical defense-focused research advancing the operational effectiveness and warfighting advantage of the U.S. Navy and the military. This project stands as an innovative model within the federal library community, setting a benchmark for creativity, adaptability, and mission-driven excellence.”

Launched in fiscal year 2025, the project focused on revitalizing Calhoun following a major institutional software upgrade by redesigning the information architecture and new system capabilities. This effort centered on creating a more sustainable and accessible repository experience for both library staff and the NPS community. It introduced automated content acquisition tools, standardized metadata practices, and improved integration with the library’s discovery layer, enabling researchers and students to more efficiently locate and access institutional knowledge.

To address those challenges, the team implemented two automated content acquisition systems, submission forms that automatically generate work tickets, and a website change-detection application that alerts staff to new publications and updates hosted externally.

Leveraging a new entity-relationship model introduced in the software upgrade, the DS&T team also developed a comprehensive timeline documenting Naval Postgraduate School departments and organizations dating back to 1952. The project improved metadata consistency and reduced duplication by linking publications to standardized organizational records, making repository information more accurate, reliable, and discoverable.

The project also reinforced the library’s strategic goal to “deliver relevant scholarly content and create learner-centered virtual spaces” by integrating Calhoun repository records directly into the library’s discovery layer. Researchers can now locate institutional repository materials without navigating multiple separate systems.

The changes significantly expanded the library’s ability to capture born digital scholarly and archival materials across the NPS community while reducing time consuming manual processes previously required of staff.

Reinforcing DS&T’s emphasis on ongoing assessment and quality control, the team developed a tracking tool to monitor harvested and updated records within the discovery layer. The tool measures additions and modifications over time while identifying errors that may occur during the harvesting process.

Since the tracking system was implemented in April 2025, more than 46,000 record updates have been recorded and more than 1,200 new records have been submitted. Feedback from partners outside the library indicated that the new submission forms increased both the volume and timeliness of archival submissions and simplified the submission process for departments across campus. The adoption of standardized templates and streamlined workflows also reduced ticket resolution time by 66.7% compared to fiscal year 2024.

One example highlighted by the DS&T team demonstrated the project’s practical impact beyond archival management. The website change-detection application alerted staff to a newly posted external document, enabling a cataloger to identify an error before the material was widely distributed. The publisher quickly revised the document before the broader release.

“This multifaceted project engaged the entire team in collaborative innovation, resulting in improved workflows, greater operational efficiency, and expanded skill sets,” said DeMatteo.

DeMatteo noted that she and Lydia Gentry, a digital service librarian at NPS, are expected to travel to Washington, D.C., pending approval, to receive the award on July 29 at the Library of Congress award ceremony.

Corrado added, “The librarians and staff who worked together on this project built productive working relationships and a shared, team-based approach that continue to improve Calhoun and will benefit other projects in the future.”