I suppose this is also also a repository spotlight, but it is also a plug for a friend's institution. A friend of mine works as the cataloger at the Academy of Natural Science's library. She forwarded me the link to their digital collections today, and I really love the design of the site. They don't necessarily have a lot of their digitization work up there, but what they do have up there is colorful, bright and well-layed out. I would love to be able to click on a picture to get the full information, but it does a wonderful job of placing images in context and explaining what they are. Its quality of content over quantity, and I think in my heart that's what I'm feeling with all my introspection on design. I would go back to the site simply because it has beautiful vibrant images, and I can recall what the site made me feel after I leave it.
They, from what I know, don't have an internet access system, such as ContentDM or DigiTool or the other ones that I'm looking at. They rely on just solid design that integrates tightly and seemlessly into the Academy's website. The other sites that have content in an out-of-the-box looking DAM just don't give you the feeling of a) the institution's values; b) the richness of the materials; c) the method and rationale for digitization; d) connection to the rest of the institution.
Thanks, ANS -- I think you got it goin' on.
http://www.ansp.org/museum/digital_collections/
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Repository spotlight: Joan Flasch Artist's Book Collection
http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm4/index_jfabc.php?CISOROOT=/jfabc
I just got back to the office from ALA's midwinter meeting, and will be sharing my notes about the conference over the course of the next few weeks.
I did want to make a note of the School of the Art Institute's Joan Flasch Artist's Book Collection, as design-wise it's one of the first ContentDM sites that I have seen that looks like it has transcended the look and structure that ContentDM gives you right out of the box. I thought this was notable, given my last posting. I like the interface -- Simple, straightforward, unintimidating and unique.
I got the impression that they are using ContentDM because it is available, rather than having chosen that for themselves. They are using simple Dublin Core for their metadata, as that is what the software supports. Their ILS is Voyager and they use OCLC Connexion to push a MARC record into ContentDM. The woman presenting this collection ended with plea: "Ask OCLC to use METS and MODS *please!*"
I just got back to the office from ALA's midwinter meeting, and will be sharing my notes about the conference over the course of the next few weeks.
I did want to make a note of the School of the Art Institute's Joan Flasch Artist's Book Collection, as design-wise it's one of the first ContentDM sites that I have seen that looks like it has transcended the look and structure that ContentDM gives you right out of the box. I thought this was notable, given my last posting. I like the interface -- Simple, straightforward, unintimidating and unique.
I got the impression that they are using ContentDM because it is available, rather than having chosen that for themselves. They are using simple Dublin Core for their metadata, as that is what the software supports. Their ILS is Voyager and they use OCLC Connexion to push a MARC record into ContentDM. The woman presenting this collection ended with plea: "Ask OCLC to use METS and MODS *please!*"
Monday, January 7, 2008
Starting off the new year...
So, we are pretty much at the same place as we were in the middle of December. I got myself lost in a bunch of Cascading Style Sheets and PhotoShop tutorials and have recently reemerged with nothing really to show for my time. I do feel very confident in my CSS skills, which I believe will be of great help in the long run.
What I have noticed is that I am fixated on design over content right now. I don't know if that is where I really should be, but I do think there is merit to fretting over how something looks. I am a fully aesthetic person, and I feel like I don't go back to a digital library site unless it looks good to me. So many sites I have checked out may have great content, but if the design looks like a DAM system right out of the box, I turn off to it.
Allowing the content only to fuel a site is good for researchers, yes, as (hopefully) they can get on and find what they need in the most efficient manner. La Salle's Connelly Library, it has been noted by my director, is not a research library, nor will it most likely ever be. The Special Collections are strong and relatively comprehensive -- thought my director has also pointed out that he's not sure the research value in our bible collection, nor is our Viet Nam collection a "traditional" collection, as it is based somewhat in popular culture.
What I am getting at here is that I am rather unconvinced that the strength of our content alone would allow for us to slack off on design. I want my DAM to look awesome, so that repeat visitors will be coming back for both the content and the design of the site. Whichever DAM I choose will integrate itself back and forth between our library website and its special collections pages. I want our DAM to look first like La Salle University's digital collections, rather than firstly like just another university digital collections site.
What I have noticed is that I am fixated on design over content right now. I don't know if that is where I really should be, but I do think there is merit to fretting over how something looks. I am a fully aesthetic person, and I feel like I don't go back to a digital library site unless it looks good to me. So many sites I have checked out may have great content, but if the design looks like a DAM system right out of the box, I turn off to it.
Allowing the content only to fuel a site is good for researchers, yes, as (hopefully) they can get on and find what they need in the most efficient manner. La Salle's Connelly Library, it has been noted by my director, is not a research library, nor will it most likely ever be. The Special Collections are strong and relatively comprehensive -- thought my director has also pointed out that he's not sure the research value in our bible collection, nor is our Viet Nam collection a "traditional" collection, as it is based somewhat in popular culture.
What I am getting at here is that I am rather unconvinced that the strength of our content alone would allow for us to slack off on design. I want my DAM to look awesome, so that repeat visitors will be coming back for both the content and the design of the site. Whichever DAM I choose will integrate itself back and forth between our library website and its special collections pages. I want our DAM to look first like La Salle University's digital collections, rather than firstly like just another university digital collections site.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Where we are at...
I am putting off thinking about what my access tool will be until the ALA Mid-Winter Meeting, which is here in Philadelphia, and will allow for me to be totally overwhelmed by the vendor exhibits. My director and I have talked briefly, however, and I am on track to acquire my software sometime between April and June.
In the meantime, I get to play with Special Collections. I'm really listening to Dr. Skinner when she said that you need to know your collection before you choose the tool, so I'm revamping the Special Collections website and photographing the collections to learn what we have, meaning both physical objects and their bibliographic control. What diverse, fun stuff!
Here's a couple of highlights:
This is an illuminated bible from the 14th Century.
This is an artist's book of Ho Chi Minh, handprinted on rice paper in a handmade case.
And then there are kitchen matches from the premier of Rambo 3 in France.
This quickly shows the range of materials I will be working with. We have both the written word, preserved carefully in our Bible collection, and then there is the Vietnam War collection, intentionally a collection of artistic expressions including both fine art and ephemeral novelties. My challenge here is to come up a methodology for exposing these materials in a thought-out, cohesive manner. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to choose my software, I'll be ready to tackle the digital needs of the collections.
In the meantime, I get to play with Special Collections. I'm really listening to Dr. Skinner when she said that you need to know your collection before you choose the tool, so I'm revamping the Special Collections website and photographing the collections to learn what we have, meaning both physical objects and their bibliographic control. What diverse, fun stuff!
Here's a couple of highlights:
This is an illuminated bible from the 14th Century.
This is an artist's book of Ho Chi Minh, handprinted on rice paper in a handmade case.
And then there are kitchen matches from the premier of Rambo 3 in France.
This quickly shows the range of materials I will be working with. We have both the written word, preserved carefully in our Bible collection, and then there is the Vietnam War collection, intentionally a collection of artistic expressions including both fine art and ephemeral novelties. My challenge here is to come up a methodology for exposing these materials in a thought-out, cohesive manner. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to choose my software, I'll be ready to tackle the digital needs of the collections.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Stewardship of Digital Assets @ Palinet (Post 2)
Alright -- Onto Day 2 of my notes from the Stewardship of Digital Assets workshop!
Dr. Katherine Skinner from Emory University and the MetaArchive spoke for 3/4 of the day. Her interest in digital preservation has risen from her doctoral research on emergent fields. While digital preservation is a few steps beyond just stumbling in the dark at this point, it is still an emergent field and we should "get used to the discomfort" of what goes along with being on the bleeding edge.
In her definition, Skinner describes digital preservation as the "management and maintenance of digital information over a long period of time." How long, she says, is unknown at this point, but its sure is longer than many of our access systems will be around, which is currently running at about 3 years per system. This is why adopting recognized standards are important -- for interoperability -- between systems and between collaborating institutions.
Skinner's largest project of the last few years has been in developing the MetaArchive, which was in turn developed out of the Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) framework created by Stanford. The idea behind LOCKSS and the MetaArchive is that a minimum of 6 copies of information is stored across a large geographic space (could be even across several continents). Automated checks continually verify the accuracy and completeness of data. If anything happens to a single file in one of the repositories then the other 5 check to make sure their data is complete, and replace the bad or corrupt file in the 6th location. This idea of spreading information across a great geographic area could help restore information in the case of a major disaster. An example that Skinner gave was NPR content that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina was able to be restored from the mirrored content kept at Emory University.
The biggest "AHA!" that came out of the day for me was that if you choose your access tool too early in the digital library design process, then your collection ends up becoming bound by the tool. By examining and fully understanding your collection, you can choose a tool that allows for curation of the materials that complements the care received by the analog materials. Process for selection should be identifying materials, seeing what information is available (ie. cataloging record) and then choose the metadata. Only when this process is complete should the tool be selected. I will have more thoughts on how this will change my approach to developing my repository in a later post.
The presentation was great, and the instructors knowledgable and friendly. They realize fully that as the field is new, no one really truly knows what they are doing for the long haul, and the more that we can help each other out, the more successful the digital preservation program will be.
Dr. Katherine Skinner from Emory University and the MetaArchive spoke for 3/4 of the day. Her interest in digital preservation has risen from her doctoral research on emergent fields. While digital preservation is a few steps beyond just stumbling in the dark at this point, it is still an emergent field and we should "get used to the discomfort" of what goes along with being on the bleeding edge.
In her definition, Skinner describes digital preservation as the "management and maintenance of digital information over a long period of time." How long, she says, is unknown at this point, but its sure is longer than many of our access systems will be around, which is currently running at about 3 years per system. This is why adopting recognized standards are important -- for interoperability -- between systems and between collaborating institutions.
Skinner's largest project of the last few years has been in developing the MetaArchive, which was in turn developed out of the Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) framework created by Stanford. The idea behind LOCKSS and the MetaArchive is that a minimum of 6 copies of information is stored across a large geographic space (could be even across several continents). Automated checks continually verify the accuracy and completeness of data. If anything happens to a single file in one of the repositories then the other 5 check to make sure their data is complete, and replace the bad or corrupt file in the 6th location. This idea of spreading information across a great geographic area could help restore information in the case of a major disaster. An example that Skinner gave was NPR content that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina was able to be restored from the mirrored content kept at Emory University.
The biggest "AHA!" that came out of the day for me was that if you choose your access tool too early in the digital library design process, then your collection ends up becoming bound by the tool. By examining and fully understanding your collection, you can choose a tool that allows for curation of the materials that complements the care received by the analog materials. Process for selection should be identifying materials, seeing what information is available (ie. cataloging record) and then choose the metadata. Only when this process is complete should the tool be selected. I will have more thoughts on how this will change my approach to developing my repository in a later post.
The presentation was great, and the instructors knowledgable and friendly. They realize fully that as the field is new, no one really truly knows what they are doing for the long haul, and the more that we can help each other out, the more successful the digital preservation program will be.
The internet is running out of space!
"Consumer demand for bandwidth could see the internet running out of capacity as early as 2010, a new study warns."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7103426.stm
I can't stop thinking about this study that reports that the internet could run out of bandwidth by 2010, and wonder how we -- internet users, content creators, and/or librarians -- could help solve this problem. Digital information is "invisible," or so it seems... You upload to the internet and its physically away from you -- Yet accessible as need be. But how much stuff on the internet is junk? I know that I personally have all the images and pages from my old website still hanging out on an FTP site somewhere -- And those images were probably unnecessarily large, as that was before I know anything about correct imaging for projects and webpages. If everyone just cleaned out their Flickr accounts, or deleted old webpages, could we then get another year or two out of the internet at its current capacity? By realizing that data truly are physical objects, perhaps we feel a greater sense of responsibility to the upkeep and care.
Its physics, its kind of string theory, I know, but as I sit here right now I am surrounded by the internet. I can't see it or feel it, but its here, physical, voluminous and completely disorganized. A Tech Director at a former job of mine always wanted to take a filing cabinet, cram if full of paper in dissarray, with materials falling out of it and jammed into the drawers. "This is what the server actually looks like," would be the message. I am sure that the same analogy would apply to the internet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7103426.stm
I can't stop thinking about this study that reports that the internet could run out of bandwidth by 2010, and wonder how we -- internet users, content creators, and/or librarians -- could help solve this problem. Digital information is "invisible," or so it seems... You upload to the internet and its physically away from you -- Yet accessible as need be. But how much stuff on the internet is junk? I know that I personally have all the images and pages from my old website still hanging out on an FTP site somewhere -- And those images were probably unnecessarily large, as that was before I know anything about correct imaging for projects and webpages. If everyone just cleaned out their Flickr accounts, or deleted old webpages, could we then get another year or two out of the internet at its current capacity? By realizing that data truly are physical objects, perhaps we feel a greater sense of responsibility to the upkeep and care.
Its physics, its kind of string theory, I know, but as I sit here right now I am surrounded by the internet. I can't see it or feel it, but its here, physical, voluminous and completely disorganized. A Tech Director at a former job of mine always wanted to take a filing cabinet, cram if full of paper in dissarray, with materials falling out of it and jammed into the drawers. "This is what the server actually looks like," would be the message. I am sure that the same analogy would apply to the internet.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Stewardship of Digital Assets @ Palinet
On November 14 and 15th I had the opportunity to attend the first in a series of workshops on digital preservation. Developed by the North East Document Conservation Center, "Stewardship of Digital Assets" took digital projects to the next level -- No longer we were just talking about just digitizing materials, but we are beginning to look at sustaining the collections.
It's taken me about 2 weeks to get around to writing about this workshop, and I don't think that I would have been able to tackle any sooner. What a dense presentation! The faculty's experience was diverse and well reaching -- from working with the National Archives (NARA), the Research Libraries Group (RLG), Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) framework developed at Stanford, the powerhouse Online Computer Learning Center (OCLC), the Pennsylvania Library Network (Palinet), Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS), and National Information Standards Organization (NISO), and that's just to name a few of the distinguished organizations that these four people worked for, developing standards and managing digital content. Liz Bischoff, Tom Clareson, Robin Dale, and Dr. Katherine Skinner were kind enough to share with the forty attendees the results of the rich work that they have been doing in encouragement of collaboration.
Overall, the librarians and archivists in attendence are newbies to the field, as 1/3 of participants have yet to begin digitizing anything. That is a welcome number to hear -- as it means my institution is not falling behind of the herd. What I have found happened to many early digitization projects, anyway, is that objects were not created at a high enough resolution to warrant digital preservation, and some projects may have to rescan to render objects to meet new standards. The prevailing wind for digital projects these days is to scan BIG (and I really mean BIG -- as big as your institution can afford to maintain) ie. full size @ 300 - 600 dpi. Save that BIG scan as an unweildy tiff, and then make smaller derivative jpegs from that file for use copies.
But I digress -- This workshop was not aimed at the creation of these files -- Moreover it addressed what you do with the files now that you have them. Digitizing costs lots of money -- Improper care of files can lead to obselence or corrpuption of materials, rendering all your hard work wasted.
The workshop began with a lesson in assessment, simply meaning that if you can't articulate your institution's needs, then you can't apply standards. Not everything can be preserved all the time, and what becomes preserved should be a conscious choice, not a passive decision out of laziness. Whether it be analog or digital, a preservation program costs money to upkeep, and lots of it -- Why save junk? If the file is in a lesser format at alower quality level then the institution should make less of a commitment to preservation.
A fundamental shift is happening in the digitization world -- no longer are digital projects finite, but morever regarded as a cradle to cradle process. To ensure the integrity and authenticity of a digital document over time, digital objects needs to have a sense of curation present -- one that guarantees coceptually that the information comes out the same way that it went in to the system. This can be accomplished through preservation metadata that tracks the lifecycle of the object.
Reshaping digital projects to digital programs clarifies who is in charge of what tasks, and where and how the information is stored. Many organizations contain disparate silos of information across campus. Let IT run the servers and back everything up. Let the digital repository manage access. That way the organization knows clearly where all the information is, how it is being managed, and by who. Informed individuals make educated decisions, and can also identify potential risks. For example, in just the last few years reccommendations have moved away from storage on CD/DVD to spinning disk, hard drive and tape. Why? CDs aren't scalable, are hard to manage, and have been found to fail -- 15% of all information at Emory University failed when checked on CD -- That may be 15% of ALL digital information. If you can get boxes of CDs out of peoples individual offices and centralized in one preservation office, risk management becomes all the easier.
Grants at this point will not give monies for long term management of objects -- But the language of many grants includes a commitment to the long-term access and preservation of the objects. As institutions complete the digitization project and the grant money runs out, institutions may find the best way to manage preservation is to repurposing time and leveraging the skills of existing staff. The teams that are created through this process should be evenly weighted between curatorial and tech staff -- Curators choose content, techies digitize.
Preservation must be stabilized -- Choose a recognized standard and keep it there, don't unnecessarily migrate information, secure funding and document EVERYTHING.
Yikes, that's already a lot of notes -- I think this will be best broken up into a series of posts.
It's taken me about 2 weeks to get around to writing about this workshop, and I don't think that I would have been able to tackle any sooner. What a dense presentation! The faculty's experience was diverse and well reaching -- from working with the National Archives (NARA), the Research Libraries Group (RLG), Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) framework developed at Stanford, the powerhouse Online Computer Learning Center (OCLC), the Pennsylvania Library Network (Palinet), Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS), and National Information Standards Organization (NISO), and that's just to name a few of the distinguished organizations that these four people worked for, developing standards and managing digital content. Liz Bischoff, Tom Clareson, Robin Dale, and Dr. Katherine Skinner were kind enough to share with the forty attendees the results of the rich work that they have been doing in encouragement of collaboration.
Overall, the librarians and archivists in attendence are newbies to the field, as 1/3 of participants have yet to begin digitizing anything. That is a welcome number to hear -- as it means my institution is not falling behind of the herd. What I have found happened to many early digitization projects, anyway, is that objects were not created at a high enough resolution to warrant digital preservation, and some projects may have to rescan to render objects to meet new standards. The prevailing wind for digital projects these days is to scan BIG (and I really mean BIG -- as big as your institution can afford to maintain) ie. full size @ 300 - 600 dpi. Save that BIG scan as an unweildy tiff, and then make smaller derivative jpegs from that file for use copies.
But I digress -- This workshop was not aimed at the creation of these files -- Moreover it addressed what you do with the files now that you have them. Digitizing costs lots of money -- Improper care of files can lead to obselence or corrpuption of materials, rendering all your hard work wasted.
The workshop began with a lesson in assessment, simply meaning that if you can't articulate your institution's needs, then you can't apply standards. Not everything can be preserved all the time, and what becomes preserved should be a conscious choice, not a passive decision out of laziness. Whether it be analog or digital, a preservation program costs money to upkeep, and lots of it -- Why save junk? If the file is in a lesser format at alower quality level then the institution should make less of a commitment to preservation.
A fundamental shift is happening in the digitization world -- no longer are digital projects finite, but morever regarded as a cradle to cradle process. To ensure the integrity and authenticity of a digital document over time, digital objects needs to have a sense of curation present -- one that guarantees coceptually that the information comes out the same way that it went in to the system. This can be accomplished through preservation metadata that tracks the lifecycle of the object.
Reshaping digital projects to digital programs clarifies who is in charge of what tasks, and where and how the information is stored. Many organizations contain disparate silos of information across campus. Let IT run the servers and back everything up. Let the digital repository manage access. That way the organization knows clearly where all the information is, how it is being managed, and by who. Informed individuals make educated decisions, and can also identify potential risks. For example, in just the last few years reccommendations have moved away from storage on CD/DVD to spinning disk, hard drive and tape. Why? CDs aren't scalable, are hard to manage, and have been found to fail -- 15% of all information at Emory University failed when checked on CD -- That may be 15% of ALL digital information. If you can get boxes of CDs out of peoples individual offices and centralized in one preservation office, risk management becomes all the easier.
Grants at this point will not give monies for long term management of objects -- But the language of many grants includes a commitment to the long-term access and preservation of the objects. As institutions complete the digitization project and the grant money runs out, institutions may find the best way to manage preservation is to repurposing time and leveraging the skills of existing staff. The teams that are created through this process should be evenly weighted between curatorial and tech staff -- Curators choose content, techies digitize.
Preservation must be stabilized -- Choose a recognized standard and keep it there, don't unnecessarily migrate information, secure funding and document EVERYTHING.
Yikes, that's already a lot of notes -- I think this will be best broken up into a series of posts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)