Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery - Staff Wiki

DCT - Brainstorming

Owned by Susan Graham
Last updated: Jul 23, 2009Version comment
7 min read

Charge:

Need clarification on scope, etc.  So far:  "develop and expand the Library's digital collections and promote greater faculty and student use of this resource."

Can we define what we consider the library's digital collections? This can be defined in a very limited way to include digital content we develop here or much more broadly to include purchased digital content and even digital content hosted elsewhere that we didn't develop but provide access to. Looking at it all in the more inclusive way would position us to begin to address issues related to how our digital resources work together.

Goals: 

Relate them back to the Library's mission & vision http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/admin/vision.php

Updates:

Current Projects

  1. Photography Collections (SG, VS, JH):
    Scanning & Collections in CONTENTdm: Currently, there are 5 collections in CDM (http://contentdm.ad.umbc.edu/collections.php). We have other scanned images, need to create a Collection of images that aren't complete collections. SC staff and students are in the process of scanning the Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection, and have completed scans of 781 negatives (out of ~3,800). BMS has graciously lent SC two student workers who can contribute 10-15 hours of scanning time this summer. VS & SG have worked out workflow for scanning and metadata. SG & LL now have permission to save master TIFF files to a server dedicated to the CDM images. JH is working on the CDM web interface and customizing the CDM search interface. Any further updates?  VS Training of students held up by scanner being down.  Repair?  Kenny has worked out adding users, so passwords for individuals now possible.  LITS has installed CDM in BI room in preparation for training.

  2. Archives Collections (LL): There are 3 collections in CDM (http://contentdm.ad.umbc.edu/uarc.php). The Retriever Weekly is being developed in collaboration with TRW office, they will supply students to begin scanning (hopefully Summer 09). LL is also developing University Publications and UMBC Oral History collections.  All Archives Collections in CONTENTdm are created using already digitized items or items that are digitized for reference, etc.  Exception will be development of TRW with their staff.

  3. ETDs (LL - only until Elec Serials Lib starts!): 307 ETDs in CONTENTdm. Thumbnail has been replaced and department name has been added to all records using official dept names (ProQuest only includes program title in metadata).  BMS is developing workflow to add link in USMAI catalog records to CONTENTdm full text version.  VS Linking in USMAI catalog on hold for developments in Serials/E-resouces position.

  4. Slide Library Digitization (JC): The Slide Library continutes to digitize images used in UMBC teaching and research.  To date, the Slide Library database (http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/slides/slides.php) contains 83,427 slide records, 34,638 of which have online images. 

  5. Launch CONTENTdm:  date, what to do, etc.

  6. On-Demand Scanning (SG): SC staff continue to scan for patron & staff requests.

  7. Digital Repository (MC): Developing an institutional repository (IR) was briefly discussed at the CDMWG sometime middle of last year but has been put on hold.  Nationwide, one of the main reasons for the lack of interest in IRs is that faculty are not providing their publications for various reasons.  An alternative version is to make that optional and provide a link to the article, journal or db.  Larry commented that this would be more a bibliography than an IR, and was non-committal about the proposal.  If the group is interested in developing this project, please feel free to do so and anyone can volunteer to take the lead on this. Might be interesting to do a combined approach where we do the bibliography with select items archived based on a set of criteria (eg. rights are available and granted, work is in an archival format or can be readily moved to an archival format, work has not been formally published, content of enduring value, etc.)

  1. PastPerfect Online (SG, LL): Have permission to purchase.  Currently, Museum Software is converting our databases to our PastPerfect database.  We need the PastPerfect Online so that end users can access our materials.  Once we get PastPerfect Online, we will need to customize it, create links to it on the Library website, train staff, and users.

Guidelines & Documentation

  1. Technical Standards: Do we want to revise? Best Practices Draft

  2. Scanning Instructions: SG has done these for prints and glass negatives, will post

    • LL will develop scanning instructions with text collections (inc. OCR and pdf creation)

  3. Data Dictionary  VS  Have several versions for Hughes Glass Negatives.   Do we want to establish a standard format for our data dictionaries?  Some examples at UofWash datadictionaries . 

  4. Use for Researchers: SC has a rights & reproduction page: http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php

Ideas for guidelines & documentation:

  1. Our goals

  2. What we have & what we can do (e.g. our equipment, limitations, etc. so that staff know what we are capable of)

  3. Workflow documentation

  4. Using CDM procedures

  5. Progress Reports

Priorities

  1. TB has a priorities document, perhaps we should revisit it due to new and unique collections and new group: Photo Scanning Priorities 

    Ideas for Priorities

  2. A request for projects form: Online form for staff.

  3. How to determine priorities? (as group, based on uniqueness, based on curriculum support, etc.)

  4. A request for digitization form

  5. An online tracking system?

Training

What are our needs?

Support & Needs

  • Equipment - need another scanner

  • Staff -- need more students for scanning

  • $ for outsourcing?

Promotion & Outreach

  1. PR: needs to be on Library home page, myUMBC announcement, other ideas??

  2. Collaborate with information literacy team

  3. Currently working with JH's student assistant for a CDM online tutorial.  Should we also make a "site guide" like ECU http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/guide.aspx ?

  4. Train faculty

  5. We have put links on wikipedia for our collections, continue to do so

  6. More images on Flickr: Currently, there are University Archives photos on Flickr. How about some of our photo collections. If we still want to charge for copies and usage, we can follow the Eastman House example: http://www.eastmanhouse.org/flickr/index.php?pid=200702750080
    http://www.eastmanhouse.org/inc/collections/rights.php

  7. Add books to Open Library http://openlibrary.org/   (http://www.lyrasis.org/Products-and-Services/Digital-Services/Mass-Digitization-Collaborative.aspx)

  8. Adding a "donate" link to the CDM site (is it possible to get paypal donations for UMBC??)

  9. WorldCat Sync:
    WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway
    CONTENTdm 5.1 introduces WorldCat Sync, a new feature that allows CONTENTdm users to
    register their collections with the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway. The Digital
    Collection Gateway provides collection managers with a self-service capability to
    harvest their collection metadata to WorldCat. The collections are then available
    for end-users to search and discover from WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local. End-users
    can click through to your local CONTENTdm server to view and use your unique digital
    content.
    During the pilot phase the Digital Collection Gateway will only be accessible to
    selected early adopters. If you'll be upgrading your server to CONTENTdm 5.1 and
    have collections you'd like to load into WorldCat please contact Taylor Surface
    (taylor_surface@oclc.org) to enroll in the pilot phase. Otherwise, watch the
    CONTENTdm-L listserv for information about general availability coming within the
    next 90 days.

*Things to Work On*

EAD Finding Aids

  • can also link to digitized content in container lists

Digital Repository?

  • are we going to focus on this?

  • if so, are we going to follow the NCSU model: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/repository/

  • are we going to use CDM as an IR? allow faculty submissions? datasets? See Utah: U-SKIS - this is an institutional repository workflow software. http://sourceforge.net/projects/u-skis/ (In brief, U-SKIS tracks files, attaches metadata, tracks communications and publisher policies, and deposits the files and metadata into CONTENTdm. It's available for free download at SourceForge.)

Consider launching a repository using alternative types of resources, i.e. not the papers that are being submitted for publication that are critical to P & T, but other materials that faculty are generally willing to hand over and happy to have archived. I'd like to propose re-focusing the repository effort to include unpublished articles and creative works, data sets, experiment notes, unpublished papers and notes, and materials self-published as web pages or in web 2.0 apps such as google.docs, and entirely new media formats that have no print corollary (examples from a recent Research Library Issues include: Video articles, peer-reviewed reader commentary, medieval illuminated texts coded as data, data sites, annotated primary source content, discussion forums). It would be critical to define what kinds of formats we can reasonable expect to provide lasting and reasonable access to, and to reformat materials into those formats and to go and get from our faculty the materials they've prepared and never published or published on via the web. I have an article on how LC develops work flows for handling different file using software similar to U-SKIS to track--it appears complex but feasible to handle large quantities of different file types. Gergana is very interested in repositories and would very much like to participate in developing one here and should be included if we move ahead with work on one.

Grey Literature

  • If we don't do a digital repository, are we still going to include technical reports into CDM?

  • what about student research projects?

  • Just saw this wiki page:  there are a LOT of technical reports on this campus:  https://spaces.umbc.edu/display/hpc/Technical+Reports+and+Preprints

  • Ebiquity has some technical reports (already in pdf form)

  • Search on UMBC website brings up a lot of reports & people whom we can contact

Online Exhibits

  • Ask LITS: is Omeka still out of the question? UPDATE: Kenny has informed me that LITS still cannot support Omeka.

  • If not, could we have a professional looking template designed so that we can make some digital exhibits?

Video/Audio

  • Collaboration w/New Media

  • Oral histories

  • Transcripts

2.0

Digital Preservation

Usability Testing

  • CDM site must be launched, and then tested

Grants

Other Ideas

  • Microfilm digitization?  OCLC is having a special offer:  microfilm digitization at a flat per-reel fee. This special offer includes both bitonal and gray-scale digital output at prices that range from just $135 to $180 per reel, regardless of reel length. More details are available at http://www.oclc.org/info/reeldeal/

  • Templates for collections in CDM: http://digital.library.unlv.edu/dmbridge/



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