Minutes for Digital Collections Team--Collections Subgroup, 20 June 2011

Attending: Susan Graham (Chair), Lindsey Loeper, Tom Beck, Lynda Aldana, Heather Moss, Shu Qian, Vicki Sipe (Note Taker)

Digital Preservation Discussion--Susan
Email from Susan 9 June 2011 outlines conundrum.  Campus will not be adding server space.  We currently rely on Campus servers to house our preservation copies of scanned materials.  We have in the neighborhood of 200GB remaining.  Susan estimates this represents about a year's worth of scanning.  We currently pay in neighborhood of $3.00 per GB to Campus IT for storage.  The Library running its own server for the purpose is not an option.  Several options for consideration outlined in email.  Individual committee members committed to research these options and return a report including pros/cons and resource requirements at next meeting to be scheduled for early fall.  We will discuss reports at that time and make recommendations.  Stephen will be requested to comment on the recommendations.  Below are the options with individual researching. 

1) JPEG 2000--Convert preservation scans from TIFF to JPEG 2000.  Estimate this would reduce storage space required to 1/3 of that required to store TIFF.  Lindsey will research this option.
2) MetaArchive--Distributed storage cooperative.  Vicki will research.  Will also contact Kelly about a LOCKSS machine that we have, but have never turned on (?).
3) Duracloud--Cloud based storage.  Heather will research. 
4) Florida Digital Archive (FDA)--Dark Archive.  Susan will research.
5) Chronopolis--Distributed storage cooperative.  Tom will research.
6) OCLC--Offsite vendor.  Susan will research.
7) Tiered approach--Not storing preservation copies of everything that is scanned.  No research necessary for this option.  If adopted would require discussion on selection criteria.
8) UMBC Data Storage Center--UMBC has built a data storage center.  Stephen will discuss with Jack Suess.

Updates

• Special Collections--Susan: Finished 3 monos, rescanned Civil War and added some, started scanning Parthenon collection, getting new scanner (in addition to current one).  Lindsey: Retriever up thru 1982, Eisenbud from Exhibit have been added (need metadata), University Archices added about 400 prints from 1970s (from Student Life).

• Hughes--Vicki: of about 2600 total, just over 1000 are completed.  Mappable field added to allow identification of building exterior images where we have location.  There are about 180 that are currently mappable.  These could readily become part of a mapping project of historic images of Baltimore buildings.  Discussion around establishing a timeline for completion of descriptive metadata on this project.  Lynda and Vicki will meet to discuss. 

• CONTENTdm--Susan: Must wait for CONTENTdm 6.1 upgrade.  This was due in June, not yet available.   Eastern Users Group meeting at Towson, Auguest 1-3, 2011.   

Online Exhibits

Several options for producing online exhibits were demonstrated.  Heather and Shu agreed to pick one of the tools with an eye toward a future Hughes online exhibit.  Tools demonstrated were:

• Omeka--Lindsey: Demo using the West Lee Street collection.  Free version with limited use is available.  http://omeka.org/ 

• Institutional Advancement template--Lindsey: Planning to use a template provided by UMBC Institutional Advancement to mount 45th Anniversary online exhibt this Fall. 

• Recollection--Susan: Demo using Jean Thomas collection.  Not yet available to non-NDIIP partners. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

• History 705 projects--Susan:Denise Meringelo's History 705 class partners with various institutions/organizations each year for a public history project.  This year they partnered with Special Collections and produced two online exhibits.  Blog based project using Hughes images.http://hughesco.blogspot.com/   HTML webpage based project using University Archives. http://aok2.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/exhibits/evolveumbc/Home.html

Collaborations

• Civil War in Your Attic--Lindsey: Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage will be sponsoring several days of remote scanning of privately held Civil War materials.  The first date is 16 July at Enoch Pratt Library.  Lindsey is looking to arrange a date here at UMBC in conjunction with a Civil War exhibit planned fo rthe Spring.  http://www.mdch.org/civilwar/

• Historypin--Lindsey: Lindsey received an invitation to participate in this project.  Upload images which then interact with Google Street View and Google Maps.  Keep an eye on it as potential for a Hughes based project.  http://www.mdch.org/civilwar/
  
  

Submitted 20 June 2011 by Vicki Sipe