http://ve.torontopubliclibrary.ca/case_of_considerable_interest/index.html
An exhibition celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection of the Toronto Public Library
This online exhibit is just a portion of the Arthur Conan Doyle collection in the Toronto Public Library. It’s divided into three parts, the published Works of Doyle, The world of Sherlock Holmes, and Doyle’s connections to Canada. The sections can be accessed by clicking on the corresponding bookshelf on the front page. Pages from inside a book can be found after clicking on the thumbnail of the book to go its page. There is no way to know which books have inside pages available from the thumbnail pages.
1) Selection decisions
This is only a very small portion of the collection. These items were chosen as an overview only. There is no indication as to why these specific works were chosen. The only information given is that these are “some of the unique and varied items” in the collection. More of the collection than this is digitized because there is another online exhibition from 2004 that has different content from the collection.
2) Metadata
There is virtually no Metadata available for the collection. We know it was made in 2006 and the Copyright is with the Toronto Public Library. The images are not much better. Everything has captions; Books also have Author, Publisher and date information. Some have links to the project Gutenberg page so you can read the whole book. Handwritten pages usually have links to transcripts.
3) Object Characteristics
The images available are all quite small, it appears that the size was chosen to allow the smallest text to be read (barely) but nothing more detailed. This means that the book covers especially are quite small. The only large object in the collection, a transatlantic map, is zoom-able and pan-able. The exhibition would have been better if everything was like that. I know the images exist in higher resolution form because, one item, the Hound of the Baskervilles Cover, is duplicated in the earlier exhibition I mentioned in a higher resolution.
4) Intended Audience
The audience is anyone who is a fan of Sherlock Holmes or Arthur Conan Doyle in General. Images are too small to be of scholarly interest.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
New Zealand Museum Picture Library
These observations relate to the Te Papa Picture Library at the Museum of New Zealand.
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/images/images.asp?Language=English
Selection procedure: According to the website, a small proportion of the over 800,000 pictures in the Te Papa Picture library were selected for digitization. They are from the following categories: flora and fauna, land and sea, pasifika, people and places. taonga, and treasures. I chose flora and fauna.
Object Characteristics: Clicking on flora and fauna led to two pages of images encompassing 54 photographs. Clicking on each image enlarges that image and gives a small caption about it. From both the thumbnail gallery page or the enlarged image page the user has the ability to add an image to the lightbox. The lightbox is a link to an ordering system for the pictures.
Metadata: On the thumbnail page only the View Details and Add to Lightbox metadata are visible. Once the user selects an image and enlarges that image, a caption regarding the subject of the image (Title: Pingao plants on Eastbourne Beach) and a registratration number (Reg. no: F.002163/02) are apparent. Also on the enlarged image page are links to the next and previous picture in the gallery. If an item is added to the lightbox for possible ordering and the user clicks on view lightbox, the following metadata are present: spaces for the user to enter their e-mail address, name , and phone number. Furthermore a larger space is provided so that the user can enter information to answer the query: How do you plan to use these image/s?
Intended Audience: I believe the intended audience for the Te Papa Picture Library is anyone interested in New Zealand or at least that area of Oceania. Of course, kiwis have an advantage in that they can visit the museum more easily in person to see its other holdings, including the images not selected for digitization. Nevertheless, surfers on the internet can still access the digitized photos as I did and can even order them. Therefore, while the national pride New Zealanders feel about their land likely led to the idea for the site, its potential audience is truly global.
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/images/images.asp?Language=English
Selection procedure: According to the website, a small proportion of the over 800,000 pictures in the Te Papa Picture library were selected for digitization. They are from the following categories: flora and fauna, land and sea, pasifika, people and places. taonga, and treasures. I chose flora and fauna.
Object Characteristics: Clicking on flora and fauna led to two pages of images encompassing 54 photographs. Clicking on each image enlarges that image and gives a small caption about it. From both the thumbnail gallery page or the enlarged image page the user has the ability to add an image to the lightbox. The lightbox is a link to an ordering system for the pictures.
Metadata: On the thumbnail page only the View Details and Add to Lightbox metadata are visible. Once the user selects an image and enlarges that image, a caption regarding the subject of the image (Title: Pingao plants on Eastbourne Beach) and a registratration number (Reg. no: F.002163/02) are apparent. Also on the enlarged image page are links to the next and previous picture in the gallery. If an item is added to the lightbox for possible ordering and the user clicks on view lightbox, the following metadata are present: spaces for the user to enter their e-mail address, name , and phone number. Furthermore a larger space is provided so that the user can enter information to answer the query: How do you plan to use these image/s?
Intended Audience: I believe the intended audience for the Te Papa Picture Library is anyone interested in New Zealand or at least that area of Oceania. Of course, kiwis have an advantage in that they can visit the museum more easily in person to see its other holdings, including the images not selected for digitization. Nevertheless, surfers on the internet can still access the digitized photos as I did and can even order them. Therefore, while the national pride New Zealanders feel about their land likely led to the idea for the site, its potential audience is truly global.
Manuscripts of the American Civil War
http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/civil_war/index.shtml
This week I am looking at the Manuscripts of the American Civil War Collection at the University of Notre Dame Rare Books and Special Collections. This collection is divided into 6 parts: Topical Collections, Personal Papers, Military Records, Letters, Diaries and Journals, and Singld Manuscripts.
Selection
The entire collection cataloged online is not digitized. Only a handful of entries are. But, each subgroup that is digitized is digitized fully. For example, in the Letters group there are about 53 listings; of those, I think 23 sets are digitized. Within each set, whether it is 1 letter or 50, all are digitized. Envelopes are digitized along with the letters. I could not find an explanation of why some sets were digitized and others not. I imagine they digitized the most interesting, most important or most often studied sets.
Metadata
Every group has an introduction, provenance note and bibliographic note before the index of items. Generally each item has the following information provided, depending on form:
Letters: document type, author, date, place, to whom the letter was written, physical description, number, and transcirbers. Each item has a transcription with clear page breaks and numbers to match to the digital images
Diaries: page numbers, date of entries, author, content, number
Military Records: document type, document title, author, date, place, to whom written, endorsement, physical description, number
Personal Papers: document type, author, date, physical description, notes, number, transcribers
Object Characteristics
For each image, the user has the choice of 72 dpi, 100 dpi or 150 dpi. A technical note informs us that images were scanned in full color at 300 dpi and saved as compressed tiff files. They started the project using UMAX Mirage II flatbed scanners (2001-2005); now materials are scanned on Microtek ScanMaker 9800XL scanners. The online images are jpeg files and are also converted to black and white and manipulated to provide a high enough contrast to be able to read the letters. I think its a bit disappointing to only be able to see B&W images, but perhaps this is the easiest way to read them (?).
Audience
Civil War scholars I think would really enjoy this site because of the level of detail--the background information, the transcriptions, the 3 image sizes. It would allow a good amount of research without going to the university itself, and without having to handle (and damage) the documents. Maybe there are people who study handwriting (?) who would appreciate all the samples and the heightened contrast the B&W digital images provide.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Philidelphia Museum of Art: Costume & Textile Collection, Gallery 271
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/216-436-430-336.html
Collection Principles
The collection feature “outstanding” examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century garments and accessories. Also included are “iconic twentieth-century fashions” with particular designs by Elsa Schiaparelli. The collection consists of 30,000 items – only 19 pieces are “highlighted” in the digital archive.
Metadata
The metadata consists of an image of each highlighted item, type of object it is (dress, cape, belt buckle, etc.), places of origin (one for the material fabrication and another indicating where the object was made), type of material (silk, lace, etc.) date, designer, maker, style, dimensions (length, waist, bust, etc.), where it is located at the museum (gallery and floor) and name of donor. It also indicates whether or not the item is currently on view.
Object Characteristics
It seems that the images were captured with a digital camera. The images are in color and can be zoomed into for greater detail. No information as to when the images were created.
Intended Audience
This collection would surely assist anyone researching textiles and garments. It would also be interesting to anyone casually visiting the museum website as well. As a casual visitor I would like to see more of the collection.
Collection Principles
The collection feature “outstanding” examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century garments and accessories. Also included are “iconic twentieth-century fashions” with particular designs by Elsa Schiaparelli. The collection consists of 30,000 items – only 19 pieces are “highlighted” in the digital archive.
Metadata
The metadata consists of an image of each highlighted item, type of object it is (dress, cape, belt buckle, etc.), places of origin (one for the material fabrication and another indicating where the object was made), type of material (silk, lace, etc.) date, designer, maker, style, dimensions (length, waist, bust, etc.), where it is located at the museum (gallery and floor) and name of donor. It also indicates whether or not the item is currently on view.
Object Characteristics
It seems that the images were captured with a digital camera. The images are in color and can be zoomed into for greater detail. No information as to when the images were created.
Intended Audience
This collection would surely assist anyone researching textiles and garments. It would also be interesting to anyone casually visiting the museum website as well. As a casual visitor I would like to see more of the collection.
"A Summons to Comradeship"
This online collection is available through the combined efforts of the University of Minnesota Libraries and the Minneapolis Public Library. The collection presents World War I and II posters and postcards from government, commercial, and charitable organizations, and is multi-national in scope. The collection was made possible through an IMLS grant.
In regards to the selection decision, the site states that "three-fourths of the combined total from both collections, over five thousand posters, were suitable for digitization and description after concerns such as physical condition, copyright, and duplicates were considered."
Each war poster was captured using a Power Phase FX digital camera system. The posters were saved as a high-resolution 24-bit color, uncompressed TIFF image, with a minimum resolution of 300 pixels per inch. The website presents the images as thumbnails, with the ability to enlarge to screen size.
The collection uses a vast metadata scheme. Characteristics for each image include: Unique Digital Identifier, Title, Caption, Creator, Publisher, Year of creation, Owning Repository, Object Location, Medium, Media, Original Dimensions, Description, Use/Rights, Notes, File Format, Bit Depth, and Resolution. The metadata elements were encoded using XML.
The collection is a great resource, but is not easy to browse. The site would be of more use to researchers than the general public.
MacBride Museum
The MacBride Museum in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada focuses on the history of the Yukon. The website features digitized images of materials from the physical museum’s holdings. On the website’s homepage, one can gain access to the virtual collections by clicking on “MacBride Museum’s online collection”. At this point, one has the option of viewing the exhibits in HTML or Flash.
Selection Decisions
Digital images consist of scanned photographs, artifacts (such as decks of playing cards), manuscripts (such as receipts, an invitation to attend a session of the Canadian Parliament, and diaries) and digital photographs of three-dimensional objects (including clothing, jewelry, miscellany such as shopping bags, and other assorted items). The images, taken from the holdings of the museum, cover a wide range of topics relating to different facets of life in the Yukon.
Metadata
The metadata consists of a number of fields, varying from object to object. It always includes an object name, description, and accession number. Other fields that occur for some items may include a “comments” field (used for providing contextual description of the item, which differs from the “description” field in that it is more in-depth, as well as having a somewhat different focus; “description” focuses just on the specific image, while “comments” provides background information) and “biography” (used for biographical sketches of individuals pictured in photographs). There is no information available on the actual digital object.
Object Characteristics
In Flash mode, there are nine general topics that one can click on, or the viewer can use the search engine. Topics include Transportation, Early Yukon Commerce, Everyday Life, Yukon People, First Nations (in the U.S. this would be referred to as Native Americans), The Natural World, Alaska Highway, Mounties, and the Gold Rush. When one clicks on a topic, the viewer first sees a screen with a brief, one-paragraph description of that theme. The viewer can then close the introduction and proceed into the exhibit, where one sees a series of small images. When the viewer clicks on an image, she will see metadata of the item. One is able to view a larger version by clicking on a tab within the metadata.
In HTML, one simply sees a series of thumbnail images that appear 24 at a time; there are a total of 1002 images, with more being added continually. By clicking on one of the images, one is able to view a larger version, as well as some basic metadata of that image. Both the thumbnail images and larger versions are JPEGs.
One can perform a search in either mode. The search engine apparently looks for keywords throughout the metadata. For example, I typed in “insignias”, and was presented with an image of a Mountie’s uniform. The word “insignias” was found in the description field of the metadata.
Clearly, the Flash version is superior, as the website freely admits. The HTML version is intended for low-bandwidth internet connections.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is anyone who has an interest in the Yukon, the Canadian northwest, or any of the various themes within the exhibit. General students will find it useful, though academic researchers probably will not use the site much. Overall, I found it to be well-designed and simple to use.
Selection Decisions
Digital images consist of scanned photographs, artifacts (such as decks of playing cards), manuscripts (such as receipts, an invitation to attend a session of the Canadian Parliament, and diaries) and digital photographs of three-dimensional objects (including clothing, jewelry, miscellany such as shopping bags, and other assorted items). The images, taken from the holdings of the museum, cover a wide range of topics relating to different facets of life in the Yukon.
Metadata
The metadata consists of a number of fields, varying from object to object. It always includes an object name, description, and accession number. Other fields that occur for some items may include a “comments” field (used for providing contextual description of the item, which differs from the “description” field in that it is more in-depth, as well as having a somewhat different focus; “description” focuses just on the specific image, while “comments” provides background information) and “biography” (used for biographical sketches of individuals pictured in photographs). There is no information available on the actual digital object.
Object Characteristics
In Flash mode, there are nine general topics that one can click on, or the viewer can use the search engine. Topics include Transportation, Early Yukon Commerce, Everyday Life, Yukon People, First Nations (in the U.S. this would be referred to as Native Americans), The Natural World, Alaska Highway, Mounties, and the Gold Rush. When one clicks on a topic, the viewer first sees a screen with a brief, one-paragraph description of that theme. The viewer can then close the introduction and proceed into the exhibit, where one sees a series of small images. When the viewer clicks on an image, she will see metadata of the item. One is able to view a larger version by clicking on a tab within the metadata.
In HTML, one simply sees a series of thumbnail images that appear 24 at a time; there are a total of 1002 images, with more being added continually. By clicking on one of the images, one is able to view a larger version, as well as some basic metadata of that image. Both the thumbnail images and larger versions are JPEGs.
One can perform a search in either mode. The search engine apparently looks for keywords throughout the metadata. For example, I typed in “insignias”, and was presented with an image of a Mountie’s uniform. The word “insignias” was found in the description field of the metadata.
Clearly, the Flash version is superior, as the website freely admits. The HTML version is intended for low-bandwidth internet connections.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is anyone who has an interest in the Yukon, the Canadian northwest, or any of the various themes within the exhibit. General students will find it useful, though academic researchers probably will not use the site much. Overall, I found it to be well-designed and simple to use.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Dred Scott Case Collection
The Dred Scott Case Collection is a digital collection of case documentation from the historic Dred Scott case. This case took place in 1864, and declared Mr. Scott to be a slave despite his claims of a right to freedom. The decision is credited with increasing tensions between states before the civil war. This digitization project is part of a digital partnership between the University of Washington libraries and the Missouri State Archives.
1) Selection Decisions
There is not a lot of material available through this website, and only court documentation has been digitized. No materials providing context are made available through this project. No selection decisions are stated on the website, and the people who are responsible for making these decisions are not named. All 85 documents presented in the case have been digitized and are made available through the website.
2) Metadata
Basic descriptive metadata is provided, including the title of the legal document, the date of issue, as well as the court dates and the ruling judge. Structural metadata is also provided, such as the corresponding document number and the ability to move through the documents chronologically.
3) Object Characteristics
The images are made available at both 600 and 2000 pixels. A link to each of these images is next to a thumbnail of the document, as well as a short descriptive caption of the object. Document transcription is also available in both pdf and MS Word formats.
4) Intended Audience
This collection is intended to be used by researchers who already have a clear idea of the Dred Scott case and it's implications. Though links are included to other sites that provide context, this project is only presenting the legal documentation of the case. Those with legal knowledge would get the most information out of these documents.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
deviantART
At deviantART, almost anyone* can get an account to submit his/her own art for others to view and comment on, track favorite artists, and "collect" favorite works. The project began in 2007 and now boasts an impressively large staff, both paid and volunteer. The art ranges from anime to photography, with a rather heavy emphasis on the former. People can even submit animated images, literature, and film (although this is chosen on a selective basis; according to the FAQ, it is "to maintain a certain level of production values in the films that our community of artists can post and appreciate"...it is also probably because film takes up a lot of space and is time-consuming to view for appropriateness).The images are viewable in three different sizes: as thumbnails, when the image isselected, and when "full view" is chosen. What is particularly impressive with deviantART is that users can download the full-sized images and, when the artist enables it, buy the images as a matte or glossy print in "the Shop". Works are categorized and are searchable by artist, genre, most popular, when it was submitted, etc.
The metadata is quite extensive and includes the artist's profile and gallery, media categories (e.g., digital media, anthropomorphic, manga, tv/movies), copyright year, number of views, number of downloads, date submitted, file size, number of comments, number of times made a "favorite", embedded HTML, and a unique thumbnail ID. Some of the metadata, such as file size and date submitted, appear to be automatically generated, while other like the media categories, are submitted by the artists.
deviantART is meant for all amateur artists, art fans, and anyone appreciative of community art forums. The openness of the site is a fantastic way for artists to get feedback on their work and to share their work with the public. That said, I couldn't imagine a very serious artists putting work up on deviantART as anyone can download fairly high quality versions of their work. Furthermore, as there are no criteria regarding print art or literature, the quality of work varies greatly.
* Account holders at deviantART must be older than 13 in order to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. This restriction holds true even when parental permission is granted.
Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement
Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement 1) Selection
2) Metadata
3) Object Characteristics
Since the entire collection is in Flash, it’s hard to get too much information about each object. It is apparent that the materials are scanned at a high resolution because the visitor can zoom in quite closely and the image quality is excellent. To get more information you can click to see an image in a printer-friendly format, which will then allow you to print or save the image.
4) Audience
Friday, October 26, 2007
AAEC Editorial Cartoon Digital Collection
This week, I looked at the AAEC Editorial Cartoon Digital Collection, a project of the University of Southern Mississippi to digitize their collection of American editorial cartoons dating from 1782 to 1980.
Selection Decisions: The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) decided to digitize this collection because of the value of editorial cartoons for scholarly research in history, art, sociology, and journalism. Therefore, they have digitized their entire collection on the basis of use, acknowledging that digitization is not a viable preservation technique.
Metadata: USM Libraries utilize the Contentdm system to manage their digital collections. Therefore, they already have an organizational basis for housing plenty of metadata information using Dublin Core standards. They provide all necessary information for the cartoons, including title, creator, publisher, date published, date digitized, subject, and many more. The collection's website provides thorough information regarding the technical metadata, specifying all of the specifics of image capture and storage (each image has a TIFF master file, but the access files are in the form of 24-bit JPEG compressed images).
Digital Object Characteristics: While it is not possible to enlarge the digital images of the AAED collection, the images are of a very high quality, with all meaningful elements of the image being readily and clearly recognizable. They are also very quickly and easily accessed.
Intended Audience: The intended audience for this project is anyone interested in historical, cultural, sociological or political research, especially scholarly researchers and students. These editorial cartoons are a great resource for researchers to gain an understanding of reactions to political situations over the past 200 years.
Selection Decisions: The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) decided to digitize this collection because of the value of editorial cartoons for scholarly research in history, art, sociology, and journalism. Therefore, they have digitized their entire collection on the basis of use, acknowledging that digitization is not a viable preservation technique.
Metadata: USM Libraries utilize the Contentdm system to manage their digital collections. Therefore, they already have an organizational basis for housing plenty of metadata information using Dublin Core standards. They provide all necessary information for the cartoons, including title, creator, publisher, date published, date digitized, subject, and many more. The collection's website provides thorough information regarding the technical metadata, specifying all of the specifics of image capture and storage (each image has a TIFF master file, but the access files are in the form of 24-bit JPEG compressed images).
Digital Object Characteristics: While it is not possible to enlarge the digital images of the AAED collection, the images are of a very high quality, with all meaningful elements of the image being readily and clearly recognizable. They are also very quickly and easily accessed.
Intended Audience: The intended audience for this project is anyone interested in historical, cultural, sociological or political research, especially scholarly researchers and students. These editorial cartoons are a great resource for researchers to gain an understanding of reactions to political situations over the past 200 years.
The Jay I. Kislak Collection at The Library of Congress.
The Jay I. Kislak Collection at The Library of Congress.
The Kislak collection samples fifty materials including books, maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts from the more than 4,000 items. The items were donated by collector Jay I. Kislak. The items donated include materials dating from pre-Columbian times to the point of Europeans and indigenous contact and continue into the time period of piracy and Trans Atlantic trade. Two noteworthy presentations from this collection allow for an interactive experience where users can explore these items further. The seventeenth-century book, The Buccaneers of America uses a technology that allows for a page by page turning experience. This program also reads the contents of the book in English. The seventh-century Tortuguero box, is a Mayan wooden artifact in which viewers can do a three dimensional examination of the box where one can translates the inscriptions.
There is no information regarding the object characteristics nor meta data information. However, upon viewing it the resolutions do not seem to exceed 600 dpi nor are they bigger than 700 pixels in length or width. The descriptors for the holdings gives information about the Titles, publishing location or place of origin, the part of the collection that it belongs to, and the division that houses the Kislak collection.
The collection is made for a general audience. Those who might be interested in Precolumbian and Colonial American history would find this collection to be entertaining. The audio translation of the the Buccaneers book also allows one who does not speak Portugese to be able to understand the contents of this book. This online exhibition however is not intended for scholars or researchers as it is very limited in scope.
The Kislak collection samples fifty materials including books, maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts from the more than 4,000 items. The items were donated by collector Jay I. Kislak. The items donated include materials dating from pre-Columbian times to the point of Europeans and indigenous contact and continue into the time period of piracy and Trans Atlantic trade. Two noteworthy presentations from this collection allow for an interactive experience where users can explore these items further. The seventeenth-century book, The Buccaneers of America uses a technology that allows for a page by page turning experience. This program also reads the contents of the book in English. The seventh-century Tortuguero box, is a Mayan wooden artifact in which viewers can do a three dimensional examination of the box where one can translates the inscriptions.
There is no information regarding the object characteristics nor meta data information. However, upon viewing it the resolutions do not seem to exceed 600 dpi nor are they bigger than 700 pixels in length or width. The descriptors for the holdings gives information about the Titles, publishing location or place of origin, the part of the collection that it belongs to, and the division that houses the Kislak collection.
The collection is made for a general audience. Those who might be interested in Precolumbian and Colonial American history would find this collection to be entertaining. The audio translation of the the Buccaneers book also allows one who does not speak Portugese to be able to understand the contents of this book. This online exhibition however is not intended for scholars or researchers as it is very limited in scope.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Western Waters Digital Library
Western Waters Digital Library
Collection Principles
This digital library is a collaborative effort of 12 universities in the Western US and contains reports, literature, transcripts, water project records, personal papers, photo and video materials, all related to the Columbia, Colorado, Platte, and Rio Grande river basins. The library's materials reside on the different university websites but accessible through the main site. Funding was originally from an IMLS NL grant and subsequent grants have enabled the collection to grow. The site makes it easy to find information about the characteristics of the collection and information about any of the individual objects. The collection items are usually accessible and all images include good, descriptive alt tags.
Object Characteristics & Metadata
Images are viewable as thumbnails which take you to a page with a zoomable image and lots of metadata for each object with lots of links within that metadata.
Image digitization varies a bit between collections but all are done based on information from the following:
Most images come from highresolution master images (up to around 1200dpi).
Sample metadata categories for images are:
Overall a very nice digital library but could do with some machine readable text versions of old newspaper clippings and other images of text.
Ann Dobbs
Collection Principles
This digital library is a collaborative effort of 12 universities in the Western US and contains reports, literature, transcripts, water project records, personal papers, photo and video materials, all related to the Columbia, Colorado, Platte, and Rio Grande river basins. The library's materials reside on the different university websites but accessible through the main site. Funding was originally from an IMLS NL grant and subsequent grants have enabled the collection to grow. The site makes it easy to find information about the characteristics of the collection and information about any of the individual objects. The collection items are usually accessible and all images include good, descriptive alt tags.
Object Characteristics & Metadata
Images are viewable as thumbnails which take you to a page with a zoomable image and lots of metadata for each object with lots of links within that metadata.
Image digitization varies a bit between collections but all are done based on information from the following:
- Draft Benchmark for Digital Reproductions of Printed Books and Serial Publications, 30 July 2001
- Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging, July 2000
- Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access, 2000
- Western States Dublin Core Metadata Best Practices version 2.0 (PDF)
Sample metadata categories for images are:
Image File Name, Title, Description, Subject, Location, Material type, Identifier, Date.Original, Collection , Date.Digital, Digital Publisher, Type, Format, Digital Specifications, Cited by, Contributing Institution, Rights, File size, Print Orders (where to order them).
Text objects (not images of text) are available in html or pdf formats and can also be ordered from the collections. Images of text often present a problem because they are presented as images without accompanying machine-readable text, so those with disabilities would have difficulty with them.
Intended User Audience
The intended audience appears to be researchers, scholars, and the general public as well. I think the main audience is researchers, scholars, and students, though.Overall a very nice digital library but could do with some machine readable text versions of old newspaper clippings and other images of text.
Ann Dobbs
The McArdle Notebooks at the Texas State Library and Archives
The McArdle Notebooks
“Henry Arthur McArdle was born in 1836, the year in which
The site itself, an online exhibit by the Texas State Library and Archives, is relatively well done, and while sometimes the layout is a bit confusing, the site includes a page devoted to educating the viewer on how to properly navigate.
With over 231 items in the exhibit, I would venture to say that everything the repository had was digitized, if at all possible.
The metadata is quite scanty. Most of the time all that is given is the title of the material, which often includes the author of the work. Year, subject, medium, and description of the images are rare. The metadata for the collection as a whole is elucidated a bit more, as the introduction to the exhibit gives a relatively extensive history of the author-artist, the provenance of the collection, and the physical condition of the items.
"A decision was made early on to preserve the historic binding rather than to debind the notebooks. But how then would the books be handled in order to make digital copies of the hundreds of pages? Using a flatbed scanner was out of the question; the books could never withstand the constant handling and strain. Digital photography would have enabled high-resolution color digitization of the volumes, but unfortunately had to be ruled out because of cost considerations.
“This web site is designed to make these fragile rarities available for both the serious researcher and for the general public,” the site claims. However, if I personally were researching
SDMA: Welcome
SDMA: Welcome
The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art is a not-for-profit educational institution located at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
1. It appears they choose what to digitized based on what they feel is the most interesting and accurate representation of each of the different collections that they have in the permanent collection at the physical museum.
2. The metadata for each image consists of the author (if known), the name of the piece, the date, the country of origin, a brief description (such as: ink on paper with color or wood, pigment), dimensions, whether the item was from another collection or a gift from a art contributer, and a reference number that appears to be a date (perhaps the date the item entered into the collection?)
3. Accompanying most objects is a brief description of the history behind the item, particularly the African masks. The objects are photographed in one view (front-facing) and have no detailed viewing capabilities.
4. The website explains that "The Museum uses its collections and develops changing exhibitions primarily to enrich and amplify the academic programs at the College." This lead me to believe that the intended audience is any member of the college.
Southern Oregon Digital Archives
With the aid of a grant from IMLS, the Hannon Library on the campus of Southern Oregon University, in partnership with numerous libraries and government agencies, has built three digital collections – Southern Oregon Historical Collection, Bioregion Collection, and First Nations Collection. Together, these collections make up the Southern Oregon Digital Archives.
Selection Decisions
The goal of these projects is to represent regional history. The project staff has begun with textual documents that they think are of interest to researchers. The documents come from various repositories across the region including the Southern Oregon Historical Society, Jackson County Library, and Josephine County Library, and various government agencies.
Metadata
The website includes the project’s metadata guidelines, which are quite thorough. This document lists and describes all metadata elements for each object. The group used ArchivalWare by PTFS to enter and search metadata in the SODA database.
Object Characteristics
As of September 2006, the archives contained 2200 digitized documents. The collections include oral history transcripts, government documents, maps, correspondence, and other textual documents. These are presented as Adobe Acrobat documents, with both images and OCR text. They can therefore be searched or copied from. The project staff used Prime Recognition as their OCR software, and InputAccel for scanning the images. The images are very clear and easy to read. The project is geared toward both print and digital-born objects.
Audience
In contrast to the other projects I have covered this term, this digital collection is not suited to the general public. There is no browse option, which means that visitors need to have a specific topic or area of interest in mind. In addition, the documents are complete and in a format that facilitates research. The website includes very specific information about the project under the heading “About the SODA Project.”
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Washington Research Library Consortium
I visited the American University digital collection, (http://wrlc.olivesoftware.com/Default/Skins/WRLC/Client.asp?Skin=WRLC&GZ=T&AW=1193258927859&AppName=2) part of the Washington Research Library Consortium, which used Olive's Active paper to digitize its student newspaper, the American Eagle.
Selection Procedure: Certain issues from each month were digitized. The one I chose comes from December 16, 1927. My article concerned the choice of a new captain for the football team. All of the objects selected are copies of the American Eagle student newspapers from 1925 to 1996.
Object Characteristics: Newspapers from the American University American Eagle student paper. The Olive Active paper allows users to choose whichever article in the newspaper they would like to see in more detail. Active Paper first places a box around the selected article. Then, if the user wants to see that article he or she simply clicks on it.
Metadata: Due to the very user-friendly that Olive's Active Paper provides, an overly large amount of metadata is not necessary. There is a screen that allows the user to choose an American Eagle paper from a particular year, month and date. However, once that is done, Active Paper takes over and makes interaction with the digitized newspaper fairly straightforward. If the user moves the mouse cursor over an article and does not know to click it to open that article, Active Paper causes a small box with "click to open this article" to appear along with the box around the given article.
Intended audience: I believe, first and foremost, the intended audience for the digitization of the American University American Eagle Student newspaper is the students at American University. Furthermore, because it is part of the Washington Research Library Consortium, Washington DC area researchers are also targeted. Nevertheless, the fact that the American Eagle digitized newspapers are on the web and that they make use of Olive's Active Paper, opens their perusal to internet surfers everywhere. I believe Active Paper is the wave of the future for the digitization of newspapers or magazines because it such an easy to use and comfortable interface.
Selection Procedure: Certain issues from each month were digitized. The one I chose comes from December 16, 1927. My article concerned the choice of a new captain for the football team. All of the objects selected are copies of the American Eagle student newspapers from 1925 to 1996.
Object Characteristics: Newspapers from the American University American Eagle student paper. The Olive Active paper allows users to choose whichever article in the newspaper they would like to see in more detail. Active Paper first places a box around the selected article. Then, if the user wants to see that article he or she simply clicks on it.
Metadata: Due to the very user-friendly that Olive's Active Paper provides, an overly large amount of metadata is not necessary. There is a screen that allows the user to choose an American Eagle paper from a particular year, month and date. However, once that is done, Active Paper takes over and makes interaction with the digitized newspaper fairly straightforward. If the user moves the mouse cursor over an article and does not know to click it to open that article, Active Paper causes a small box with "click to open this article" to appear along with the box around the given article.
Intended audience: I believe, first and foremost, the intended audience for the digitization of the American University American Eagle Student newspaper is the students at American University. Furthermore, because it is part of the Washington Research Library Consortium, Washington DC area researchers are also targeted. Nevertheless, the fact that the American Eagle digitized newspapers are on the web and that they make use of Olive's Active Paper, opens their perusal to internet surfers everywhere. I believe Active Paper is the wave of the future for the digitization of newspapers or magazines because it such an easy to use and comfortable interface.
Canadians On Guard
Canadians on Guard is a virtual exhibit curated by the Toronto Public Library displaying jingoist posters from World War II and documents the shift of Canadian support from more financial/industrial towards a more proactive involvement.
Selection Decisions:
The exhibit is divided so that posters are grouped and presented on the basis of common themes. For instance, there is one page that displays broadsides detailing shortages of Canadian resources, and trying to promote a general sense of thrift throughout the country. Another features posters that warn of the repercussions of being loose with valuable information. As far as where this collection of posters came from and how the TPL put this exhibit together there is no real information.
Metadata:
For each object, information detailing the title, artist's name and dates, as well as when and by whom the broadside was issued is given. In addition, a brief summary describing how the poster was used is offered. What isn't offered, which would have been interesting to know, is information regarding the size and material of the pieces, as well as by what means they were digitized.
Object Characteristics:
Information regarding the technical aspects of the images and the objects themselves is also lacking. The larger images that appear when you click on the thumbnails are jpgs about 300x500, but that's about all I can glean.
Intended Audience:
The intended audience I would think would be those interested in WWII history or Canadian history, or even those interested in so-called 'war art'.
Transportation Futuristics
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/futuristics/index.html
This is an online exhibition created by the University of California. It examines efforts by those in the transportation industry to come up with creative new vehicles to solve existing problems. All of which didn’t work out for one reason or another.
This is an online exhibition created by the University of California. It examines efforts by those in the transportation industry to come up with creative new vehicles to solve existing problems. All of which didn’t work out for one reason or another.
1) Selection decisions
This virtual exhibit was created to accompany the installation in the McLaughlin-O'Brien Breezeway on the UC Berkeley campus. It appears that everything was drawn from the collection of the Transportation Library at Berkley. It appears that the creator included everything that his research turned up.
2) Metadata
The only information with the photographs are a caption and usually a call number, sometimes a book name and page number, occasionally there is only a caption with no source information.
Credits page lists the Futuristics Exhibit Curator and Project Director, Researchers, Captions and Essays writers, Website design and development personnel, and special thanks.
3) Object Characteristics
The images are web size only and are intended only for viewing on the web in this collection. They are very small usually about 500 pixels along the top; height varies depending on aspect ratio. The only naming schema is that each class of vehicles has a prefix on the file name (Automotive: auto_-----.jpg), after the prefix, naming is not consistent. The collection can’t be searched; it must be seen one image at a time in order. (Individual categories can be selected, images cannot).
4) Intended Audience
Audience is people who are interested in automotive history and futuristic speculation.
Carleton Watkins Photographs
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf2x0nb5r3&doc.view=entire_text&brand=oac
This is an archive of photographs by Carleton Watkins at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley. He was a 19th century photography who is best known for his landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and California. The online archive is put together by the Online Archive of California, which pulls from collections of universities, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions in California.
The online collection contains 140 photos; the entire Watkins collection that UC Berkeley owns is digitized and available online. Not all archived collections hosted by OAC are digitized, but it seems to me that all the photographs--whether entire collections or just one item in a collection--are digitized.
As this is a formal archive, there is an entire finding aid with information pertinent to the whole collection, including collection summary, repository information, access info, publication rights, preferred citation, acquisition information, biography and scope and content notes. Each image is labeled with title and number, identifier, collection, and home institution.
Each image was created from the Phoebe Hearst Museum originals which "were copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files." Each image can be viewed as a thumbnail, medium resolution, or high resolution. Each is also photographed with a gray scale and CMY scale.
I think Carleton Watkin's photographs would appeal to any one interested in art, especially landscape, and historic photography, and even people studying historical geography. The OAC archive is formally done, making it very scholarly but still very accessible to anyone.
This is an archive of photographs by Carleton Watkins at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley. He was a 19th century photography who is best known for his landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and California. The online archive is put together by the Online Archive of California, which pulls from collections of universities, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions in California.
The online collection contains 140 photos; the entire Watkins collection that UC Berkeley owns is digitized and available online. Not all archived collections hosted by OAC are digitized, but it seems to me that all the photographs--whether entire collections or just one item in a collection--are digitized.
As this is a formal archive, there is an entire finding aid with information pertinent to the whole collection, including collection summary, repository information, access info, publication rights, preferred citation, acquisition information, biography and scope and content notes. Each image is labeled with title and number, identifier, collection, and home institution.
Each image was created from the Phoebe Hearst Museum originals which "were copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files." Each image can be viewed as a thumbnail, medium resolution, or high resolution. Each is also photographed with a gray scale and CMY scale.
I think Carleton Watkin's photographs would appeal to any one interested in art, especially landscape, and historic photography, and even people studying historical geography. The OAC archive is formally done, making it very scholarly but still very accessible to anyone.
Spencer Collection of American Sheet Music
The Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Sheet Music at
Selection Decisions:
Baylor acquired the lifetime collection from Frances Spencer in 1965. Currently 934 titles are available to search or browse. The information that describes the collection is limited in its usefulness because it says the collection is organized into over 200 categories for browsing. That is clearly not the case on the digital collection so they must mean the physical collection. So that raises the question of how much/many of those categories are represented on this site and makes me wonder why they didn’t categorize the 934 titles in any way. It would make it easier for the user to get a sense of the selection decisions they made. There are a lot of compositions by/art depicting African Americans. It’s not clear whether this was an original collecting focus of Spencer or whether Baylor has selected out these titles to digitize.
Metadata:
Each page of each book of sheet music has a unique ID and there is a cool option to display the reference URL from any individual page on the site and get a persistent-linking URL that can be emailed or saved for later use. The 934 titles are numbered and show the title on the main browse page. At the item level view, each page is numbered. Although it’s easy to see who the composer is because they are high-quality images and the composer is generally shown, composer information is not called out in a summary field. Neither is date, publisher, or any other metadata info. Some of the objects are full-text searchable and they are all searchable by composer since composer information has been attached to each object (which you see only on the search results page).
Object Characteristics:
This collection was created using CONTENTdm and displays zoomable thumbnails in a familiar interface. Each object can be zoomed to 100% and panned. Each image is a tiff file. Some of the images have full text views which much have been hand-keyed because, as we learned last week, OCRing old sheet music is no cakewalk. Each object can be rotated and has the interesting ability to “clip” a portion of the image, which really amounts to selecting a portion of the image that will open automatically in a new window.
Audience:
Music historians and archivists would find this collection fascinating and useful. It’s fun for anyone with a general interest in music or art. African American/Cultural scholars would also find a lot of material here.
The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html
Collection Principals
The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress digital collection is made up of 20,000 documents. The collection is organized into three "General Correspondence" categories that include: incoming and outgoing correspondence, drafts of speeches, and notes. The majority of the material is from the 1850s through
The metadata available for the collection items is not rich. Title, category (correspondence, draft, etc.), date of creation, author (correspondences include letters to and from President Lincoln), file format and size. There is also a transcription option to view typed versions of the material.
Building the Digital Library lists offers information on the digitization process. The Abraham Lincoln Papers were microfilmed and indexed in 1947. The Lincoln Papers microfilm was raster scanned from a duplicate negative microfilm. The scanning was performed offsite by Preservation Resources. The digital images were produced in JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF). The images are 8-bit grayscale.
Intended Audience
Who hasn’t heard of Abraham Lincoln, right? Anyone interested in general American history or are interested in conducting research on Mr. Lincoln’s manuscripts would be interested in this collection. Organizations looking for best practices to guide their own efforts in creating a digital archive would find the specific information on the digitizing process bountiful and informative.
Collection Principals
The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress digital collection is made up of 20,000 documents. The collection is organized into three "General Correspondence" categories that include: incoming and outgoing correspondence, drafts of speeches, and notes. The majority of the material is from the 1850s through
Metadata
The metadata available for the collection items is not rich. Title, category (correspondence, draft, etc.), date of creation, author (correspondences include letters to and from President Lincoln), file format and size. There is also a transcription option to view typed versions of the material.
Object Characteristics
Building the Digital Library lists offers information on the digitization process. The Abraham Lincoln Papers were microfilmed and indexed in 1947. The Lincoln Papers microfilm was raster scanned from a duplicate negative microfilm. The scanning was performed offsite by Preservation Resources. The digital images were produced in JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF). The images are 8-bit grayscale.
Intended Audience
Who hasn’t heard of Abraham Lincoln, right? Anyone interested in general American history or are interested in conducting research on Mr. Lincoln’s manuscripts would be interested in this collection. Organizations looking for best practices to guide their own efforts in creating a digital archive would find the specific information on the digitizing process bountiful and informative.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Museum of the American Cocktail
The Museum of the American Cocktail was founded by a group of bartenders, collectors, historians, and writers on the subject of alcoholic mixed drinks. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education in mixology and preserving over two-hundred years of cocktail history. Despite its seemingly frivolous nature, this is a serious organization. They sponsor seminars, have permanent exhibits located in Las Vegas and New York (with a location in New Orleans as well), and have corporate sponsors. The website has a gift shop, which sells publication such as Shaken Not Stirred: A Celebration of the Martini.
The museum has members, who are allowed to log in to the site and can apparently gain access to special sections; there are different levels of membership, from $35 per year for bartenders and students, to corporate sponsors for $14,000 per year, to a “Patron” level for $20,000 per year or more. As I am not a member, I could only check out the free part of the website. It includes a virtual exhibit, on the evolution of the cocktail.
Selection Decisions
The exhibit consists largely of advertisements, cocktail recipes, and scans of woodcuts and photographs dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Also featured are certain curiosities and items of interest. All of the materials used in the exhibit belong to a collector. The earliest known usage of the term “cocktail”, for example, was in a Hudson, New York newspaper in 1806. The first mixed-drinks preparation manual was published in 1862. Sections of each of these items appear in the exhibit. There is also an item regarding an advertisement for Absinthe featuring a likeness of stage actress Sarah Bernhardt, who, not approving of the use of her image, took the company to court.
Metadata
Metadata is nonexistent. There is some textual explanation of some of the images, but no systematic description of anything located on the site.
Object Characteristics
The images were scanned as both GIFs and JPEGs. The images are fairly small, some of them only somewhat larger than thumbnails. One is not able to view larger versions of the images.
Intended Audience
The exhibit, as well as the entire website, exists to attract new members to the museum. Clearly, the people involved in it enjoy what they are doing, and they seek to attract like-minded people to their venture. The treatment they provide to the subject is more than superficial. However, anyone who wants to conduct serious research will need to join the museum, at which time they presumably will have greater access to the museum’s resources.
The museum has members, who are allowed to log in to the site and can apparently gain access to special sections; there are different levels of membership, from $35 per year for bartenders and students, to corporate sponsors for $14,000 per year, to a “Patron” level for $20,000 per year or more. As I am not a member, I could only check out the free part of the website. It includes a virtual exhibit, on the evolution of the cocktail.
Selection Decisions
The exhibit consists largely of advertisements, cocktail recipes, and scans of woodcuts and photographs dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Also featured are certain curiosities and items of interest. All of the materials used in the exhibit belong to a collector. The earliest known usage of the term “cocktail”, for example, was in a Hudson, New York newspaper in 1806. The first mixed-drinks preparation manual was published in 1862. Sections of each of these items appear in the exhibit. There is also an item regarding an advertisement for Absinthe featuring a likeness of stage actress Sarah Bernhardt, who, not approving of the use of her image, took the company to court.
Metadata
Metadata is nonexistent. There is some textual explanation of some of the images, but no systematic description of anything located on the site.
Object Characteristics
The images were scanned as both GIFs and JPEGs. The images are fairly small, some of them only somewhat larger than thumbnails. One is not able to view larger versions of the images.Intended Audience
The exhibit, as well as the entire website, exists to attract new members to the museum. Clearly, the people involved in it enjoy what they are doing, and they seek to attract like-minded people to their venture. The treatment they provide to the subject is more than superficial. However, anyone who wants to conduct serious research will need to join the museum, at which time they presumably will have greater access to the museum’s resources.
Alaska's Digital Archives
Alaska's Digital Archives is a collaborative effort to provide online resources related to Alaskan history and culture suitable for use by researchers and ordinary people interested in Alaska. There are 10,000 items online and these include documents as well as oral histories, maps, film clips and three-dimensional objects. The library is supported by the University of Alaska and the Alaska State Library so sustainability should not be an issue.
You can search by collection, mostly collections from the University of Alask, but including the Sitka tribe's collection as well. The metadata attached to the items is sufficient, although the tags are minimal (the subject of the item at left is "Men"--not very helpful). However, there is no information about the collection itself. Who are the Sitka? What is the backstory of teh collection and why was it chosen for the digitization project? I would have found this information interesting, as would many nonexpert viewers I suspect. It also would have provided insight into the selection process, information not available as it stands now. However, the collection does contain the holding institution's URL so there is an easy way to dig up more information or find someone to contact.
For the items themselves, the functionality is fairly good. The photographs can be manipulated, zoomed in on, and saved to a "favorites" folder. The included metadata varies but it seems as though when it is available the included information is quite extensive (as in this item), but for other items in the tribal collection at least many of the fields are empty and unexplained. Like many of the collections we have seen, the original emphasis was on photographs and (to some extent) documents and they moved into other media later on. The multimedia metadata is not as extensive as the photographs.
The search function is decent, although the advanced search does not allow you to select by year. For example. I looked for "oil" and hit many irrelevent items: however, I was able to refine them through entering "petroleum" instead. One missing function is the capacity for using the subject terms as hyperlinks--I could not just click on "Petroleum," I had to enter it as a search term. Annoying. One positive thing is that both of the collections I looked at contained multimedia items, which are clearly labelled as such and the software requirements delineated in the FAQs.
Overall, the Alaska Digital Library has made a pretty good start, and should be commended for building a collection of diverse digital materials with decent metadata. Additional functionality would be useful for thinking of the collection as a stand-alone digital entity, but the empahsis seems to still be largely on faciliting the use of particular collectioons: hence the proximity-search function and the collection URL. Perhaps the project sees itself as a gateway to the collections? For both the casual user and the researcher, however, one location through which to find the digital resources is a handy thing indeed. Even if for truly comprehensive information a serious researcher would still want to contact the archives directly.
Monday, October 22, 2007
South African Rock Art Digital Archive
The South African Rock Art Digital Archive is a collection of drawings, re-drawings, historical documents, and slides depicting rock art from South Africa. After digitizing their own collection, the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) decided to use their experience and expertise to digitize important items from both private and institutional collections in the African continent. The project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
1) Selection Decisions
The items digitized are chosen by RARI and are taken from a variety of institutions. No specific selection data is provided on the website, and the only qualifier used is that the items need to be "important" to the rock art field. RARI initially digitized it's own collection with the primary intent of preserving it's materials. It is implied that the organization chooses the items to be digitized based on preservation over access.
2) Metadata
Alongside each image is basic descriptive metadata, including image type, material, medium, and description. Structural metadata is also provided, and includes an image ID number, a collection code, as well as a corresponding DVD name. Images are also arranged by collection, subject, and author. The current location of the item and who owns the copy are listed beside the image.
3) Object Characteristics
Items are scanned using one of three different scanners, depending on the material format. The scanners have different resolution capabilities, and items are scanned at various dpi's. After the item is scanned, an archival copy is stored on DVD. The images available online are jpg files, and vary in resolution. Thumbnails of the images are displayed as search results, and a larger image is displayed along with the metadata. The image can be made larger still, but it is not possible to zoom in further than this.
4) Intended Audience
The collection is intended for researchers and historians who would use the physical collection of rock art at RARI and other institutions like it. The digital collection's mission is to provide increased access to researchers and the general public in order to facilitate further research.
The Walt Whitman Archives
The Walt Whitman Archives is an online collection that incorporates resources from libraries and collections from around the United States, and is affiliated with the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This collection attempts to make electronically available the extensive amount of Whitman's written material. His work includes 6 editions of Leaves of Grass, poems, essays, letters, notebooks, and manuscripts. Whitman's work is often challenging to present. The goal of this online collection is to contribute to Whitman scholarship. Editions of Leaves of Grass and his various manuscripts have been previously inaccessible. The site also includes an extended biography, maps of Whitman-related locations, short essays by and about Whitman's friends and associates, contemporary reviews of his work, photographs of Whitman with annotations, introductions to each edition of Leaves of Grass, and an up-to-date bibliography of works regarding Whitman. All these resources are included as a means of providing context to Whitman's writings.
For each manuscript, a transcription is offerred, in addition to the ability to view images of the original. The images are offered in 3 sizes: small, large, and zoom. The zoom feature is tremendous, with the ability to show a great amount of crisp detail. When viewing the editions of Leaves of Grass, the user has the option to view digitized images of each individual page.
A section of the website is devoted to all known photographs of Whitman. Each JPEG image includes date, place, photographer, type, credit to what collection the image came from, and annotated notes.
This online collection is a comprehensive authority for scholars. The materials gathered here are scattered in various physical locations. To aid the researcher, the site offers links to finding aids from individual repositories.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Field Museum's Darwin exhibition
At Chicago's Field Museum, there is an exhibition called "Darwin," which is running from June 15, 2000 to January 1, 2008. The exhibition comes 150 years after The Origin of the Species was published, and traces Darwin's life and discoveries through personal artifacts such as manuscripts, photographs, and letters. In addition, "Darwin" features interactive displays and interviews with contemporary scientists.
The "All About Darwin" section is purely text. The "Photo Gallery" has 18 photos of items that can be seen in the exhibition. Each image appears as a 120 x 101 pixel JPG thumbnail. When the user clicks on it, a separate window opens to a 523 x 403 pixel JPG image. The images are quite clear and brilliant. Unfortunately, the website is not designed so that the user can simply go directly from that enlarged image to the next. Instead, s/he must close the window and click on another thumbnail.
In terms of metadata for these images, each includes a brief description of the image and how it relates to Darwins's life and works. It gives a good idea of what visitors will see if they come to the exhibition. Also beneath each photo, there is the copyright symbol, the name of the photographer, and his/her organization (e.g., Joe McDonald, Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland).
To make the connection between Darwin's work and the current work being conducted by Field Museum researchers, there is a "Field Museum Research" section. It includes biographies of scientists and their photos. These photos were all taken by J. Weinstein of the Field Museum and the copyright information includes the unique identifier for the photograph (i.e., GN90809_21d).
Overall, this is a very attractive website. It is clearly intended for those curious to see what is going on at the Field Museum. The explicit connection between Darwin's groundbreaking work on evolution and the research by modern researchers at the museum are particularly appealing for those who want to see the how Darwin's work is being applied today. It also gives viewers a glimpse into the world of an evolutionary scientist. The site, while not aimed for children, is certainly aimed at their parents and teachers; it includes "Educational Resources" as well as special "Events and Programs" (lectures, films, games). And finally, the exhibition website includes a cute "E-Card" feature that allows viewers to send a Darwin-related photo and a message.
National Park Service Digital Image Index
This week I looked at the National Park Service Digital Image Index, a collection of images of national parks and events associated with national parks. The images are available for download as a JPEG or PCD.
Selection decisionsIt looks as if the NPS posts all public domain images on this site, so that the only requirements for an image to be included is that it is of a park and is in the public domain. The site doesn’t mention if a certain individual takes the photographs, though if they are in the public domain I believe that must mean that a NPS employee has taken them on the job.
Metadata
The metadata for the site is minimal. The only real descriptive metadata is the name of the park with which the image is associated, one of the search terms. Several of the links are broken. When you click on an image, it will also tell you what state the park is in. For administrative metadata, the filenames are labeled per park name and then with a four-digit number.
The images can also be searched by subject, such as Employees and Volunteers, or Youth Programs. However, these aren’t all available and several of them have very few images available.
The images are available in three formats: thumbnail, JPEG, and PCD or TIFF. Unfortunately their use of the PCD file format is not very sustainable since it is a proprietary format (Kodak). The other formats, however, are sustainable.
Intended Audience
The intended audience is anyone who needs to repurpose an image of the NPS. I would expect the site to be better linked to the NPS homepage; however, I had trouble clicking through from there – it was easiest found using Google.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Urban Archives
This week, I looked at www.urbanarchives.org, a collection of photographs of art in public spaces, such as graffiti, yard art, and signage, compiled by students at the University of Washington with the goal of encouraging the study of communication in public spaces.
Selection Decisions: It’s difficult to tell what decisions were made when selecting the images to be displayed on the website. This project began in 2004, and these images were all produced for this project, so I might assume that all of these images were born digital, captured on digital cameras and loaded directly onto this Web site. I might guess that the faculty members in charge of this project have selected which photos to display based on the usefulness of the images to their mission of studying communication in public spaces.
Metadata: Data about the images is very well supplied on this site, which is integrated into the University of Washington library system digital collections database structure. For each image, the site provides a title, date, time, description, location, item number, format, photographer, copyright holder, and collection and series names. Seeing as these images were born digital for the building of a specific collection, metadata like this can be very thorough. Unfortunately (and surprisingly), technical metadata is missing from this collection where I’m sure such information should be available. I might attribute this to the existing structure of the UW libraries site.
Digital Object Characteristics: The photos in this collection are all very high quality. However, the structure of the UW libraries’ “Contentdm” database limits the amount of enlargement that the user is able to do. If someone were interested in studying the intense details of a specific piece of graffiti art, for example, this site does not allow for the best possible quality. I would say that this negates the mission of the Urban Archive to make urban art from all over the world available for study. These images don’t allow quite enough depth.
Intended Audience: The goal of the Urban Archive is to make worldwide urban art and communication available for study anywhere in the world. Therefore, the intended audience would be anyone with interests in studying these media of art and communication.
Mujeres Latinas Digital Collection
Mujeres Latinas Digital Collection
This particular which began in 2004 is collection that focuses on documenting the history of Mexican and Chicana women in
The collection is a part of the Iowa Digital Library system which is a collection of 75,000 digital objects in print, audio and visual materials. The actual coordination of the Digital library is done through The University of Iowa's Digital Library Services. This organization handles the digital creation and management of all the Universities digital holdings.
There is no information regarding the assessment of materials nor the collection development practices. As for metadata content the website simply states Digital Library Services creates, "metadata based on standards and best practices". As such, their goals are not clearly defines. The formats used to digitize the collections are also not clearly defined. However, one only has to click on an item to view its cataloging information and digital format. Access to certain holdings are also restricted to use on campus. This includes certain audio files and visual materials.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Akron Library History
Collection Principles
This is an online digital exhibit depicting the history of the Akron-Summit County Public Library from its inception as a subscription library to the larger library system as it exists today. The exhibit is divided into main categories including the earliest materials they have documenting the library, the materials surrounding the decision to go public, art that has been featured at the library, and various other developments.
Object Characteristics
Within each category are different documents ranging from minutes of meetings to scanned photographs. Accompanying each is a brief description summarizing the item and its significance with regard to the larger body of material. Some of the images are tiff files and can be zoomed in on slightly, others are jpgs.
Metadata
In addition to the description accompanying each item, there are also the title, author/creator where appropriate, date, size, location, subject headings and filenames.
Intended Audience
My guess is that the audience for this exhibit is relatively small, but would include anyone interested in Akron or Ohio history, specifically libraries, or library history in general.
Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1100-1850)
Web Gallery of Art
Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1100-1850)
Collection Principles
The original stated goal of the collection was to be a virtual museum/database of Renaissance art that originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century. It then grew to incorporate adjoining countries and time-frames, and has evolved into a more comprehensive collection that includes the Medieval roots of Renaissance art to the art it evolved into and subsequent art periods: Baroque, Rococco, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism. It is still mainly geared to paintings and sculpture but some additional sections have been added but their contents are sketchy collections in general.
The information about the collection, including mission statement, legal rights, general information on the objects, how to use the collection, additional services, accessories, etc., is fairly detailed and easily viewable via the Info page. Although they state that the images are only viewable on the web and not downloadable at print resolution, that is somewhat debatable when some are available at 300dpi, albeit at a small size. They also have numerous links by images on the "print friendly" pages or elsewhere, to commercial entities that either sell authorized prints or painted copies of the originals. Kind of makes the funding sources a bit more intriguing...
Funding sources aren't well covered although credit is given to the Computer Networking Center of KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of the
Object Characteristics/Metadata
The images are jpegs and are well-scanned for use on the web but the naming convention pretty much stinks: there isn't one.
The
; there doesn't seem to be a good system at all. The images are displayed with the title, date, media, source, and comment. They state that the information accommpanies the downloaded images. The metadata is sketchy at best and not easily transferable to other systems.
NGA - Medieval Metalwork and Enamels
NGA - Medieval Metalwork and Enamels
Collection Principles: This online exhibition is one of the National Gallery's online tours, and the objects in it are classified as decorative arts. The idea here seems to be to bring together some of the finest examples of the decorative arts from each of the collections housed at the National Gallery, and to put images of them online so that they are more widely accessible. The "selected online tours" consist, as the label suggests, of only a selection of objects from within the whole collection. The Medieval Metalwork and Enamels tour is a selected tour.
Object Characteristics: The format of the digital versions of these objects does not differ much from the physical objects themselves. The view is provided with a digital image of the physical object, and the option to view what is called a "full screen" image, but which is really just a slightly larger image without all the text surrounding it. There is no zoom capability. However, the link to "detail images" provides larger images of parts of the physical objects.
Metadata: Each digital image is accompanied by a citation related to what the physical object itself is. For example, the citation of the first object on the Medieval Metalwork and Enamels tour is "French 12th Century (cup Alexandrian 2nd/1st Century B.C.)
French 12th Century
French
Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, 2nd/1st century B.C. (cup); 1137-1140 (mounting)
sardonyx cup with heavily gilded silver mounting, adorned with filigrees set with stones, pearls, glass insets, and opaque white glass pearls, height: 18.4 cm (7 1/4 in.)
diam. at top: 12.4 cm (4 7/8 in.)
diam. at base: 11.7 cm (4 5/8 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.277"
There is a lso a brief description of each object's significance and importance. One also has the option to view information by clicking on the following links: bibliography, conservation notes, detail images, exhibition history, location, and provenance. Metadata about the digital image is not made available, nor or there any statements regarding the terms of use of the digital images.
Intended Audience: My impression is that the intended audience for this online tour is the general public. I do not think that any of these tours were designed to aid scholars in research, since the information provided about the physical objects is introductory in nature and the images do not allow for examination of the physical objects in great detail. This is not to say, however, that these digital images would not be of use to scholars; but this segment of the viewing population does not seem to be the primary target audience.
Collection Principles: This online exhibition is one of the National Gallery's online tours, and the objects in it are classified as decorative arts. The idea here seems to be to bring together some of the finest examples of the decorative arts from each of the collections housed at the National Gallery, and to put images of them online so that they are more widely accessible. The "selected online tours" consist, as the label suggests, of only a selection of objects from within the whole collection. The Medieval Metalwork and Enamels tour is a selected tour.
Object Characteristics: The format of the digital versions of these objects does not differ much from the physical objects themselves. The view is provided with a digital image of the physical object, and the option to view what is called a "full screen" image, but which is really just a slightly larger image without all the text surrounding it. There is no zoom capability. However, the link to "detail images" provides larger images of parts of the physical objects.
Metadata: Each digital image is accompanied by a citation related to what the physical object itself is. For example, the citation of the first object on the Medieval Metalwork and Enamels tour is "French 12th Century (cup Alexandrian 2nd/1st Century B.C.)
French 12th Century
French
Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, 2nd/1st century B.C. (cup); 1137-1140 (mounting)
sardonyx cup with heavily gilded silver mounting, adorned with filigrees set with stones, pearls, glass insets, and opaque white glass pearls, height: 18.4 cm (7 1/4 in.)
diam. at top: 12.4 cm (4 7/8 in.)
diam. at base: 11.7 cm (4 5/8 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.277"
There is a lso a brief description of each object's significance and importance. One also has the option to view information by clicking on the following links: bibliography, conservation notes, detail images, exhibition history, location, and provenance. Metadata about the digital image is not made available, nor or there any statements regarding the terms of use of the digital images.
Intended Audience: My impression is that the intended audience for this online tour is the general public. I do not think that any of these tours were designed to aid scholars in research, since the information provided about the physical objects is introductory in nature and the images do not allow for examination of the physical objects in great detail. This is not to say, however, that these digital images would not be of use to scholars; but this segment of the viewing population does not seem to be the primary target audience.
The Wright Brothers in Photographs Collection
http://www.libraries.wright.edu/special/wright_brothers/
The Wright Brothers in Photographs Collection is a collection of digital images from Wright State University Libraries’ Wright Brothers Collection. It is hosted by the History & Archives Collections database of the OhioLINK Digital Media Center (DMC) and documents the invention of powered flight and the lives of the Wright family.
1) Selection decisions
A large majority of the photographs in the collection are online, but there is a portion that is not. The site notes which parts of the collection are not online but do not say why. I suspect that they will all be online eventually, but I don’t know why they chose the order of digitization that they did.
2) Metadata
Metadata described are: Title, Description, Place, Date, Creator, Subject, Work Type, Copyright, Terms of Use, Contributor, Collection, Repository Name, Repository Place, Repository number.
There is also a complete inventory of the archival holdings
Controlled Vocabulary taken from: Library of Congress Subject Headings, Report Nos. 91 and 240: Nomenclature for Aeronautics, and Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms (TGM II).
3) Object Characteristics
The actual images are quite small. There are zooming and pan capabilities but the images are small enough to fit on the screen at full resolution so there is nothing to zoom or pan to. (You can buy prints or negatives if you want quality images)
4) Intended Audience
Audience is anyone interested in the history of aviation or the Wright brothers in general. The actual digitization seems to be for the convenience of researchers wanting to know what the photographs look like.
The Wright Brothers in Photographs Collection is a collection of digital images from Wright State University Libraries’ Wright Brothers Collection. It is hosted by the History & Archives Collections database of the OhioLINK Digital Media Center (DMC) and documents the invention of powered flight and the lives of the Wright family.
1) Selection decisions
A large majority of the photographs in the collection are online, but there is a portion that is not. The site notes which parts of the collection are not online but do not say why. I suspect that they will all be online eventually, but I don’t know why they chose the order of digitization that they did.
2) Metadata
Metadata described are: Title, Description, Place, Date, Creator, Subject, Work Type, Copyright, Terms of Use, Contributor, Collection, Repository Name, Repository Place, Repository number.
There is also a complete inventory of the archival holdings
Controlled Vocabulary taken from: Library of Congress Subject Headings, Report Nos. 91 and 240: Nomenclature for Aeronautics, and Thesaurus for Graphic Materials II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms (TGM II).
3) Object Characteristics
The actual images are quite small. There are zooming and pan capabilities but the images are small enough to fit on the screen at full resolution so there is nothing to zoom or pan to. (You can buy prints or negatives if you want quality images)
4) Intended Audience
Audience is anyone interested in the history of aviation or the Wright brothers in general. The actual digitization seems to be for the convenience of researchers wanting to know what the photographs look like.
Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces
An Exhibition Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Trials of Oscar Wilde
“To commemorate the centenary of the Wilde trials, this exhibition and catalogue of essays return to the many sites of disruption visited by, profoundly changed by, Oscar Wilde. Drawing on the extensive holdings of first editions, autograph letters, photographs, periodicals, and ephemera from the Fales Collection of English and American Fiction, graduate students in the Victorian Studies Group at New York University trace the powerful impact of Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic, political, spiritual, and moral circles of late-Victorian England. The books and manuscripts analyzed, interpreted, and displayed are the textual fossil remains of the culture of Oscar Wilde's transgressions and containment. The exhibition, first mounted in the Fales Collection of NYU's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, has now been adapted for the World Wide Web.”
The Victorian Studies graduate students chose from the available Wilde-related materials in the Fales Collection, and digitized those which they felt best represented themes in his life (Wilde and Religion, Wilde’s Theater, Prison, etc.) As it is an exhibition marking the centennial of his trials, the materials mainly focus on the controversial and/or scandalous aspects of his life.
The metadata for the images is relatively thorough- I believe the graduate students handling the materials included all of the metadata they could find into the exhibit. Some metadata included are: material type, title, provenance, date, author, publisher, and artist, if applicable. Additionally, the graduate students include instructive paragraphs to accompany each image, adding context and additional details the viewer would otherwise miss. The collection as a whole isn’t as well described, except to mention that it was originally in the Bobst Library at NYU, and from the Fales Collection. The names of processors, call numbers, and the dates of the exhibition are not included.
This is an older website if it was created contemporaneously with the centennial of the trials, approximately published in 1995 or so. The simplistic design of the site itself betrays its age; however, the digitized images are clear, well-lit, relatively large, and good quality, at approximately 600 x 800 pixels when enlarged. Although rare, disappointingly some items are not digitized for the web, and are just typed copies of the letter contents. The images are almost certainly not as large as the originals, but the quality is usually enough so that the details are clearly visible.
The intended audience is probably for the most part fans of Oscar Wilde, as well as Victorian Studies, European History, or English students. This site could possibly substitute for seeing the materials in person, as the quality is quite good, but as usual, serious Wilde scholars would undoubtedly like to visit the Bobst Library for themselves.
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