Fortunoff Video Archive :: Home

Fortunoff Video Archive :: Home

Collection Principles

The collection had a well-defined goal of creating videos of Holocaust witnesses relating their personal memories as a "living portrature" to " add a compassionate and sensitive dimension to the historical record". The collection now resides at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, and has funding through an endownment for long-term sustainability. It's available to anyone via the web. The collection is constantly expanding.

Testimonies are recorded in whatever language the witness prefers, and range in length from one-half hour to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).

The Archive currently holds more than 4,300 testimonies, which are comprised of over 10,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies are produced in cooperation with 37 affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel, and each project maintains a duplicate collection of locally recorded videotapes.

The Archive currently holds more than 4,300 testimonies, which are comprised of over 10,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies are produced in cooperation with 37 affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel, and each project maintains a duplicate collection of locally recorded videotapes.

The catalog is available to the general public through Orbis and (through subscription) WorldCat.

Metadata includes subject matter, geographic names, time aids, and more.

Intended audience is mainly researchers, students, and scholars.

Yea!5pm just madeit

Ann

Digital Scriptorium

Digital Scriptorium

Digital Scriptorium, a collection of digital images from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, is quite simply the most marvelous digital collection that I have encountered thus far. It basically tells you everything that you might want to know about these digital objects, from how they were digitized to how they will be maintained in the future.

Collection Principles: The principle behind the selection of manuscripts is clearly defined. The website states the Digital Scriptorium focuses on MSS signed and dated by the scribe who copied them. Their goal is to make available MSS that are generally considered "unlikely candidates for reproduction" and therefore, without DS, would only be available within the institutions that own them. Attention is given to copyright issues concerning the objects, as well as to privacy issues connected with the viewer. Since the DS incorporates MSS from a number of institutions, it fosters a national and international initiative to make resources available to a wider community.

Object Characteristics: Digital images of the physical objects are displayed in either a thumbnail (128 x 192 pixels), small (512 x 768 pixels), medium (1024 x 1536 pixels), or large (2048 x 3072 pixels) format using the jpg file type. There is no zoom capability within the different sizes, but the large format provides as much detail as most users would require. The objects each have persistent unique identifiers, are digitized according to standards of best practice, and have ample associated metadata.

Metadata: A bevy of information is available concerning the way in which these objects were digitized. The technical information page associated with DS contains information on managing and contributing DS data, tools for contributing DS data via XM, guidelines for contributing DS images (including requirements for imaging standards, such as the inclusion of standard reference targets, file naming conventions, lighting, scanning, and post-photography processing). The metadata concerning the physical objects that these digital images represent is extensive, including such things as the contributing library's catalog record, the place and date of MS production, a physical description, country of origin, region, script, number of text within the MS, and number of scribes. Some individual images are accompanied by notes pertaining to the contents of the page, characteristics of special interest (such as ownership marks or bindings), or other items of note. As noted previously, conditions of use are specified in another part of the website.

Intended Audience: The "About Digital Scriptorium" page states that "Digital Scriptorium looks to the needs of a very diverse community of medievalists, classicists, musicologists, paleographers, diplomatists and art historians." DS is really intended to be a tool for scholars. Most of the MSS digitized would not be of much interest to the general public; many of the texts were written by individuals that none of specialists would recognize, and few of the MSS contain the kind of fantastic illumination and "decoration" that is widely appealing. However, in the words of one respondent to the DS survey, "For those of us who can't hop over to Europe every time we'd like to, this is an important resource to help keep our research interests alive and moving forward."

Online Titanic Museum

“The Online Titanic Museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Titanic; her twin sisters Olympic and Britannic and the White Star Line - the shipping line that owned and operated the three "Olympic Class" steamers.This website is a virtual display of my private collection of authentic Titanic related artifacts and memorabilia.”

While generally easy to navigate, the website, as a whole, seems unprofessionally done and is old-fashioned looking. Calling the site a “museum,” in my mind, is a stretch.

Since the digitized materials are a private enthusiast’s collection, rather than from a museum’s holdings, I’m lead to believe that everything the unnamed collector possesses is digitized for the website. The materials themselves are not particularly exhaustive in regard to the history of the Titanic. Many are just “related” items, reproductions, or posters advertising Titanic museum exhibits. I’d imagine that the collector digitizes and posts whatever he picks up at auctions, as he exhorts the viewer: “The collection is constantly growing so be sure to check back often!”

The metadata, while present and certainly better than no data whatsoever, is generally lacking. Sometimes the collector will add a date the material was created, an auction purchase date, and provenance, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule. All items are at least accompanied by a non-professional sounding blurb, vaguely explaining what the item is and its possible significance.

The materials are initially viewed as uniform 120 x 95px thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnail augments the image, but not drastically. The enlarged images are not particularly impressive at about 300 x 300 pixels each. They cannot be enlarged any further. The images are generally of poor quality: colors are dull, the images are often too dark, and hardly any detail can be seen. I’d imagine these were scanned by a layman using an out-of-date or inexpensive machine, or photographed in poor lighting conditions with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

The intended audience is almost certainly non-professional, lay historians with an interest in the history of the Titanic disaster. The website was created in 1998, during the craze for the movie “Titanic” which was released that year. The collector probably wished to cash in a bit on the renewed public interest generated by the film, as indicated by the ads at the bottom of the home page, and the prominently featured link to its CafePress Titanic-themed apparel store.

The Museum of Fred

A collection of art culled from thrift stores, The Museum of Fred was created by Fred Beshid around 2000. Despite getting a fair amount of press, the museum does not seem to have been actively updated in years. There is a healthy anti-elitist, egalitarian bent to Beshid's brief introduction (which has faith that the internet could free museums from 'wealthy patrons' and the 'blue-chip artists' that they favor), but I think the real interest here is the specificity of selecting art from thrift stores, and the strange aesthetic that those works seem to share.

1. Selection Decisions
Little is written about how these works were chosen, but we do know that the works were 'donated to thrift stores' where Beshid purchased them. He doesn't mention where, regionally, they were purchased, or when he found them. They do tend to share a palette and style, which could be representative of Beshid's aesthetic biases, a certain period or region that he came upon most frequently, or characteristics similar to hobbyist painting. The museum is split into six categories based on the subject of the paintings, which may simply be for the website itself, or it may be that Beshid only buys within these categories.

2. Metadata
There is no metadata. Absolutely none. It's the most frustrating thing bout the site. Even if there were no signatures or dates (and it's clear from some of the images that there are), the date and place of purchase could be given, dimensions, other physical descriptions, etc.

3. Object Characteristics
The images themselves are offered as small thumbnails in a sort of gallery view, and when clicked, they open as a larger image in a separate window. This largest size is still too small to really appreciate, and the photos themselves should be leveled, they all seem a bit dull and dark.

4. Audience
Beshid obviously wants as broad an audience as possible. He envisions digital museums as being able to fill a gap left by institutional collections, so presumably is courting the common museum-goer, though I imagine he also sees a collection of art created by what he calls 'ordinary people' as being of more interest to 'ordinary people' than traditional museum fare.

Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990

The UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections has digitized over 5,000 of their photographs from the LA Times and LA Daily News photo archives for the collection Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990. These photographs document the history of Los Angeles from 1920s to 1990.

Selection Decisions
UCLA chose photos that capture “historically and socially significant” people, places, and events as well as images of everyday life. They ordered the photos under categories that document politics, urban and economic development, arts and culture, the entertainment industry, crime and law enforcement, religion, sports, gender issues, and popular culture and trends.

Metadata
Users can browse or search by keyword. When searching by keyword, users can search in the title or caption and limit by genre, format, or publication. Each photo is accompanied by catalog record information that includes the title, published caption, publication, date, subjects, genre, physical description, source, photo ID, and copyright contact.

Object Characteristics
All photographs are black and white, which is to be expected given that they are newspaper photos. It appears that all of the they are all either transparencies or negatives. The digitized images include the edges of the film, so users can identify whether it is a negative or a transparency, and even what type of film was used. The images are in a high resolution jpeg format.

Audience

This digital collection is made available and searchable online through the UCLA Digital Library. It is therefore geared toward any number of people. According to the site, it is meant to “assist a wide variety of researchers, including scholars, educators, students, writers, filmmakers, urban planners, community activists, librarians, and members of the general public.”

Fashion Plate Collection

This week I'm looking at the Fashion Plate Collection at the University of Washington's Library's Special Collection Digital Collection.


http://content.lib.washington.edu/costumehistweb/index.html

The items in the collection come from Payne Blanche, who was a professor of apparel and costume at the univeristy. The items are mostly hand colored engravings and lithographs spanning a vareity of eras and countires. There are 417 plates digitized. They say that the complete collection is not digitized, however they do not say how many items are in the actual collection, so it is hard to tell if this is a small or large portion of the collection. It does seem to have a sampling from each subject area within the collection though.

The metadata is very complete. Each item has title, publisher, place, date, original source, notes (such as transcription of image captions), keyword links, LC subject headings, historical period links, digital collection title, number, ordering/reproduction information, repository collection, object type, physical description, and finally transmission data (how and when it was scanned).

Each object is described in its original form (such as type of print, by whom, when, where, size) and in its digital form (most seem to be scanned at 150 dpi in JPEG format, resized to about 768x600 ppi). From the homepage of the collection there is a page called "about the database" which states: "The images were scanned in color using a Microtek Scanmaker 9600L and saved in .jpg format. Some manipulation of the images was done to present the clearest possible digital image. The scanned images were then linked with descriptive data using the UW Content program." The only problem with the digital objects, for me, is that they aren't big enough! There is a zoom feature, but you can't go beyong 100% and this image just isn't quite large enough to see much detail.

The audience is the general public. Unlike U Penn's collection which I looked at last week, this UW's collections seem to be fully available to anyone, not just university associates. They make it very easy for anyone to use and I think this would be a very good place to get an overview of the topic and a general understanding of the fashion of these eras. This site makes it possible and easy to do further research. Anyone wishing to do in depth studies would have to contact the university to order reproductions or go to the library to see the real thing, as the digital images aren't quite big enough.

American History Documents

http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/history/history.html
American History Documents is a very small digital exhibition by the University of Indiana Lilly Library showing famous and important documents from US history.

1) Selection decisions:
There are only 14 items in the digital collection. All are items in the possession of the Lilly Library at IU. Therefore it appears that the collection consists of all the documents of national historical interest they possessed.

2) Metadata:
There is no Metadata for the collection as a whole. Individual Items are labeled what they are and dated. There is a library location listed for the item. They also have a short historical sketch to show their significance. Of Items that include handwritten text there is a link to the transcribed text.

3) Object Characteristics:
This is a low resolution collection, the thumbnail on each page lead to a copy that is always 800 pixels on its widest side. There is now overall naming scheme. The file names are the same as when the file was originally retrieved to be used in the project, implying that they were not all digitized at the same time. Also the collection includes multi page document s but usually only the first page is shown. At best 2 pages.

4) Intended audience:
Not scholars. Just people who want to see what they looked like. This is evident in the incomplete low-res copies presented. All in all quite useless.

Bathtub Art Museum

Bathtub Art Museum

This week I looked at the Bathtub Art Museum. It is a non-for-profit museum dedicated to the bathtub in art. The digitized pieces range from art bathtub birthday cakes, bathtub postcards from as early as the 1920s, physical bathtubs from bathhouses, comics about the bathtub, and works from tub "artists".

1. They appear to digitized anything and everything bathtub related. There is even a disclaimer at the bottom of the tub artist page that states: "We are always looking for new tub artists. If you are a tub artist or know someone, please contact the museum". They even managed to digitize birthday cakes that featured a bathtub. There is a section devoted to handmade postcards from not only the US but around the world. I have a feeling if you sent them something with a bathtub in it that they would put it right up on the museum site.

2. I was actually kind of impress by the metadata for each piece. I would have liked more detail into the physical features of the postcards as well as the dimensions of the actual bathtubs but they went into detail on what the bathtub cakes were made of as well as where the supplies were purchased.

3. The objects in the museum were presented very well. If I was a bathtub scholar of some sort I would be please by the many different bathtub objects. Most of the pictures allowed you to zoom click and gave the reader a background story/history lesson on the piece.

4. The intended is anyone who is interested in bathtubs in art or in advertisements/commercial endeavors. I thought the postcard sections would be of particular interest to any scholar who might be looking into the history of sexuality in society or at least postcard art.

The Pitt County Digital Tobacco History Exhibit is a website devoted to the history of the rise of tobacco farming in Pitt County, North Carolina.

Collection Principles

This exhibit is part of a broader collection of Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits which was put together by the Joyner Library of East Carolina University. The tobacco exhibit includes a few different formats of information and is divided into Business, Newspapers, Warehouses, Census, and Records/Photos in an attempt to facilitate research and navigation. The majority of the material was taken from the North Carolina Collection and Special Collections. As far as what material was selected the exhibit was curated to show the tobacco industry grew and developed in Pitt County and "allow the user to understand this important phenomenon in the context of socio-economic trends."

Metadata

Each item is provided with its corresponding title and publication date (where applicable), as well as the location and call number. One is also able to access the full catalog record as well. In addition, a brief statement providing context is provided for many of the items. Information regarding the technical aspects of the scanning, however, does not seem to be available.

Object Characteristics

One thing about this exhibit that kind of perplexes me is that certain items are inexplicably not scanned. For instance, there is the case where in lieu of scanning newspaper articles the website simply provides the text. However, the newspaper advertisements are indeed scanned. Where items are scanned the quality is good and one is able to click on them for a larger image.

Intended Audience

In the introduction to the exhibit it states, "It is the hope of J.Y. Joyner Library that this exhibit will be useful to scholars, students at all levels, local historians, and family historians." In particular, I would imagine people interested in North Carolina and the tobacco industry would be particularly interested.

Star Wars Archive

www.chez.com/swguide

When it comes to StarWars this website claims to be “your source for: movie, facts, toys, products, catalogs, docs, ads and more…” We’ll see about that.

Collection Principles
This is a collection featuring StarWars vintage action figures from the 1970s thru the 1980s. The collection consists mainly of action figures although it does also include catalogs, “technical maps” of toys, trading cards, and wallpaper (for your computer). This does not seem to be the work of an archival, library or museum organization, or Lucasfilm project, more or less, it seems to have been put together by that persistent “guy in a basement.” Oh, Basement Guy when will you learn?

Metadata
Not much. In fact as you look at the menu it is a little confusing as to what your options are. There is “Docs & Scans Photo Index” file that consists of images of action figures in their original packaging there is a date available but the user isn’t told what the date is symbolic of. The “docs” are scanned images of StarWars advertisements (although we don’t know anything else about them), the “official docs” is one scanned image of a signed Darth Vadar photo (no metadata is offered on that image). No file format is given about any of the images.

Object Characteristics
The images of the toys themselves are probably images taken by a digital camera. Brochures were probably scanned. They are color. The creator of the website uses the term “document” very generously and it’s not clear what it is he/she means because he refers to an image of a Storm Trooper as a document as well as wallpaper for your computer.

Intended Audience

Anyone with an interest in StarWars and/or action figure collectables.

On a related note: Good news! George Lucas in association with Gentle Giant is in the processes of creating a digital library of the Lucasfilm archives. I'm sure it won't be anything like what Basement Guy created.

The Albert Henry Barnes Collection comes from the digitized collections at the University of Washington. Barnes was a photographer who documented the people and places of western Washington during the turn of the century.

This collection contains 302 photographs, divided into 5 categories: Outings and Recreation, Tacoma, Mount Rainier National Park, Homestead and Farming, and Columbia River. This site states that the database was prepared in 1999 by UW's Libraries Special Collection staff. It appears as though they chose what they believed to be the best representative sample of his work and presented them within the five categories.

The site states that the images were scanned in grayscale using a Microteck Scanmaker 9600L, and that some image manipulation was done in order to create a clearer digital image. It is also states that the scanned images were linked to descriptive data using the UW CONTENT program. The photographs are initally viewed as thumbnails, but can be enlarged by clicking on the image. The information provided with the images includes the title, date, note, both TGM and LCSH subjects, negative number, and physical description. Also, a website link is offered for users who want to order a reproduction, inquire about permissions, or want to see information about prices. In addition, detailed digital reproduction information is offered, such as "Scanned from a photographic print using a Microtek Scanmaker 9600XL at 120 dpi in JPEG format at compression rate 6 and resized to 768x512 ppi. 3/1999."

A public audience can easily search for images within this collection. Also, with the amount of information provided for each image, scholars should be able to locate the physical photograph with great ease.

Many Pasts at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/manypasts/

Geoff Schmalz

Many Pasts is a portion of the History Matters website at George Mason University.

Selection Procedure: Text, image, and audio primary documents that illuminate the opinions of everyday Americans were chosen and then either transcribed into HTML or digitally scanned if text, digitally scanned if an image, or digitally recorded if audio. They were all considered by a professional historian and have metadata with them placing them in historical context.

Object Characteristics: The objects are sorted by date. Most of the objects present on the first two pages of the site are text in HTML format, including A Letter Home from Massachusetts from 1631. The texts are from all over the Colonies from New England to South Carolina and span from the early 17th to the early 19th century. There are also some images of documents present, including ones concerning witchcraft in New England and slavery in South Carolina. The 1003 objects can be searched by subject, date and keyword using the full search feature. Such a search reveals that the objects span from early Colonial America up to the present day.

Metadata: Each HTML text or scan of a document is preceded by a description of the document in its historical context. The metadata for the letter home in 1631 includes reference to the Great Migration of 20,000 people to the Massachusetts bay Colony in the 1630s. The introductory meatdata to the slavery scan of the South Carolina Gazette mentions that breaking tools and running away were common tactics. However, it further explains that most of those slaves who ran away were cought and returned to their owners. The meatdata about the witchcraft image indicates that it is from a cheap pamphlet and that the "monstrous birth" depicted was thought to be a sign of witchcraft.

Intended audience: Since the items selected for Many Pasts are supposed to be about the experience of "everyday Americans", this digitization project seems intended to serve the general public. In addition, educators and their students are often interested in how the common person of the era they are studying viewed events. The texts and images in the Many Pasts project affords them the chance to see through a lense other than that of political leaders or kings. So I believe the intended audience of this digitization project is both the historical researcher seeking the opinion of everyday people, as well as teachers, and their pupils looking for a deeper understanding of how common people fit into and viewed historical events.

I like how the Many Pasts site is designed because it allows the user to search by up to 33 topics and offers a fascinating look into the lives of everyday Americans. As a historian I heartily approve of the presence of metadata that places each record in context, so that its place in grander historical trends can be divined.

Le catalogue

http://www.laboratoire-aleatoire.com/oem/catalogue/

This exhibit, Le catalogue, is an art installation that consists of 24 photographs. Each time an image is opened, it is degraded by a line drawn through the image, so that each viewer actually sees a slightly different image. (The first image is older than the image below; the latter was taken from an image on a linked page.)

Selection decisions: These images were probably born digital, specifically created for the project. However, on other parts of the artist's sites there are references to print media, so I can't be sure. Preservation was not a concern; though the project itself is an interesting study on the longevity of digital media.

Metadata: Each image displays the IP address used to access it, the time accessed, and the x/y coordinates where the new line is drawn. Each image's filename appears to be some combination of date and sequence: 08-1990-B. For the entire collection, it is inferred that the artist presenting the exhibition is the photographer. The exhibit was posted in 2003.

Characteristics of the digital object: The images are JPGs and are the opposite of a "good" digital object, in that they are not persistent at all. Arguably the original object is preserved somewhere in its original form but it is not available online.

Audience: The audience is intended to be one who might visit an exhibit at an art museum and appreciates post-modern, technology-driven art. I think the exhibition is intended to provoke thoughts about the process of presentation rather than about the objects themselves.

National Women's Party Digital Collection

The National Women's Party Digital Collection is a digital archive of records and artifacts documenting women's struggle to gain full citizenship throughout the 20th century. The digital collection currently makes over 400 images available online, but the project plans on digitizing the remainder of the National Women's Party's holdings (approximately 10,000 items).


1) Selection Decisions

There is no stated selection method on the website, but they do discuss the importance of making a broad selection of material available through the digitization project. It is implied that the selected materials are a representative sample of the larger collection (newspapers, photographs, historical artifacts, etc.). It is also stated that images are regularly being added to the website, with the goal of digitizing all items in the collection.

2) Metadata

There is sufficient descriptive metadata provided, allowing for a full appreciation of what each item entails (title, image/item description, material type, as well as item specific notes). Also, structural metadata is included, including a call number, digital ID number, and subject listings. All items in the collection are categorized into 4 areas: suffrage, equal rights, international, and contemporary. This allows for easy searching. As well, administrative metadata is provided, including publication date and where the item was originally published.

3) Object Characteristics

Items are scanned as uncompressed TIFF images, and made available on the web as JPEG files. These images are either 24-bit color TIFF images or 8- or 12-bit monochrome images. A thumbnail appears next to the metadata, and clicking on the images pulls up the full-size version of the image. When searching for an item a list is returned with the thumbnail and the title of the item. It is easy to maneuver between items in the collection.

4) Intended Audience

The people most likely to use this collection are students of all levels. The organization provides lesson plans and online exhibits to encourage teachers to use the collection as a teaching aid. The collection could also be used by advanced students looking for research materials.

Under the North Pole: The Voyage of the Nautilus

http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/nautilus/

Under the North Pole: The Voyage of the Nautilus is an exhibit at the Ohio State University Libraries website. It marked the 75th anniversary of the voyage of the American submarine Nautilus under the polar ice cap. The Nautilus set sail for the arctic on June 4, 1931. Unfortunately, it was beset with mechanical problems for the entire expedition; although it did manage to travel underneath arctic ice, proving that this could be done, it did not make it to the North Pole. At the end of the expedition, because of the amount of damage the submarine had undergone, it was deliberately sunk off the coast of Norway on November 30, 1931.

It is one of a number of exhibits which are featured at the website, which also include one of Richard Byrd’s 1929 flight over the South Pole (that exhibit was also done in commemoration of a 75th anniversary); all exhibits are from materials at the OSU archives, and some are specifically related to Ohio history.

The exhibit itself has a main page, and eight additional pages describing different phases and facets of the expedition, including: The Idea, the Purpose, the Crew, the Submarine, the Journey, the Arctic Dive, contemporary opinions of Wilkins titled “Hero or Fool”, and a concluding afterward. There are additional pages containing an overview of the exhibition, conditions for use of the materials, contact information for the exhibit curator, a bibliography of sources used in creating the exhibit, descriptions of the digital objects used, acknowledgements, and a search function.

The images in the virtual exhibit were taken from the Sir George Hubert Wilkins Papers, housed at the Ohio State University Archives (Wilkins was the guiding force behind the exhibition). It includes descriptive text and scanned images, including textual documents, photographs, posters, and digital photographs of artifacts. The images were chosen to highlight various aspects of the voyage.

The metadata is minimal. They include a brief description, and the location from the Wilkins Papers where the item came from.

The images were saved as low-resolution JPEGs. Thumbnails appear in each section of the exhibit. One may see a larger version of each by clicking on the image.

The intended audience is for people who have been browsing the web, and is intended to highlight the collection from which the items in the exhibit came. It is a useful method of drawing attention to the collection. The exhibit itself was not intended to be used a source for research, but does point the way to a number of sources that can be used.

Exploratorium--Digital Library

The Exploratorium, in San Francisco, has a digital library that includes exhibits in a variety of formats, all of which are related to science. There is a science database of resources for K-12 that is also included in the NSDL. The Exploratorium site also includes subsections, such as one that contains images from a microscope imaging station with feature stories and accompanying video and printable pdfs. There is no available metadata on these images and they seem clearly targeted at educational use by teachers for their students, not serious researchers. There are other neat feature accessible under the "Explore" tab, like The Science of Cooking, which covers a variety of related topics in a variety of formats such as images, recipes, Web casts, and discussion boards.

The main collection is in the "Asset Archive," which to me at least is not a very user-friendly term. Entering the archive drops the user to a main page where items appear across the screen, with no information, and the navigation bar on the left offers what appear to be search terms that nonetheless do nothing, and some of which seem to be the code without the user interface. Very confusing. The images are sortable by several dozen aggregate descriptions, such as "Asset identifier" and "Color mode," which would require much background knowledge to be useful. There is no explanation offered as to how the images are chosen, how they relate to the rest of the collection, or how they relate to each other. They range from butter sculptures to light phenomena.

The graphics across the top of the screen are not explained either. Some appear to be play buttons, but the images that I found were stills. When the user clicks on an image, a box pops up that says: close/information/preview/original. Information is the metadata, which includes mostly data about the image and some free-form notes about the subject. However, the free-form nature of the notes means that some of it is ambiguous: the image of monks preparing color pallets, for example, has a date but the importance of the date is not explained. Is it when the image was taken, or added to the collection? In general, the metadata appears to serve far more of an administrative function than a resource-discovery one, for although "tibet" does call up this image, it is also tagged with "world peace" and the relationship to the image is not explained.

Generally, this digital library appears out of place with the rest of the site in that it does not even really seem to be designed for outside use. Perhaps it began as a digital asset management system? To integrate it into the rest of the student-targeted site it must be reworked, or a better user interface layered on top. For now, however good the images. it is extremely difficult to use. The rest of the site is much more accessible and also organized far differently, by theme, and offers little of no metadata. Is there no happy medium?

Museum of Science & Industry's Genetics: Decoding Life

At Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, there is a long-standing, large exhibit called Genetics: Decoding Life. It is sponsored by the Pritzker Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the Abbott Laboratories Fund. The website is visually very appealing (futuristic!) and high in interaction. Each physical/topic area of the exhibit (e.g., Cloning, Mutations, Development, etc.) are different tabs on the side of the website. These tabs remain there no matter which area of interest is selected, thus making browsing a breeze. However, content-wise, the website is rather shallow. Rather than being comprehensive, the website only goes in-depth for specific creatures (e.g. "Elderly Worms," "A School for Flies," "Green-Eyed Frogs") in order to illustrate scientific concepts.


The website for the exhibit includes Quicktime videos. They require at least Quicktime 4.0. All of the files are fairly small at 1.4 to 2.6MB, and it shows with the rather grainy quality of the videos and the small screen size. I imagine this is because the museum wants the videos to be accessible to as many people as possible without requiring fast internet connections. An example of one of these videos can be seen here. The videos are very much mini-documentaries, with short interviews and scientists at work.

In addition to the short Quicktime videos, there are also slightly longer ones of the 2002 genetics symposia. While the former videos have no metadata, these videos are available on a website of a different design and include some metadata relating to the symposia. The metadata given includes the name and date of the symposium, the speaker in the video, whether the video is an excerpt or not, moderators, keynote speakers, panelists, and so forth.



This website is very much geared to getting people to the museum. Each topic of interest features a tour of the physical exhibit that includes bullet points of things to do/see/learn if you actually go there: "Visit the chick hatchery," "See cloned mice and find out how and why scientists are studying cloning," etc. Interestingly, unlike many online exhibitions, this website's photos are not separate from the background. In other words, if the JPG is saved, it is like the image above (481 x 429 pixels). The only thing missing are the buttons on the left side that allow the user to go to other parts of the exhibition.

Great Seattle Fire of 1889

I viewed a digital collection of images from the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. This fire burned 29 blocks of the city, including most of the business district, most of the wharves, and most of the railroad terminals. This collection is hosted at the University of Washington.

Selection decisions:

Considering that it documents a single historical event, this is a fairly extensive collection of artifacts related to the great fire. It contains about 160 black and white (or sepia toned) images, a handful of letters, and one book. UW appears to have digitized all the materials in its collection related to the fire.

Metadata:

The metadata is pretty cool because it is hyperlinked! So an image of "aftermath" automatically links to other aftermath-tagged images. Each image lists title, creator, date, notes, depicted location, order number, a link to ordering information, negative number, repository collection, object type, and digital reproduction information.

Object Characteristics:

This collection has been ingested/displayed with ContentDM so it looks familiar after last week's class. The images can be viewed as thumbnails, fifteen to a page. The object level page contains one image with the option to "zoom and pan" although it's not very robust and the images only get about 40% larger. Images can be added to favorites. Images contain alternate text but you can't tell what the file type is by checking the properties.

Intended Audience:

The photos don't enlarge enough to allow for true study of the actual images but a scholar interested in architecture, fire, or Seattle history would find at least find the collection interesting and informative.

ICDL - International Children's Digital Library

This week, I looked at the International Digital Children's Library, a digital collection of international children's books, with the mission of encouraging children to become part of the international community.

Selection Decisions: I noticed while I was searching that this is by no means a complete and thorough collection of all of children's literature. The IDCL's collection development policy specifies that each book digitized must fulfill its mission statement. Therefore, they select books mostly based on content. For example, digitized books must support cultural similarities and differences, promote tolerance and contribute to a child's understanding of diversity and the global society. Since this project is not based in an already existing physical collection, it is very different from many of the other collections I've looked at. The IDCL even allows librarians, authors, and illustrators to contribute books by doing their own scanning and filling out a standardized metadata form.

Metadata: The IDCL has a standardized Metadata form that is filled out for each digitized book. It is very thorough, covering all publication information and physical characteristics of the objects. So, we know that they keep very detailed metadata for their digitized books. Unfortunately, I have been unable to figure out how to access this metadata for specific individual books, so this detracts from a lot of usefulness of these collections.

Object Characteristics: The quality of digital objects varies throughout the IDCL, most likely due to the fact that all digitization for this project is not centralized. However, the bulk of the digital objects are very high quality, allowing for significant zooming. Both pictures and text are clear. Each book is very quick and easy to access.

Intended Audience: This digital library is intended for use by children, ages 3-13 and their educators, specifically teachers, librarians, and parents. The collection is very easy to use, since it's intended for children. Therefore, all the buttons are very intuitive and straightforward.

Book of Deer

Book of Deer

This digital version of a tenth-century Gospel book, now called the Book of Deer, can be found under the "Digital Image Collections" section of the "Digital Library" tab on the Cambridge University Library website. It is accompanied by seven other online exhibitions, including the Gutenberg Bible and the Genizah Online Database.

Collection Principles: The "Digital Image Collections" homepage states that these collections of images are from some of Cambridge's most important holdings. This, then, was presumably the guiding principle in selecting what would be digitized. Rights regarding these images seem to be a paramount concern. Another of the online exhibition, that of the Gutenberg Bible, can only be accessed from computers at Cambridge University or on their server. And with regard to the Book of Deer, higher resolution images are only available from PCs in the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge. If you try to click on one of the page images to enlarge it, you are taken to the dreaded "Forbidden" page that tells you that you do not have permission to access that webpage on the server you are using. Additionally, at the bottom of each webpage is a copyright notice.

Object Characteristics: This digital version of the Book of Deer presents itself in much the same way that the physical object does. One can view the front cover, and then proceed through the manuscript viewing the verso and recto of facing pages together. As accessed from a non-Cambridge server, one does not have the ability to zoom or see larger images. One can jump to a specific folio from a pull down menu on the Book of Deer main page.

Metadata: Very little of the metadata associated with this object is visible to the viewer. Below the image of each page is its folio designation and the statement that higher resolution images are available only from PCs in the MSS Reading Room. As mentioned above, there is also a copyright notice on each webpage. There is an introduction to the Book of Deer accessible from the Book of Deer main page that provides information about the physical object, complete with suggestions for further reading. However, any data about the digital object itself is not included.

Intended Audience: Presumably, the intended audience is anyone who is able to access this object via the internet. Access is somewhat limited, given that higher resolution images are not available to the general public (though the reason for this is not provided). However, this digital version of the Book of Deer does provide access to a manuscript that previously was available only to those who could physically visit Cambridge. This digital version would probably not be of much use to serious scholars remotely accessing it, as the images are much too small to do much with, and there is no way to make them any larger.

From Horses to Horsepower: Studebaker Helped Move a Nation

http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/studebaker/
This is a short history of the Studebaker Automotive Company. It was developed in November 2004 and is part of the Smithsonian Libraries' Automotive Trade Literature Collection series.

1) Selection decisions
The images chosen are all from the Trade Literature collection of the Smithsonian. This collection digitizes the Literature produced by the Studebaker Corporation. It is mostly literature on the cars but also includes images of the factories, and the company founders from Studebaker publications. It focuses mainly on 5 models of Studebaker. It’s possible, but not made clear if the reason those were chosen is that those publications were the only ones available. If so then they digitized everything.

2)Metadata
Each image lists the publisher (usually Studebaker Corporation) the title of the book, the location of the publisher and the year. All also say “Images from the Trade Literature Collection”. The credits of the collection list the display curator, site designer, and expert acknowledgments. It also has digitization info.

3) Object Characteristics
Primary navigation is done by choosing the model of car. You can also look at all images or just factory images.
On the credits page this digital imaging information is listed:
"Original images captured at 300 dpi using
Phase One Power Phase digital scanning backPhase One Image Capture Software
3.1.1Hasselblad medium format 35mm camera model 501c
Hasselblad 80mm lens – Zeisson
Epson Perfection 1640SU flatbed scanner
Images stored as TIFFs. High resolution web images reduced to 72 dpi and rescaled to 750 pixels on the short side. Low resolution images reduced to 256 colors and rescaled to 750 pixels on the short side.”

4) Intended audience
Audience is people interested in the Studebaker Car, Automotive buffs or people interested in Automotive trade publications of the time period.

Turner's Gallery

Part of the Turner Online exhibit put together and hosted at the website of the Tate, Turner's Gallery is made up of the 34 paintings that are assumed to have been once hanging in Turner's own gallery in his West End home towards the end of his life. It's presented both as an illustrated list of items which can be clicked-through to their full catalog entries at the Tate, and also a Java-based, three-dimensional representation of the gallery room (in which the paintings may be clicked through to their entries).

1. Selection Decisions
The paintings included in the exhibit are those presumed to have been in Turner's gallery towards the end of his life. Turner set up his own gallery in order to control the hanging and arrangement of thew work himself, but rarely let anyone into thew room, so evidence of what might have been in the collection is sparse. The Selection is partially based on two paintings done in 1852 by George Jones depicting the gallery. The final determination of which works to include was based on scholarship by Selby Whittingham, a Turner scholar.


2. Metadata
There are two levels of metadata for each work. In the 'Turner's Gallery' section, each painting from the room is presented with a large thumbnail, dimensions and media, date of creation, provenance, catalog number, and a brief description and contextualization. If the painting is then clicked through, the user is brought to the Tate's catalog entry for the painting. Here the metadata is similar, but also includes an interesting page for subject terms. Each painting is assigned subject terms based on the paintings content which are presented in classed taxonomies. The subject terms at the most specific level can be clicked to search for any similar works in the Tate's catalog.

3. Object Characteristics
The images of the paintings themselves are presented as somewhat large thumbnails on the 'Turner's Gallery' page, and a larger image can be found in the work's catalog entry. Still, the largest images, while well captured, are still rather small, and these are the only two sizes available for study.


4. Audience
The audience seems specific and well addressed. The Turner Online section of the Tate's pages provides a very general introduction to Turner, much more historical than aesthetic, and the representation of his own gallery seems like an appropriate way to interact with his works, capturing his reclusive, domineering personality. The Java based 3D gallery is not really that useful and is both buggy and slow as Java often is, but the list of paintings themselves is adequate for browsing, and still seems engaging.

Middle East Photograph Archive

Middle East Photograph Archive

Selection Decisions
The images in this site are from the collection of the Middle East department of the University of Chicago Library (Joseph Regenstein Library at University of Chicago). The images are all copyrighted by the Library. The images are all antique photographs that are of historical importance both as a record of the art of photography and as a record of the native Islamic architecture and daily life of the Middle East in the second half of the nineteenth century. The collection is mainly architectural photographs.

Metadata
The metadata for the collection is quite specific. A quote from the "About the Web Site" page lists all but one of the metadata listed accompanying each of the images; the omission is the location of the image, which must be present since the collection is organized by country and city/locale.
"With each photograph is a description which provides the following information:

• photographer
• date of production
• identifying inscriptions found on the negative or positive and/or a brief description of the image
• photographic process
• mounted/unmounted
• size (inches)
• acquisition number (the year of acquisition follows the hyphen)"

There is no alt text for the images but there is information on how many images are in a specific category and how many of those images are color images. There is no way to resort the images or categories and category labels can sometimes be vague since just the location is listed and there is no notation at the category level of whether the images are images of architecture or people.

Object Characteristics
The images are offered in two formats: a thumbnail GIF image with a maximum of 150 px for any one dimension, and a larger image that's approximately 500 px for the largest dimension. All are at a relatively low resolution of 72 dpi, suitable only for viewing on the Web. Presumably that is to facilitate viewing on the Web while preventing print publication. That choice detracts somewhat from the usefullness of the photographs for historical research on the Web since it's difficult to see the detail which is probably present in at least some of the original photographs which were probably shot with the large format cameras prevelant at that time.

Intended Audience

The primary intended audience is probably people interested in research on the Islamic architecture of the Middle East, photography, and/or social history of the Middle East during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The collection is probably also for use by people who have a casual interest in those subjects or the Middle East in general.

The Pollocks Toy Museum in London is named after Benjamin Pollock who was one of the last Victorian toy Theatre printers. The website claims that they house nearly every kind of toy imaginable from all of the world as well as from different time periods. The collection consists of toy theatres, teddy bears, wax and china dolls, board games, optical toys, folk toys, nursery furniture, mechanical toys and doll houses. When I first found this site, I became very excited at the prospect of looking at antique toys, HOWEVER, this online exhibition is severely lacking in everything except web presence. I thought about doing another digital museum but decided to continue writing on the toy museum simply because upon first inspection the site looks AMAZING but the content/information is pitiful and I thought everyone should share in the confusion and disappointment that is The Pollocks Toy Museum online exhibition.

1. There is a link on every page that sends the viewer to the featured toy (of the day? the week? the decade? You really can't tell!). There are only five links to choose from and none of them lead you to any information about when the site was last updated (unless I'm blind and just don't see it) so who knows how long this particular doll/bear combo has been "featured". The selection decisions are probably random or whatever they fell like digitizing and featuring.

2. The only information provided for the ONE digitized object is the history behind the teddy bear as well as what the doll was originally made of. There is not really any more information about the particulars of the two toys apart from the bit at the beginning giving their names and that the doll and bear have never been parted and presumably this is why they are housed together (ok, all together now: AWWWW!)

3.You can't really tell much about the characteristics of the digital object because it appears to be photographed while it was still behind glass and there are no other objects digitized so you can't see where it fits into the collection. The collection site itself is neat, though. It builds your hopes up so they can crash even harder once you realize there isn't much of a collection to be seen.

4. The site did make me want to visit the actual museum. I would say the intended audience is for people wanting to visit the site because it give you a run down of the different museum sections (I thought maybe you could click on each section to view more items but nay) and plenty of information about how to get to the museum.

Overall, the site was extremely disappointing (unless I'm missing something, am I missing a link somewhere, I clicked all over the place thinking maybe the collection was hidden and I had to find it) but it did really peak my interest into the museum which I suppose was their goal. So, anyone up for a field trip to the Pollock's Toy Museum? C'mon, London isn't THAT far.

Chicano Art Digital Image Collection

http://cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/digitalArchives.html

The Chicano Art Digital Collection is a digital visual catalog created with the purpose of making Chicano art works more accessible to the general public. The collection includes art pieces that fall under the categories "Drawings," "Graphic Arts," or "Murals. As the primary audience that this collection was created for was for people with varying levels of awareness and knowledge about Chicano art ranging form those with no prior familiarity to students and scholars of art history.
This project is part of the

The collection was scanned and photographed up to 72 d.p.i. As as is stated on the website, the quality of printing off the Web at that level is intentionally low because human eyes does not detect differences in resolution on a computer screen above 72 dots per inch. However they have higher resolution images that are taken at 600 d.p.i. and 1350 d.p.i. but are the exclusive right of the copyright holders. As such one can argue that there exists an impediment to access to these high quality images.

One of the shortcomings of the collection is that information about certain images is not available and as such are listed as unknown. However they are making an attempt to collect information about these unknown works by making a call to the community to provide background or contextual information about certain pieces. Also, in certain cases the artists themselves had chosen to remain annonymous and therefore information about the creators is not available.

Connecticut History Online

Connecticut History Online is a terrific little site about a terrific little state. It contains 14,000 images and is funded by a partnership of state libraries and universities and local historical attractions. Education is central to the mission of the site, so it provides functionality designed to facilitate use by students and teachers, while still providing excellent metadata for use by more serious researchers..

Each image--there are maps, photographs, and prints--is searchable via several paths. The image at left, for example, is of Main Street in my hometown of Hebron circa 1836. The record for this drawing contains 6 subject keywords, as well as a description, sources, and categories, all of which are hyperlinks so that you can immediately pull up a list of other images with stone walls, for example, without returning to the search page. The metadata must have been painstakingly added, and thoroughly researched. For example, an image of Amston (today a region of Hebron) appears under both of these terms as well as the old name of the area, Turnerville. The records contain both data on the object itself and the creation of the digital copy. Furthermore, the user can move around within the image, zooming in and pulling back, but the presence of the thumbnail key means you don't get lost--especially useful for old maps.

The functionality of the digital images adds information to the collections that would not have existed prior to this DL: the fact of the collection (which is assembled from multiple institutions' holdings) is in and of itself increases our knowledge. The details of the partnership are contained on the About Us page, which even includes the minutes of project meetings. Furthermore, the images are also aggregated in themes on the Journeys section, which explores themes such as diversity and rural life. These are clearly designed to help students and teachers, which befits the site's audience. The How to Use page has excellent instructions, and the returning user can even save his or her preferences, further increasing its functionality and flexibility for both the casual and the sophisticated user. This site is terrific across the board. Good job, Connecticut!

Cleveland Public Library Image Collection

Cleveland Public Library

http://cplorg.cdmhost.com/

Collection Principles
The Digital Collection is comprised of 12 indexes that include various topics that include: Cleveland Public Library Art Collection, CPL Archives, and Maps and Atlases of Greater Cleveland (historical). The different indexes are varied and hold images of differing topics. Mostly they contain historical digital images of old Cleveland neighborhoods and public libraries, although the collection also includes images of chess tournaments. The collection also includes images of the personal collection of Cleveland author Charles W. Chestnutt.

Metadata
This collection offers metadata! Each image includes specific information about the image, its digitization and its physical location within the library. Other metadata includes: Title, Medium, Measurement, Source, Location, Subject, Identifier, Source Image, Repository, Rights, Type, Digital Format, Digital processing information (digital treatment and what department within the CPL did the digitizing).

Object Characteristics
All images are in color except for b & w images. Some items were scanned from transparencies, scanned at 600 dpi, Epson Perfection 4990. Images include JPGs as well as TIFs. Digitization occurred in-house at the Cleveland Public Library.

Audience
This collection runs the gamut and because of its wide and yet eclectic assets it can appeal to a wide audience. There are considerable images that can serve a local historian well that may happen to have an interest in chess tournaments. I found this collection while searching for an image of Eleanor Ledbetter, librarian to the masses of Cleveland, through a Google search but found it impossible to find through the main Cleveland Public Library website – it’s pretty buried.

The Leon Trotsky Internet Archive

The Leon Trotsky Internet Archive is a part of the Marxists Internet Archive, which also includes mateial relating to other famous Marxists, including Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, and Che Guevera. The Trotsky section of the site includes biographical sketches by several writers, selected writings (which, despite the fact that it is incomplete, are voluminous), and photographs and drawings of him from various periods of his life.

The marxists.org website is intended as a resource for anyone interested in Marxism, to give information on various famous Marxists, and to highlight various strands of Marxism. The Trotsky section is no exception. The creators of the site are coming from a definite viewpoint, as evidenced by whose writings are included and whose are excluded on the site (Stalin and Mao are not included, for example). Selection Criteria:

The writings are clearly the primary emphasis of the site, while the other material is secondary. Trotsky’s complete works would encompass many volumes, so there is no way everything could be included; instead, selections were include that emphasize his main contributions. Included are writings related to his theory of Permanent Revolution, various literary and artistic criticism, his writings on the Russian Civil War, and his struggle with Stalinism. The writings are available in numerous languages. Metadata:

The metadata to the photographs is extremely limited. It consists of a date and very brief descriptive title. The context that these images were taken in should be familiar to serious Trotsky scholars, but not to novices. Many of his writings are accompanied by descriptive narrative containing a brief synopsis; however, this is not consistent.

Object Characteristics:

One can gain access to the writings either through a chronological list, or by links from a list of general subjects. There is no search function on the site. The writings are all in HTML, so the user does not have to worry about scanning quality. The scans of photos are adequate, though not particularly good.

Intended Audience:

The intended audience is for people with a general interest in Trotsky’s writings and career, with more than a beginner’s level of knowledge, but not for serious specialists in the subject. These intermediate users will probably include college students needing sources for a paper on Trotsky, as well as members of the public who have some knowledge of Trotsky's life.

Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives

This online collection is based on the National Archives exhibit that was on display from 1999-2001.

The physical exhibition contained a wide variety of photographs from the 20th century. Because of their vast holdings, tough decisions had to be made as to what to include in the exhibit. In the explanation of their selection decision, it's stated that "For the most part, the exhibit concentrates on developments within American society and on activities abroad where Americans were significant participants. "

The online exhibit is divided into two parts, Gallery and Portfolios. The Gallery section is arranged chronologically, with 6 themes: A New Century, The Great War and the New Era, The Great Depression and the New Deal, A World in Flames, Postwar America, and Century's End. Each of these pages has an introduction explaining the theme and about 10 sample photographs. The Portfolios section displays 7 photographers that best represent the Archive's collection. Each Portfolio gives an explanation of the photographer and offers a range of sample photographs.

The photographs in this collection are both color and black & white. The JPEG images are initially viewed as thumbnails, but can be enlarged. The enlarged images range from 600x404 pixels to 600x892 pixels. The information listed with each image is a caption describing what's in the picture, the name of the photographer, and the location and date. Also given is the source of the photograph [such as National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Environmental Protection Agency or Courtesy of the White House] and the vendor # for ordering a print reproduction of the image.

This online exhibit is really very interesting, and leaves me wanting more. I would have loved to have seen the full exhibit. Those with an interest in either American history or photography would certaintly enjoy this collection. But really, this collection can be enjoyed by all.

The Cornell Library Historical Monographs contains digital surrogates of materials whose future was put into jeopardy due to their brittle or decaying physical nature. The project was begun in 1990 as a joint venture by Cornell University and the Xerox Corporation.

Selection

As the project was intended as a preservation measure the materials found in the digital collection were chosen due to their poor condition. Of the 456 manuscripts in the collection, the 441 that can be found on the website are those that are no longer bound by copyright restrictions. The others I assume were scanned and will remain offline til the copyright runs out.

Metadata

The website states clearly that the books were scanned by a prototype co-developed by Cornell and Xerox and stored as 600dpi bitonal TIFF files and compressed with ITU Group 4 Compression.

Object Characteristics

The website itself allows for multiple entry points, such as browsing through the selections, as well as searching by author, title, as well as keywords within the texts. The scans are all adequate, however one is not able to zoom in very far, and so if one were looking for any sort of detail with regard to the physicality of the pages, this site would not be for you.

Intended Audience

I assume that the audience of this collection would be anyone interested in reading these monographs who does not need to physically see them, or interested in perusing what Cornell has in their collection from a remote location.

Fisher Fine Arts Library Image Collection

http://imagesvr.library.upenn.edu/f/fisher/

This is the image collection at the fine arts library at U. Penn. I was very excited to find this collection because it seemed so thorough and easy to use. The site isn't fancy, but allows a few different methods of searching, browsing by creator, and comparisons (where you can search for 2 images to be displayed side by side). They have all their holdings listed online (150,000 records) and 50,000 of them are digitized. However, disappointingly, access to the site is limited to UPenn students and faculty. The public can view the holdings and thumbnails, but cannot enlarge images for a closer look.

Selections
They have digitized 1/3 of their collection, which is still pretty substantial. I could not determine how they chose what to digitize or if this is perhaps an ongoing project with the aim to digitize all their holdings.

Metadata
As the image collection is part of the larger library system, they have catalogued the images with enhanced MARC records. The information about each object was pretty thorough. With a little more searching I was able to find a page on the tools and technology with an annotated list of the formats, software, and protocols used for their online digital projects.

Object Characteristics
Because of the restricted access, I couldn't look at the images beyond the thumbnails that appeared on the search results lists. But, it seems each image is available in 5 sizes, from thumbnail through extra large. One extra-large image is, for example, 1663 x 2358 pixels. I'm not sure of the file format.

Audience
Since the catalog is available publicly online, the audience seems at first to be the general public and anyone wishing to do scholarly research. However, this online catalog seems like a tease because you can't access the images without permission. So, really the collection is only for research for Penn affiliates--but with the variety of image sizes and the detailed metadata, they can do some in-depth research.

Wisconsin Decorative Arts : Home

This week, I looked at the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database, a digital collection of photographs of material culture artifacts used and made in 19th and early 20th century Wisconsin. This project is a collaboration of several historical museums and organizations throughout Wisconsin.

Selection Decisions: The information on this Web site suggests that the purpose of this collection is to provide a resource for studying Wisconsin's material culture artifacts. Since the project is a collaboration of several organizations, I would assume that entire collections aren't being digitized. Therefore, the staff of the project is most likely making selection decisions based on what they think will be the most effective research materials for their user base, such as unique or iconic artifacts of the time period.

Metadata: The database website gives a good description of the kinds of technology used to produce the digital objects, including the camera model used to take the photos of the items and the software used to adjust the images. It also names the software used to create the database. The project's metadata standards are based on Dublin Core metadata elements. The finding aid of the collection is very thorough for each item, providing detailed descriptions, locations, and information about creation, and the location of the original item. After observing all of the different types of artifacts and all of their variations, I was glad to learn that keyword search terms are standardized, even if they do come from two different vocabularies.

Object Characteristics: Overall, the photographs of the material culture objects are very thorough, often providing shots of several different angles, including detail shots. I was impressed with the clarity of images when zooming into the detail shots. I'm not a professional photographer, but I have a feeling that the quality of photography could be a little better; many of the images have lots of shadow and reflection that distract from the objects themselves.

The Intended Audience appears to be anyone with and interest in either Wisconsin specifically or in material culture objects in general. The site allows the user to browse by object type, being furniture, metal work, ceramics, etc, so it would be a good resource for someone interested in a specific style of historic craft works. Since this collection is specifically based in Wisconsin, I imagine that it expects a lot of attention from amateur researchers simply interested in learning about their local history.

Dry Drunk

Dry Drunk at the NYPL chronicles tobacco's rise in popularity subsequent to European explorers "discovery" of the Americas. The exhibit discusses the history of its use and abuse.

The collection includes mostly etchings, wood engravings, and broadsides scanned from books.

Selection decisions:
The NYPL has a large collection relating to the history of tobacco. The online collection summarizes 101 historical items. The selections have been culled from a handful of physical NYPL collections, including the Rare Books Division and the Arents Tobacco Collection. They have selected items that fit well within the chosen browsing categories: Travel, Herbals, Debate, Gender, Costume, High Life, Low Life, Politics, Sneezing, and Allegory. It is not clear what percentage of the total tobacco holdings are represented.

Metadata:
The descriptive metadata includes as much information as they have regarding creator, title, medium, date, city, parent collection, and caption. There is no information on capture methods.

Object characteristics:
Digital images are available for roughly 1/3 of the 101 catalogued objects. The thumbnails are fairly uniform in size and all in jpeg format. Each may be enlarged one level, some as large as 700 pixels, others as small as 250 pixels. The enlarged images are also jpegs. There is no alternate text for images. The site contains no information on master file formats.

Intended Audience:
The introduction outlines the users of the site as scholars of literature, history, art history, the history of the book, and the sciences.

The Balcony Archive

Buena Vista Entertainment (a partner?) of ABC Domestic Television (a unit of the Walt Disney Company) has digitized and made available online all movie reviews from its show Siskel & Ebert (later Ebert & Roeper). The site claims to be the most comprehensive video archives of movie reviews on the Web. It hosts more than five thousand movie reviews spanning over twenty years.

I could not find any information about this digitization project on the website itself. This includes the date the project was carried out, the team involved, and the selection decisions. However, I did Google the project and found more information. The site was launched just two months ago, and includes all reviews of the last 20+ years. They seem to have bypassed having to make selection decisions by digitizing everything. I assume that this is made possible by online advertisements and the “Buy the DVD” option next to each review.

Each movie review is accompanied by metadata concerning the film being reviewed. This includes three categories of brief information – Info, Synopsis, and Cast & Crew. In addition, under “Info” for each review is an image of the movie poster and users can also view the movie trailer. Users can search for films by actor, director, or movie title. The videos themselves are presented in Flash Player, probably for copyright purposes. The quality is not fantastic, but the resolution seems satisfactory for the general public. The screen size is about 4.5” by 3”.

I assume the audience for this archive is the general public. As mentioned earlier, this may account for the lack of any information about the project. They may have assumed that the general public is not particularly interested in the process of digitization that went into creating this website. The navigation and search tools are easy-to-use and the comprehensiveness of the site ought to make it attractive to many movie buffs.

Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History

The Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH) is a digital collection of books and journals depicting home economics and related disciplines. This archive is a project from Cornell University, and includes titles from between 1850 and 1970. The collection is comprised of 950 books and 9 journals.

1) Selection Decisions

The material chosen for this collection were texts deemed "electronically essential and influential" by scholars. A time period of inclusion was determined- 1850 to 1970- and widely available, commercial, and scholarly materials were considered. A system was established that identified and ranked texts in the field of home economics, and then determined relationships between sub-categories. The system used to determine what materials would be digitized was used due to it's successful implementation on other projects.

2) Metadata

The descriptive metadata included with each item is brief, and includes title, author, and print source. The administrative metadata is more thourough- copyright statements are included in the scanned pages and information on image properties, selection criteria, and the phases of project creation are provided. The structural metadata provides a navigation link on each page that shows the user what page number they are on, as well as clickable links to other pages within the document.

3) Object Characteristics

It is stated on the website that the images were scanned as 600 dpi bitonal images, and are available on the website as TIFF files. Pages were processed to create OCR and XML, both of which allow for search within the documents. There is a search field at the top of each document that allows the user to search both the collection and the individual document. There is also an option to view the document as either an image, text, or a pdf.

4) Intended Audience

The intended users of this collection are scholars looking for subject specific research, or users interested in historical texts (as the collection goes back to 1850). The inclusion of journals demonstrates this scholarly focus.