Collaborative Digitization Creating Cultural Heritage Collections

							Collaborative Digitization: Creating
Cultural Heritage Collections


                            Amy Rudersdorf, Digital Services Librarian
                     University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
                         arudersdorf@library.wisc.edu / 608.265.8737

                                              Assistance from Vicki Tobias
                                        Digital Services Librarian, UWDCC

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UW Digital Collections: Mission


 Promotes scholarly
  communication and
  provides professional
  leadership in the
  creation of quality digital
  resources from libraries
  and archives, for faculty,
  staff and students,
  citizens of the state, and
  scholars at large.
               Image: State of Wisconsin Collection

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University of Wisconsin System Universities & Colleges




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UWDCC: From whom do the projects originate?

  Faculty, researchers,
   teaching staff

  Academic librarians

  Public librarians

  Cultural heritage institutions
   (museums and historical
   societies)

Image: Digital Library for the Decorative Arts & Material Culture

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Publisher’s Bindings Online: The Art of Books
(1815-1930)




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Scope of UW Digital Collections                                                     .1.

    Images
    Audio
    Video
    Citations
    Finding Aids
    Text
       Books
       Journals
       Monographic series                       Image: Ecology & Natural Resources Collection

       Diaries
       Letters
In nearly all cases, UWDC digital resources are freely available online
    for use in any research or educational setting.

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Scope of UW Digital Collections                                       .2.

     Images………  30,000
     Audio………..  400 (hours)
     Citations……. 216,000
     Finding Aids... 263
     Text………….. 7,000
      (issues comprised of
      990,000 page images)



               Image: Great Lakes Maritime Collection

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Collaboration


col·lab·o·rate
intr.v. To work together,
especially in a joint
intellectual effort.

The American Heritage® Dictionary
of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
                                         Image: South East Asian Images & Text Collection




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Scope of digital project partners




                                                               Image: University of Wisconsin
                                                                                   Collection

    Images: School of Human
         Ecology Centennial
       Celebration Collection


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2005 Wisconsin Library Services and Technology Act Partners


 Appleton Public Library
 Fond du Lac Public Library
 Hedberg (Janesville) Public
  Library
 Lake Geneva Public Library
 Manitowoc Public Library
 Marathon County Public
  Library
 Oshkosh Public Library


All LSTA projects will be available online through the State of Wisconsin Collection
                                           (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI)
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State of Wisconsin Collection

    Wisconsin history through
      Letters
      Photographs
      Oral histories
      Maritime history
      Early surveys & plat maps
      Local histories
      Diaries
      Ephemera




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               Wisconsin Heritage Online: Purpose


 To bring together (virtually) the digital
  content of Wisconsin cultural institutions to
  be easily accessible for all users.

 To facilitate the creation of digital content
  by developing digitization assistance for
  interested institutions, by providing
  education and training opportunities and
  by creating a central site linking relevant
  resources.
                                Excerpted from About Wisconsin's Heritage Online—WHO.
                             (http://www.wils.wisc.edu/widigital/) Accessed July 23, 2005.

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               Wisconsin Heritage Online: Participants


 Oshkosh Public Library
 DPI Division for Libraries, Technology & Community
  Learning Central Wisconsin Project
 Wisconsin Historical Society
 UW Madison Lawrence University
 Milwaukee Public Museum
 Milwaukee Public
 Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design
 UW Oshkosh
 Wisconsin Interlibrary Loan Service

Select participant list
                                          Excerpted from WHO Digital Exploratory Committee.
                                 (http://www.wils.wisc.edu/widigital/) Accessed July 23, 2005.

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Collaboration: a never-ending committee meeting?



To get something done, a committee
should consist of no more than three men,
two of whom are absent.

                   ---Robert Copeland




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Benefits of Collaboration


1. Resource Sharing

2. Skills and knowledge transfer

3. More “people power”

4. Reduce “wheel reinvention”




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1. Resource Sharing

 Equipment
       scanning, audio & video
        reformatting, OCR
        software, etc.
 Assets
       the original resources that
        comprise the content of
        the digital collection
 Human capital

                                                        Books: Publishers’ Bindings Online:
                                                             The Art of Books (1815-1930)




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  Resource Sharing                                                                   .1.
  Case Study: Publisher’s Bindings Online: The Art of Books (1815-1930)




Books: Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, University of Wisconsin—Madison.

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        Resource Sharing                                                                                      .2.
        Case Study: Publisher’s Bindings Online: The Art of Books (1815-1930)




Books: W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, Wade Hall Collection for Southern History and Culture. University of Alabama.

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Resource Sharing                                                      .3.
Case Study: Publisher’s Bindings Online: The Art of Books (1815-1930)




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                                                         http://bindings.lib.ua.edu
2. Skills and Knowledge Transfer


Collaboration can
offer all participants
both teaching and
learning opportunities




       Image: University of Wisconsin Collection


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Skills and Knowledge Transfer                            .1.
Case Study: 2005 Wisconsin LSTA Grant Awards


               LSTA Grant Awardees Workshop Schedule




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Skills and Knowledge Transfer                                                                .2.
Case Study: 2005 Wisconsin LSTA Grant Awards

Public Library patrons (they use academic library collections, too!)
      Users
               Local historians, K-12
                students, Genealogists,
                Hobbyists

      Material they need
               Maps, Local Histories, First-
                person narratives,
                Photographs and images
                related to their local history
                and culture

      How materials are used                                     Image: State of Wisconsin Collection
               Personal research, School
                assignments, Genealogy,
                General interest/hobby
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Skills and Knowledge Transfer                                  .3.
Case Study: 2005 Wisconsin LSTA Grant Awards




               Images: State of Wisconsin Collection

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Skills and Knowledge Transfer                                         .4.
Case Study: 2005 Wisconsin LSTA Grant Awards

Serving public library materials online (useful to academic library
patrons, too!)


 Full-text searchable or full-text
  searchable indexes
 Jpeg2000 image format enables:
   Zoom
   Rotate
 Comprehensive collection of like
  materials




                      Image: Wisconsin Electronic Reader

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3. People power


Working together, ordinary people can perform
extraordinary feats. They can push things that come
into their hands a little higher up, a little further on
towards the heights of excellence.

                                             ---Source unknown




                                Image: Africa Focus Collection

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People Power                                                                         .1.
Case Study: The Sojourner (The Home Front: Manitowoc County in WWII)




                                                        Images: State of Wisconsin Collection

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4. Reducing “wheel reinvention” increases
interoperability, consistency, and standards

“…[D]igital cultural content should be as widely useful,
portable and long-lasting as possible. These combined goals
of wide usefulness (which encompasses the grammatically-
dubious notion of "re-usefulness"), portability (across
networks, systems and organizations) and longevity
(portability across time) of digital cultural resources are
encapsulated by the single concept of interoperability.”



From Gill, Tony and Paul Miller. “Re-
inventing the Wheel? Standards,
Interoperability and Digital Cultural
Content.” D-Lib Magazine (January
2002).
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january02/gi
ll/01gill.html]. Accessed July 24, 2005.

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4. Reducing “wheel reinvention” increases
interoperability, consistency, and standards

“The key to the interoperability of digital cultural content,
and in fact any digital collection, is consistency—digital
collections are created, manipulated, stored, searched and
displayed by computers, and computers are inherently
algorithmic devices: When digital collections are highly
consistent, they can be processed quickly and cheaply,
using relatively simple algorithms, with a high degree of
reliability and robustness.”


---Tony Gill & Paul Miller



               Image: State of Wisconsin Collection

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4. Reducing “wheel reinvention” increases
interoperability, consistency, and standards

“The consistency that gives rise to interoperability in digital
cultural collections is achieved through the use of
standards—codified rules and guidelines for the creation,
description and management of digital resources…the
critical importance of standards to the success of cultural
digitization initiatives is widely recognized, as evidenced by
the plethora of project or initiative specific standards
frameworks already in existence.”
         ---Tony Gill & Paul Miller

               GILS

                                ONIX for Books IEEE LOM
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Reducing “wheel reinvention”
Case study: Oaister (http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister)


 Mission
   to create a collection of freely available, previously
     difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital
     resources that are easily searchable by anyone.
 Metadata
   Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
   Open Archives Initiative Metadata Harvesting
     Protocol
 Harvests
   Collections from over 500 institutions worldwide
 Developed by
   University of Michigan & University of Illinois

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Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - a 30-second primer

A set of elements created to help describe and
manage content. The elements are often what are
displayed with a digital object in an online database.


The definitions of
these elements
are quite general,
which often leads                           QuickTime™ and a
                                        TIFF (LZW) decompressor
to trouble…                          are neede d to see this picture.




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Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - An example record
                                                  Record: The Science Collection




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Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - two records
employing the same metadata scheme differently




                      QuickTime™ an d a
                  TIFF (LZW) decomp resso r
               are need ed to see this picture.




                                                                                   QuickTime™ and a
                                                                               TIFF (LZW) decompressor
                                                                            are neede d to see this picture.




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Reducing “wheel reinvention”
Select list of statewide digital library collaboration programs


     California Digital Library
     Colorado Digitization Program
     Digital Library of Georgia
     Kentuckiana Digital Library
     Mountain West Digital Library
     North Carolina: Exploring Cultural Heritage Online
     Ohio Memory
     University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
     Virtually Missouri
     Wisconsin Heritage Online


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Conclusion: Successful collaboration means:


   Working toward a common and understood
    goal
   Communicating to the point of discomfort
   Ensuring all involved parties understand
    project deliverables
   Maintaining sense that all are equally-valued
    participants
   Applying standards identically, by any means
    necessary


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Conclusion: Successful collaboration




Images: University of Wisconsin Collection

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