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Jason Yasner Operations Manager, World Digital Library Library of Congress jyas@loc.gov www.twitter.com/WDLorg

“Content Milestones and Proposed Workflow Changes” WDL Partner Meeting “Content Milestones and Proposed Workflow Changes” Washington, DC December 5, 2012

Agenda Content Milestones in 2012 Brief Overview of WDL Operations High-Level Production Workflow WDL Production Workflow Chart Proposed Workflow Changes and Improvements Partner Questionnaire for New Partners Only Content Proposal Form and WDL response Transfer: Availability of Online Drop Box for Content Deliveries Quarterly Review of Content Deliveries Partner Review of Descriptions/Metadata Questions?

Content Milestones Currently at 6,588 items, comprising 319,340 images 2,508 items were added since the last partner meeting, an increase of 50.3 percent An additional 134 items are scheduled to be added by the end of the year Continuous focus on Quality and Quantity Significant progress in building critical mass in a number of high-visibility areas: Arabic scientific manuscripts Chinese rare books and manuscripts Treasures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe Mesoamerican codices Next milestone for 2013: 10,000 items

High-Level Production Workflow Content Selection Content Transfer Content Processing Cataloging (consistent metadata, descriptions) Translation Publishing

WDL Workflow

(Existing Process, mostly unchanged) Partner Questionnaire for New Partners Only (Existing Process, mostly unchanged) When a Partner first joins the WDL, we ask that they complete a Questionnaire This document asks questions about technical contacts, technical infrastructure, the preferred name of the institution, etc. The current version of this document also asks for information about the content the Partner would like to contribute In the revised version, we will remove the content-related information from the Questionnaire and limit this document to basic information about the Partner Partners only need to complete this document one time. If you have already completed this document, you don't need to do it again

Content Proposal Form (New Process) When a partner has selected content to contribute, we would ask you to first briefly describe that content in writing in a Content Proposal Form This will help us to ensure the continued quality of the WDL site and to minimize the amount of time spent investigating content that ultimately does not meet the WDL selection criteria or that may duplicate content already offered by another partner

Content Proposal Form (cont’d) (New Process) Knowing more about the content you are proposing will also help us to better address underrepresented countries, languages, formats, etc., give due regard to priority areas such as the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, and better relate individual submissions to broader categories recommended by the Content Selection Committee and the specialized content subcommittees that already exist or that may be established in the future (Chinese language content, Arabic scientific manuscripts, Mesoamerican codices)

Content Proposal Form (cont’d) (New Process) This Content Proposal Form will also help to make the production process more efficient. The more the WDL team learns about the content early on in the process, the better we can plan for curatorial and translation needs The Content Proposal Form would be a new form that precedes every content delivery

Content Proposal Form (cont’d) (New Process) This form would ask for: a Contact Person a General Description of the content to be contributed in one delivery the Type of item or items (e.g., books, maps) the Number of items the Total Size of the files to be delivered (e.g., 600 MB) How the files will be delivered (online, via the process described later, or offline), and the Expected Date of delivery (described in more detail later)

Content Proposal Form (cont’d) (New Process) The Contact Person provided on the form will receive a response within two (2) weeks indicating whether additional information is needed, if any problems are anticipated, or, if there are no problems, instructions for delivery A separate Content Proposal Form would be required for each batch of content that you plan to contribute The Content Proposal Form can be submitted at any time

Transfer: Availability of Online Drop Box for Content Deliveries (New Process) In the interest of simplifying the online content transfer process, we would like to offer this preferred method for online content delivery The Online Drop Box would be established using Amazon's Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). (We are already using Amazon S3 to satisfy other storage needs) Partners would have access to a space on Amazon S3 where files can be dropped We would still accept physical deliveries (DVDs, hard drives, etc.) from Partners who are unable to transfer their content online via this method We would like to discuss the parameters of the Amazon S3 setup (access, security, retention, etc.) on the WDL Technical Committee listserv

Quarterly Review of Content Deliveries (New Process) In order to make the production process more transparent, we would like to review content deliveries on a scheduled, quarterly basis Once Content Proposals have been accepted, deliveries can be made at any time, but deliveries won't be reviewed by the WDL team until the next scheduled review date Those dates could be regarded as delivery deadlines, which many Partners have asked that we set. Partners would choose from the available review dates on the Content Proposal Form The review process includes determining whether or not we have received all of the expected metadata and object files in good condition One of our objectives will be to estimate how long the review process will take each quarter, and to then inform Partners when they can expect feedback on their delivery Quarterly-only review of deliveries will allow the WDL team to focus on content that is already in the production workflow without being repeatedly required to manage and review content transfers.

(Existing Process, but proposed improvements) Partner Review of Descriptions / Metadata (Existing Process, but proposed improvements) In order to make the Partner Review of Descriptions and Metadata more useful, we propose to move this process further down the line in the workflow and provide a website so the Partner can see/review the items exactly as they will appear on the WDL website In the Current process, the WDL Description Coordinator (Kaleena Black) emails edited descriptions to the WDL contact at the Partner institution. We request that descriptions be briefly reviewed with three issues in mind: Questions our researchers, language specialists, or editors might have about an item Corrections regarding accuracy or clarity, paying particular attention to transliteration of names or place names (if applicable) Preference in the wording of the partner institution name or descriptions of the donating division, collection, or department

(Existing Process, but proposed improvements) Partner Review of Descriptions / Metadata (cont’d) (Existing Process, but proposed improvements) Generally, we provide a window of one (1) week or more, depending on number of items, for the Partner institution to look over the descriptions. The descriptions are moved forward for cataloging after the allotted amount of time However, this can create problems when the metadata or translation team has additional inquires, requiring returning to the Partner for more information, or when a Partner provides changes to the descriptions after the items have passed through metadata and into translation While we are always happy to make alterations, the process of doing so after an item has been sent to translation can be laborious

(Existing Process, but proposed improvements) Partner Review of Descriptions / Metadata (cont’d) (Existing Process, but proposed improvements) Proposal: Upon completion and editing, descriptions will be moved immediately forward for cataloging When the initial cataloging process is complete and the metadata team have assembled any questions they might have, the Partner institution will be sent a link via email This link will lead to our new Partner Review site, where Partners can see draft records (which are not “live” but reproduce the look and feel of the website) for their items. These records are not final and only the English record will be available The Partner will review the records on the Partner Review site, address any questions we might have regarding the content, and note any changes or corrections in an attached document This new review process allows Partners to have a better sense of the final product, and ultimately helps ensure that we are representing their content more accurately 

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