Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 1 OAC as an example of Special Collections Digitization: the Collection, the Institution, Scholarship, Interoperability, Longevity Howard Besser UCLA School of Education & Information

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 2 Topics MOA2 & OAC Background More pieces of OAC –CDL Best Practices –Access to online Finding Aids Broader Implications of OAC and similar projects –utility of image browsing –Digitization means new audiences –New users’ lack of familiarity with Finding Aids –searching across finding aids More general issues of digital projects

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 3 EAD and Finding Aids Finding Aids: Detailed Collection Description –Finding aids are the inventories, registers, indexes or guides to historical or other primary source collections held by archives and manuscripts repositories, libraries and museums. They provide intellectual and physical access and control. Encoded Archival Description (EAD) –Standard for archival finding aids in the form of a Standard Generalized Markup Language Document Type Definition (SGML DTD) –Supported by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and the Library of Congress (LC)

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 4 DLF Metadata for Interoperability Testbed: the MOA II Project R & D Building Towards Distributed Repositories Transportation, Testbed Project Best Practices Intellectual, structural, and administrative metadata

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 5 MOA II Participant Collections UC Berkeley Cornell NYPL Penn State Stanford

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 6 MOA II Classes of Objects Continuous Tone Photos Photo Albums Diaries, journals, letterpress books Ledgers Correspondence

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 7 MOA II Metadata Administrative Metadata Structural Metadata Raw, seared, cooked

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 8 MOA II Behaviors Navigation Display/Print

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 9 MOAII Service Model Service Layer Tools Layer Digital Object Layer

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 10 Masters vs. Derivatives

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 11 Berkeley Architecture Berkeley Longevity Server Berkeley Delivery Server Other Delivery Server Other Delivery Server Other Delivery Server User

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 12 Best Practices (long) Think about users (and potential users), uses, and type of material/collection Scan at the highest quality tht does not exceed the likely potential users/uses/material Do not let today’s delivery limitations influence your scanning file sizes; understand the difference between digital masters and derivative files used for delivery Many documents which appear to be bitonal actually are better represented with greyscale scans Include color bar and ruler in the scan Use objective measurements to determine scanner settings (do NOT attempt to make the image good on your particular monitor or use image processing to color correct) Don’t use lossy compression Store in a common (standardized) file format Capture as much metadata as is reasonably possiple (including metadata about the scanning process itself)

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 13 MOA2 Access OPAC Finding Aids List Collectn level record Finding Aid Digital Objects

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 14 MOA2: Administrative Metadata Information about where the various pieces/versions of the object reside Information to view the digital object Information about the scanning process

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 15 MOA2: Structural Metadata that which is relevant to presentation of the digital object to the user metadata defining the "object”: a book, a diary, a photo album metadata defining the “sub-objects”: pages (physical) or chapters and subheads (intellectual)

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 16 Why are you Managing this Information? ^  Organizational mission & type  Users  Uses

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 17 Utility of Image Browsing ^ [[ okTextView/146;hf=0#X implications of Image Browsing for Cataloging

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 18 Digitization means New Audiences more access for more people outreach to new groups but new groups have different usability requirements –different user interfaces –different vocabulary –new methods of navigation we already have enough differences btwn different institution types (& even within the same type) –MESL results –Organization & indexing reflects the biases of the original intent when records were formed

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 19 Proposed EAD enhancements for diverse groups (Anne Gilliland-Swetland) Subject searching Name searching Geographic location searching Physical form or genre searching Bottom-up searching

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 20 New Users ^ Don’t understand Finding Aids Expect DB-type access rather than hierarchical context [[ cal-heritage.html]]

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 21 Dealing with one aspect of ‘New User’ requirements ^ Searching across Finding Aids tionView;hf=0?DwebQuery=ferry okView;hf=0?DwebQuery=ferry&DwebSearchAll=1 okTextView/620;hf=0?DwebQuery=ferry&DwebSearchAll=1#X okTextView/7526;hf=0?DwebQuery=ferry&DwebSearchAll=1#X]]

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 22 More general issues of Digital Projects- Implications for the Collection Implications for the Institution Implications for Scholarship & Interoperability –Digital libraries –Metadata Longevity Issues

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 23 Implications for the Collection We’re already familiar with Reformatting Advantages & Disadvantages of Digitization- Protection- Unauthorized Use-

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 24 Broad Advantages & Disadvantages of Digitization Advantages good PR show off collection let people see items without having to needlessly pull them Disadvantages Can look like Edutainment Can commodify the works and make the repository look like it sold prestige to the highest bidder Authenticity called into question Decontextualization Representational problems-

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 25 Problems with How Works are Represented once a digital work is on the WWW, anyone can physically copy it and use it as they see fit often items are seen outside their context for images: using the normal method of mounting images on the WWW, the credit line often becomes separated from the image

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 26 Don’t advocate strong copyright or protection for the wrong reasons the people who find your content valuable are mostly your traditional audiences barriers before use will inhibit positive uses of your material threat of pursuit after misuse can effectively deter commercial misuse you can prevent commercial misuse without strong protection or copyright

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 27 Instead of fearing lost income, worry about Unauthorized Use Elimination of credit or attribution line (particularly for images) Someone else implying ownership Maintaining the Integrity of the Work

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 28 Protection Methods ^ Encrypting or encapsulating the digital file Marking the digital image with ownership (visible or not) –[[ projects/Projects/Trowbridge/labels.html]] Image quality –Onscreen quality is far lower than printed quality –[[ projects/Projects/Trowbridge/resolution.html]]

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 29 Effect on the Institution Creating/Maintaining a WWW site Wear and tear on the original Handling external requests for Special Collection material Increase or decrease in requests to see originals? New Audiences Implications on the Institution’s Public Image

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 30 Scholarship and Interoperability Why Digital Libraries need standards for interoperability Metadata concerns

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 31 One Final Question: Who will collect the digital works of today that should become the Special Collections of tomorrow? web sites zines electronic journals listserve and discussions drafts of works that later become famous

Besser, frm OAC, 4/17/00 32 More Information projects/Projects/Trowbridge/labels.html projects/Projects/Trowbridge/resolution.html