Digital Library Toolkit: Building a small digital library on a shoestring
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Presentation delivered at NJLA's 2012 annual conference. Includes hyperlinks for examples of digital libraries throughout.
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Digital Library Toolkit: Building a small digital library on a shoestring
- 1. Digital Library Toolkit: Building a small digital library on a shoestring Miraida Morales miraidam@gmail.com @MiraidaM on Twitter
- 2. The project: to build a digital library of heraldry design for the National Library of Puerto Rico Sketch of flag of Vieques Cataño, studies for Cataño, Sketches coat of arms for coat of arms & flag
- 3. The man: Roberto BeascoecheaLota b. 1915-d. 2004 1956: went to work at the newly formed Institute of Puerto Rican Culture as a historian and advisor Eventually to become Director of the National Library of Puerto Rico
- 4. The collection Unprocessed Organized in folders by municipality only Handmade sketches, handwritten notes, bibliographies, correspondence, invitations to official unveilings, telegrams, drafts of heraldry description, glossaries of heraldic terms, official memoranda
- 5. The process Inventory Platform, Planning & metadata Selection scheme Prototype & Uploading files Digital & metadata Digitization Library creation 3 months
- 6. Challenges Budget: $0 Government holidays: 5 in July alone AC system in the Library broke No access to scanner or hard drive until last week in June Government closures due to tropical storms
- 7. What is a digital library? An organized collection of resources For a specified group of users
- 8. Planning Users Collection
- 9. Heritage Community Educational Resources Collections Tools Curated Collections
- 10. Choices! CMS No CMS
- 11. So many choices
- 12. Evaluate A B
- 13. Resources • Drupal in Libraries (ALA Tech Source) book and website • LYRASIS Digital Toolbox best practices, guidelines • LYRASIS Mass Digitization Collaborative • Open source software documentation • User communities • “A checklist for evaluating open source digital library software.” OIR, 30 (4). • A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (NISO)
- 14. Workflow Evaluation • Team • Platform • Users • Inventory • Metadata • Collection • Budget • Best Practices • Support Planning Selection
- 15. Coda • Don’t forget to test! • Fail fast • Tweak, adjust • Re-test • Add more stuff!
Editor's Notes
- Hello, everyone! I am Miraida Morales, and am a recent MLIS grad from Rutgers where I specialized in Digital Libraries.I gave a presentation last fall at the Adult Services Forum about a digital library project I worked on last summer at the National Library of Puerto Rico, and the response from that presentation was an invitation to share with you today the nuts and bolts of that project. The idea is to deconstruct my experience into tools to use when considering creating a digital library project similar in scope and with similar constraints. In other words, to share with you my process, lessons learned, and my approach when tackling a project like this with limited resources, time, lack of experience, etc.NEXT SLIDE.
- So what was this project? The National Library tasked me with building a digital library of Puerto Rican heraldry design. Now, some of you might be wondering, what is heraldry? Think: family crests! Though these weren’t family crests, they are municipal crests designed in the 1950s mostly, when the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico was going through an interesting phase—after becoming a US military possession as a result of the Spanish-American War, PR expelled US military rule in the early 1950s; PR elected its first PR-born governor; and a strong anti-American sentiment began to develop throughout society. It manifested itself culturally.Several initiatives developed at this time in response to the Americanization that was going on: The founding of the Institute of PR Culture in 1955, the subsequent founding of the National Archive in 1956; the National Library (then called the General Library of PR or Biblioteca General de PR) was later founded in 1967, along with the simultaneous movement to officially adopt municipal coats of arms, crests, seals, and flags; and in this effort, the National Library was a key player.NEXT SLIDE.Heraldry is the design of coats of arms and insignia that traces its roots back to medieval nobility. Heraldry didn’t officially exist in the US until 1957, when a public law was passed allowing the US Army to provide heraldic services to the federal government (Defense Dept., 2010). Due to the peculiarities of US history, however, heraldry is not very well-known or popular today.So you might wonder, why does any of this matter? Why did the National Library choose this project? Here’s my attempt at a crash course on Puerto Rican colonial history, and please forgive me if this is something you already know: While PR was still a colony of Spain, the Spanish crown gave PR a crest or coat of arms in the year 1511 (Gobierno de Puerto Rico, 2010). Later, as a result of the Spanish-American War several centuries later, PR passed from Spain to the US at the turn of the 20th C. The independence movement that had already begun to develop throughout PR since its time as a colony of Spain continued to gain momentum. By the 1950s, the island succeeded in expelling US military rule.In 1948, Puerto Rico elected, for the first time in its history, a local, Puerto Rican-born governor. Due to the anti-US sentiment that continued to develop in the middle of the 20th C as a result of the island’s relationship and political status with the US, PR began to appropriate symbols of its pre-American past as a way to create its own national identity.Several initiatives developed at this time in response to the Americanization that was going on: The founding of the Institute of PR Culture in 1955, the subsequent founding of the National Archive in 1956; the National Library (then called the General Library of PR or Biblioteca General de PR) was later founded in 1967, along with the simultaneous movement to officially adopt municipal coats of arms, crests, seals, and flags; and in this effort, the National Library was a key player.NEXT SLIDE
- One of the members of the board of directors of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture at the time of its inception was a man by the name of Roberto BeascoecheaLota. He was a historian, with a degree from the University of Chicago, and an expert on heraldry. As such, RBL was the perfect cultural agent to aid in this island-wide effort to encourage municipal seats to adopt their own official coats of arms, flags, and seals.He acted as the primary consultant to the municipal governments who applied to have their official coats of arms, seals, and flags audited for authenticity in order to have them officially adopted by municipal decree or resolution.Sometimes, a town would, for instance, host a contest asking local residents to help design these symbols. The proposals chosen as finalists would then be submitted to the National Library, where RBL would audit them, research the symbolism, make adjustments, and recommendations, and resubmit the final design to the municipal government for official approval. Usually, after the symbols had been officially adopted—meaning a resolution or ordenance would be passed—the National Library would commission local artists on the town’s behalf to create the flags or coats of arms to be then presented in an official ceremony, sometimes during the festivities for the town’s Patron Saint or during the festivities celebrating the town’s bicentennial.Because RBL was the first director of the NatlLibrary, the Natl Library owns a large part of his archives, including his files and papers related to his work on municipal heraldry. NEXT SLIDE
- The archive on municipal heraldry consisted of about 20 archival quality boxes full of thousands of documents. They were only organized by municipality, but no further organization scheme within that. So designs were mixed with invitations, telegraphs, notes, resolutions, etc.Not all documents were grouped together—the files had definitely been handled and disorganized; a 20-page document might have been displaced, so pages were not only out of order, but often separated from the others.The contents of these boxes include originals as well as copies, and copies of copies (lots of carbon copies, facsimiles and photocopies), many, many duplicates.NEXT SLIDE
- At the presentation in October, there were 2 slides that most resonated with the audience.This one, detailing the workflow and the timeline, got some wow’s.NEXT SLIDE.
- Andthisone listing the project budget and other challenges, drew some gasps.And that’s why I’m here…to tell you how I was able to do this. To tell you about my approach, what I learned through this and other similar experiences, and what tools I used to guide me along the way.NEXT SLIDE.
- So let’s take a step back…way back, and consider what is a digital library. I know, this question seems so obvious it’s almost rhetorical, but it’s really worth considering.A digital library is, after all, an organized collection of resources for a specified group of users.NEXT SLIDE
- A specified group of USERS! When planning, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when considering a project like this—especially if you haven’t done something like it before.But before anything, first consider your users. This will help you not only choose the collection of resources around which you want to create your DL, but it will help you narrow the SCOPE of your project (what I’m trying to represent by the darker area where both circles overlap).Always remember this! If at any point along the way, you don’t know how to proceed, remember: organized collection of resources for a specified group of users. Don’t know which metadata schema to use? Think about who will be ultimately using these resources and what their needs are. Trying to decide among different CMS? Think about the collection of resources—are these text, video, images, a combination?NEXT SLIDE.
- Heritage: http://www.40families.org/ using DrupalEducational tools: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/homework-helpCurated Collections: http://www.creatingholyoke.org/Community Resources: http://www.pwpl.org/teenspace/Be creative! EXAMPLE: St. Joseph’s Alumni Photos: http://lib.sjcny.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=4304&recCount=25&recPointer=30&bibId=164329NEXT SLIDE.
- Now that you have identified your users, chosen a collection, and focused the scope of the project, the real work begins.Lots to consider!Content management system vs. no CMS…Which CMS—Drupal, Omeka, Collective Access, Greenstone? What about metadata? Dublin Core, EAD, VRA Core, MODS, METS…?NEXT SLIDE.
- Things to consider also include types of formats, hardware considerations for digitizing different types of materials, bandwidth, server space, open source platform requirements, etc.Digitized vs. born digital?Best practices?NEXT SLIDE.
- Evaluate Open Source PlatformsA great RESOURCE:A checklist for evaluating open source digital library softwareby Dion Hoe-LianGoh, Alton Chua, DavinaAnqiKhoo, Emily Boon-HuiKhoo, Eric Bok-Tong Mak, Maple Wen-Min Ng, (2006)Online Information Review, 30 (4), 360 – 379.NEXT SLIDE.
- Luckily, there are lots of great and very current resources to help guide you.http://drupalinlibraries.com/http://www.lyrasis.org/Products-and-Services/Digital-and-Preservation-Services/Digital-Toolbox.aspxhttp://www.lyrasis.org/Products-and-Services/Digital-Services/Mass-Digitization-Collaborative.aspxA checklist for evaluating open source digital library softwareby Dion Hoe-LianGoh, Alton Chua, DavinaAnqiKhoo, Emily Boon-HuiKhoo, Eric Bok-Tong Mak, Maple Wen-Min Ng, (2006)Online Information Review, 30 (4), 360 – 379.NEXT SLIDE.
- Go back to Slide # 4. I would add: SELECT A TEAM! Identify interested parties or individuals within/outside of the organization who have skills/expertise you might lack. These folks are part of your toolkit. They are a valuable resource.Evaluation:Inventory – consider types of resources in the collection, formats, capacity/amountBudget – be realistic and think about planning for the unexpectedSupport – identify documentation, community of Open Source Platform users; where to go for help when you get stuck?Selection:Now you’re ready to implement the platform (install, build database); enter metadata according to standards chosen; manage digital assets according to identified best practices.
- And you’re done! But you’re not really done…The great thing about digital libraries is that they aren’t static! Good and bad thing because this means that it’s easy to fix mistakes, adjust, refresh, update, add more resources, etc…But also means, the work is never done! So roll up your sleeves, settle in and enjoy the work. NEXT SLIDE.