Transcript Slide 1

Local History and Museum Workshops:
Digitizing Collections
May 6, 2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Vicki Tobias, UW Digital Services Librarian
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Project Workflow
PRE- PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION
POST- PRODUCTION
Project Management
Reformatting
User Feedback
Materials Selection
Metadata
Outreach / Marketing
Inventory Control
Interface / Infrastructure
Sustainability
Storage
Quality Control / Testing
Project Post Mortem
Preservation
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production
• Project Management
• Materials Selection
• Inventory Control
• Storage
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Project Management
• Project staff
•
•
Project manager and production staff
Lead worker and “line” staff
• Staff management
•
•
•
•
Roles and responsibilities
Training document for production staff
Periodic evaluation and retraining
Prepare for staff turnover!
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Project Management
• Timeline and schedule
•
•
•
•
Benchmark dates for all project work
Representative sample (e.g., metadata, reformatting, etc.)
Fixed or flexible deadlines
Be realistic!
• Periodic project meetings
•
•
•
•
Review schedule and timeline
Progress reports from project staff
Address project problems
Document decisions!
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Project Management
• Project documentation
•
•
•
•
Record all major project decisions
Create and document project workflow
Document all technical details (e.g. scanning specs, etc.)
Review and revise timeline and workflow, as needed
• Project management system
•
•
•
Database or project management software
Track project details (e.g. deadlines,
workflow, inventory, statistics, etc.)
Centralize key information and update!
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Project Management
• UWDCC Digital Projects Administrative Database
•
Project-level information
Title, key players, dates, pertinent details, documentation
•
Phase-level information
Materials, technology, metadata and reformatting dates
•
Inventory
Project/phase-level, items, dates in/out, contact person, storage
•
Staff and student hours
Project/phase-level, administrative, production work
•
Reports
Project statistics, projects “in production” details
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Project Management
• UWDCC pre-production documentation
•
Project Questionnaire
Basic project idea, completed by content provider
•
Materials Assessment
Completed by UWDCC staff, site visit
•
Cost Estimate
Completed by UWDCC staff, based on assessment, questionnaire
•
Project Brief
Summary document for committee approval
•
Memo of Understanding
Between UWDCC and content provider, signed pre-production
•
Project Schedule and Timeline
Based on information from cost estimate, MOU
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Materials Selection
• Survey holdings and evaluate collections
•
•
•
are important to institution, users, community
have value (historic, physical, monetary)
are appropriate for digitization (intellectual content,
physical format)
• Select content that
•
•
•
meets project goals and deliverables
can be digitized within available resources
have rights or permission to create and
publish a digital version (or can acquire)
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Inventory Control
• Use database or spreadsheet to track:
•
content provider information
•
bibliographic data
•
dates in/date out
•
storage location
•
special handling or storage needs
•
transfer information
•
other pertinent details
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Pre-Production: Storage
•
•
Physical environment
•
temperature and humidity
•
light
•
adequate space
Security
•
controlled access
•
sign in/sign out project materials
•
locked
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production
• Reformatting
• Metadata
• Web Interface / Infrastructure
• Quality Control / Testing
• Preservation
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Reformatting
• Consider the following:
•
•
•
•
•
original media type (e.g., book, photo, 3-D object)
original media condition (e.g., fragile, bound, color, B/W)
end product, user experience
access or preservation
grant-based or fixed project requirements
• Reformatting specifications:
•
•
•
resolution/dpi (“dots per image”)
bit-depth
color, B/W, grayscale
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Reformatting
• Follow professional standards for image capture
From Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial, Cornell University
(http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial)
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Reformatting
• File Naming Standards
•
•
•
•
•
Use file-naming schemes that are compatible across
platforms and systems
Use only lower case characters a-z, numerical digits, and the
following special characters: period, hyphen, and underscore
Do not use spaces or any other special characters
File names in your metadata records must
match associated image file names
When developing a file-naming scheme, have
a good understanding of the whole project
•
•
•
How many images will be scanned?
Will they be stored in different directories?
Are the files part of larger complex objects?
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Reformatting
• Follow professional standards for image capture
•
Library of Congress, American Memory Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/formats.html
•
California Digital Library
www.cdlib.org/inside/groups/stas/standards/
•
Columbia Digital Library
www.columbia.edu/acis/dl/imagespec.html
•
Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial
Cornell University
www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial
•
Recommendations for Digitizing for RLG Cultural Materials
www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=220#Filenaming
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Metadata
• What is it?
•
•
•
“data about data”
the sum total of what one can say about any information
object at any level of aggregation
descriptive, structural, and administrative
• Why should I care about it?
•
user access
•
context and meaning
•
long-term stability and preservation
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Metadata
• Consider the following:
•
•
•
Necessary level of description for user and project
Time and resources available for metadata creation
Availability of subject specialists for descriptive metadata
• Professional standards
•
•
Develop and apply data entry standards
Follow professional standards:
•
e.g. Dublin Core metadata
•
set of 15 standardized data fields
•
DC_Title, DC_Author, DC_LocalID
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Metadata
• Follow professional standards for metadata
•
The Library of Congress Core Metadata Elements
www.loc.gov/standards/metadata.html
•
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
http://dublincore.org/
•
Getty Standards Program, Introduction to Metadata:
Pathways to Digitization
www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/intrometadata/index
.html
•
Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for RLG Cultural Materials
www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=214
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
To build in-house?
To buy “off the shelf”?
•
Customize to fit project
and user needs
•
Less flexible design and
interface
•
Requires in-house
expertise (e.g. IT staff)
Control content and
presentation
Initial and on-going costs
•
Vendor upgrades and
technical support
Compatibility with peer
projects
Initial and on-going costs
•
•
•
•
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
• Consider the following:
•
Time and resources necessary for:
•
initial development and testing
•
stakeholder “buy in”
•
long-term maintenance
•
End user needs and expectation
•
Project contents (e.g. photos, text, etc.)
•
Project deliverables
•
Accessibility issues
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
UW Digital Collections Center
Home page: http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
UW Digital Collections Center
Collections page: http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections.html
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
University of Wisconsin Collection
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/UW
Ecology and Natural Resources Collection
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/EcoNatRes
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
UW Digital Collections Center – MULTIMEDIA MODEL
• For images, audio, video, etc.
• SiteSearch application
• Dublin Core metadata.
• Predefined search, keyword search
or advanced “guided” search
function to search collection.
• Results displayed in Brief, Full, or
Gallery view.
• Image records presented in three
or four image sizes: thumbnail,
reference, large, and extra large.
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
UW Digital Collections Center – EFACS (PAGETURNER) MODEL
• For books, letters, journals and
other text-based materials.
• Browse resources by title, author,
journal title, or sub-collection.
• Simple, Boolean, or proximity
search options.
• Search results presented in
hierarchical or “nested” display.
• Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) text provided in addition to
page image.
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Web Interface / Infrastructure
Library of Congress American
Memory Project
Western Waters Digital Library
Hoagy Carmichael Collection
Indiana Univ. Digital Library
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Quality Control / Testing
•
Follow professional standards and set benchmarks
•
•
•
Reformatting
Metadata
Quality control
•
Review images and metadata within test environment
•
Build in time for re-work and corrections
•
Final staff review of all content
•
Content provider review of all content
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Production: Preservation
• Digitization is not necessarily “preservation”
•
Digitizing for access or preservation?
•
Work with existing technology infrastructure and IT staff
•
Images
•
•
•
2 archive copies of master image (TIF) to CD or DVD
check periodically for image stability
Metadata
•
•
back up database to tape or server
check periodically for data stability
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Post-Production
• User Feedback
• Outreach and Marketing
• Sustainability
• Project Post Mortem
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Post-Production: User Feedback
• Evaluation methods
•
User survey (Web form on Web site)
•
“Feedback” email (on Web site)
•
In-house focus group
• Feedback
•
Identify target audience
•
Ask meaningful questions
•
Quantitative and qualitative data
•
Review findings to inform future projects
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Post-Production: Outreach and Marketing
• Spread the word!
•
•
Notify key participants, e.g. content provider, institution staff
and administration, funding organization, Board members
Submit collection or resource information to:
-- appropriate Web sites, listservs, blogs
-- federated databases (e.g., ARL, Cyndi’s List, etc.)
-- Web search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, etc.)
•
News release to local (or beyond!) media
•
“Launch” event
Include in your institution’s Web site, online
catalog / access system and outreach materials
•
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Post-Production: Sustainability
• On-going collection or resource maintenance
•
•
•
•
Allocate resources!
Data and image migration
Software “versioning” or upgrades
On-going tech support
• “digital preservation”
•
•
•
Archival copies
Project documentation
Perform incremental quality check
on sample of archived images and data
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Post-Production: Project Post Mortem
• Post project evaluation
•
•
•
Original project deliverables vs. end product
Resources allocated vs. actual amount spent
Project timeline vs. actual benchmark dates
• Discuss and document “areas for improvement”
•
•
•
What happened?
Resolution (“quick fix”) during project?
Ideal resolution?
• Share successes!
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Additional Resources
•
Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for
Preservation and Access
www.nedcc.org/digital/dighome.htm
•
Building Digital Collections: A Technical Overview
Library of Congress American Memory Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/techIn.html
•
A Framework of Guidance for Building Good
Digital Collections (NISO)
http://www.niso.org/framework/Framework2.html
Vicki Tobias
UW Digital Collections Center
5/6/2005
Local History and Museum Workshops:
Digitizing Collections
May 6, 2005
Workflow and Planning for Digital Projects
Vicki Tobias, UW Digital Services Librarian
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center