Minutes are in order starting with the most recent meeting first

Minutes Monday 7.14.08

Present: Jolene De Verges, Mikki Simon, Jennifer Friedman, Liz Andrews, Ann Whiteside

Photo QC-

Recapped on the QC meeting with Jolene De Verges and Liz Phipps regarding the QC of the photos. RVC will do a quick QC of the photos by opening the photos in Photoshop and making sure the name is correct and no photos are missing.

Text QC-

Mikki will send the originals off site as soon as BPI returns them. She has photocopies of the originals and will use the photocopies if she needs to reference them in the QC process. Mikki is going to request Photoshop.

Cataloguing of photos (1,963 photos)-

Prepping the photos for the scanning process was a part of their cataloguing process. They all have an IRIS number. Stephanie has been working 20 hours a week gathering terminology in IRIS in the subject file when she identifies types of buildings/accents/structures in the photographs. The titles that are on them will be used as titles in the item even though they are not unique, ex. Street name, date, time of day etc. The photos also have a category like signs or Boston at night (about 20 categories) these will be subject heading. Jolene doesn't have an estimation of how long this will take but will check in with Liz P. and Stephanie on their progress to date.

Beverly - Sean, Beverly, and Carl Jones met about the ingest process into DOME. Relayed that Carl could ingest the collection based on their types: photos, text documents, oversized maps.

Jolene - will the Kepes Lynch photos also be included with the RVC collection? Beverly said they will be a separate collection. Ann noted that searches would want them to be cross searchable.

We would want two references to the same collection so that the text items would be linked to the photo items. The related collection would be included in the descriptive metadata.

Group is waiting for faceted browsing. (updated 7/15 to note that this is not available at this time) So we will include all items in one collection instead of sub collections to prepare for faceted browsing in the near future.

Group thought that the name of the project should be the name of the collection in DOME.

Perceptual Form of the City will be the name of the collection in DOME. Or Kevin Lynch's Perceptual Form of the City.(updated to note that Mikki checked and noticed that the project was named Perceptual Form of the City project documents Boston during the 1960s. This isn't accurate as the text portion of the project is from 1954 to 1959. Mikki also noted that the book Image of the City was published in 1960.)

Scope note about the collection. Kevin Lynch would be one of the creators, subject heading to include Kepes Lynch

Cataloguing text documents (250 documents, 1200 pages)-

Mikki's first step is to clean up the data she already has then see what is missing. Ann suggested that less data would be easier to import into IRIS so that it will be easier to map.

Title, Creator, Date, Location: RVC, Subject - content is in subject (which could be the location in the photograph), Description (not for the text documents), Work type: letter, interview, report - a searchable field

Mikki says the folder title could be the subject terms.

The KL number will have to be added to the IRIS record manually and will be part of the metadata.

Mikki needs to look at IRIS - set things up with Jolene for training. Specific version of IRIS that RVC is using is version 8. Jolene will give Mikki the IP address and login access.

Mikki, Kate, Stephanie, and Liz Phipps will work as a team on cataloguing.

Should we include a reference document in DOME: for more information on these notations click here - key information document

Each record will have 2 derivatives: one pdf of the image and one pdf of the transcription.

Transcription -

The order of documents to be transcribed:

Start with the documents that are handwritten - 60 documents
Next the documents with annotation (mostly the ones with the Lynch key)
Then type the items that are already typed

Jordan Koffman and Stephanie will be the students that will work on transcription.

Transcribe from the original and remotely. Put the copies of pdfs on thumb keys to give the transcriber.

Have students for 6-7 more weeks, approximately until September 1^st. We just need the KL number and the digital scanned pdfs for them to start on the transcription.

Mikki has completed a transcription guideline (referenced Library of Congress and considerations for ADA) - will put on the wiki by end of the week.

Other news-

BPI will deliver the hard drive in approximately 2 weeks (BPI delivered the harddrive with the scanned images on July 31st) . The images are located on the SAN: R:\DSpace Images\Kepes-Lynch. Contact Beverly to get access to the folder if needed.

Minutes Friday 5.30.08

Boston Photo Imaging (BPI) has been selected to scan the text documents, photos, and oversized maps. Now the group must decide which items should be scanned first and when they will be ready for BPI to scan. Factors known prior to start of meeting: the photos are ready to go out of the door today, BPI will be in house

How long will this prep take?Liz - Text prep would take several weeks

Jolene - Student workers hired to work part-time on the transcription. Can they work on the prep?

Liz - the students can not work on prep process. The training process would take too long. Also, where would the student's work? No one can be in the collections' pit unless a staff member is present.

Mikki will put each content into it's own folder (because there is no information on the item), generate numbers and spreadsheet.

Sean - Is there anything for the vendor to reference if they are confused as to which box the item belongs to?

Liz - The finding aids are not item level. Photocopy the front page of the document/object and keep it in the box that Archives will hold and in the Mylar folder.

Beverly - Could we send the photos first to gain a few more days to prep the text?

The photos will only take a couple of days and would use different cameras than the text documents so sending them ahead of time would not help with our time schedule.

Text prep process:Jennifer can help Mikki prep the text because she has an open week the first week of June; Jennifer and Mikki need to get together and discuss prep and Stephanie (newly hired student) can sit in on that meeting to orient herself on the project.

The accession numbers will come from the folders

I should organize the transcription guidelines

Work with Jennifer/Mikki on getting text ready for BPI

I will handle the coordination of getting items to BPI

Collection - KL MC208

Item - Archives Box 1/Fldr 6

Minutes from Friday, 5.23.08

Revisited the naming convention discussion to make sure that we were confident in our decision.

Record item # - automatically generated

File name = digital file

These are the same #

Keep the same naming convention that was created in last week's meeting on 5/12/08

Naming convention for files:

Use: KL_000001_001_sv.TIFF

KL_000001_001_tr.pdf

KL_000001_001_org.pdf

<Project Prefix><six digit item unique ID number><item image #><version/derivative type>.<file extension>_

METADATA

Walked through:

Photos-administrative

Rights mgt. (copyright)
- Who owns copyright
- What are the usage right
- Provenance
- Location (Rotch, Archives)
Photos-descriptive
- Title
- Creator
- Dates
- Location of the physical location - site
  - Location - content
  - Location - item
  - Geospatial coordinates? (level 2)
- Physical size of photo
- Subjects
- Description
- Work type
- Physical description
- Collection Name
- Relation
Text-descriptive
- Work type: Street interviews, directional, project documentation
Text-administrative
- Folder/box names
"maps"-descriptive*
"maps"-administrative
- Folder/box names

*The map (hand drawing) with the overlay is a new object. The overlay is what is important and it becomes a new map.

Summary of the group's metadata choices:

Administrative:

Rights mgt/ usage/copyright
Provenance
Collection Location (Rotch, Archives)
Folder/Box Names

Descriptive:

Title
Creator
Dates
Location (content, item, geospatial coordinates)
Subject/keywords
Descriptions
Type (worktype)
Physical Description
Collection Name
Relation

Discussed cost estimates for capturing metadata.

A rule of thumb for estimating cost is the average time it takes to capture image information: average 6 minutes/image = 10 images an hour/ times the salary

Sean says: What should we spend on cataloguing?

RVC thought that their staff was suppose to do the cataloguing as part of their workflow already. Jolene and Ann should not have cost recovery since the photographs out of the Kepes-Lynch are from RVC and therefore there should not be any cost recovery for capturing metadata.

Upcoming....

May 30^thAgenda:

1. Recap of last week's discussion

2. Sending content out to BPI - prep. work to be done, timeline

3. Look at how IRIS handles content other than images

4. Agreement on system to use for cataloging Kepes-Lynch content

Minutes from Wednesday, 4.9.08

Present: Ann Whiteside, Jolene de Verges, Jennifer Friedman, Sean Thomas, Tom Rosko, Mikki Simon

Walked through our last meeting using the notes from that meeting to give Sean a sense of where we are.

Maps - sizes. Mikki is measuring now. about 18", some 8.5x11"

Scope: this is Boston related only, so this piece is discrete. Can add other related material later.

Answer to question about printed documents becoming obsolete; TR says "not at risk".

Vendors and digitization

photos are for publication - reprint and what formats
maps - for preservation
documents - for access
PDFs - multiple page documents.

Want to be aware of file sizes that will be created. There are a couple of hundred that are way over five pages. Longer ones tend not to have annotations. Generally, the annotated documents are fewer than 5 pages. Some of those are also

Ask Doc. Svcs. to do a test on compressing the files. 600 dpi, compress the files.
Liz will talk with Doc.Svcs.

Annotations would be transcribed. Writing is over the text and is marginalia. Sean suggests we also test doing OCR scanning.
Ask vendors - OCR the documents rather than straight scanning?
Delivery all text documents as images, possibly with OCR underneath go into a single pdf; transcriptions go into pfs

Sean says - two things - one, would we expect to want to have more functionality so that pages and transcriptions sit side by side? it would be easier for users to have page to page between PDF and transcription.
Will have item records for:
each photograph
each map
each document
photos and maps delivered as jpgs.
maps - some are really overlays to go over a map, so they're not really maps. You could scan each map and then scan the map with the appropriate overlays individually.

Catalog as individual items for DOME. Collection level records?

Community - can have many

Subcommunities - can have many of these within a Community

Collections - can be within subcommunities and within communities

only collections can contain items

Need to think about services:

lowest common denominator

tying all the types of content together - a necessity or a phase 2 thing? Do we want content in sooner?

We want it browseable - can do that through metadata

Could we have a subcommunity of Kevin Lynch Image of the City, with collections: images, documents, maps? the book?

Can add a description to the subcommunity that explains the collections.

Jennifer will draw a visual flow chart for our next meeting?

Can develop the facets that we would want people to be able to use to find content. i.e., photographs, scollay square

Simile allows you to multi-select things to search by.

cataloging:

facets - for dome.mit.edu and for this project

Minutes from Thursday, 4.3.08

AGENDA

Present: Friedman, de Verges, Simon, Andrews, Whiteside, Rosko

Notes from last meeting
1. Tom and MIT Press - update
  1. No. new deadline: April 7th

1. going through the boxes of documents - update
  1. done

1. maps - update from discussion with Nancy S.
  1. Nancy has been too busy. Should go ahead and get price estimates. But Nancy still needs to review before actually sending out
  2. the maps are really drawings and of various sizes. Larger ones are on fragile paper.

Mikki and Liz to provide size information and fragility info. deadline: April 11th

1. information about digitizing text

Template
1. text digitization and resolution - 600 dpi?
  1. text at 600 dpi; transcription
  2. delivery: OR original w/a link to transcription
    1. if you have a multiple page document, it should be one file with multiple pages. One pdf of multiple pages and one transcription file.
    2. hand written notes on text pages. How to handle?

Jennifer and Mikki will go through the written docs. and make recommendations for how to transcribe annotations. They will also look to see how many names appear in the actual field notes. Deadline: April 18^th.

1. images
  1. images at 600 dpi. with thumbnails and derviatives

1. maps digitization - BPI recommends 300 dpi - any other thoughts?
  1. line drawings, with color, and some nodes; some are brittle
  2. could be done at 600 dpi?
  3. we are trying to preserve the original for this particular content.
  4. Ask vendors their suggestions for dpi
2. Will this "collection" grow" in DOME?
  1. We would like to add discrete pieces over time.

1. content at risk? need to define for project plan
  1. maps are fragile and the intellectual content is not preserved in the book "Image of the City".
  2. text pages are somewhat fragile, but the content is summarized elsewhere ("Image of the City")
  3. Photographs are in good condition

1. rights - text and images
  1. what we know now:

1. photographs: files in RVC has a boiler plate form for the making of the slides.

2. the project hired an assistant, as a work for hire. He is credited, but does not own copyright. No gift form found for the photograph collection. Look at grant application.

Liz will contact the Rockefeller Foundation Archives to see what information we can find re: rights around the project. Deadline: April 18^th
Need to discuss language for usage rights. Jolene and Liz. Deadline: April 18th

End user delivery for whole

A collection within DOME that has its own identity; searchable as its own collection, and across collections. Could create a link from the Archives website. We want the collection to be open. Talk with Sean about this at meeting on April 9^th.

4, Digitizing and RFPs

1. Boston Photo
2. NEDCC
3. Backstage
4. Two Cat Digital

Update on discussion with Doc. Svcs. - Jolene and Jennifer talked with Jenn Morris. Doc. Services does not have the equipment to do the work needed on the photographs. Not an option for the photographs. Discussed handling of objects, security. They have more space and a place to secure content that they are working on. Jolene and Jennifer are going to do another walk through of the handling processes with Jenn to analyze how well they will handle rare content. Weakness is their equipment. They are building expertise.

They have been digitizing Archives content, but the handling of the materials has been unacceptable. Archives has talked with them repeatedly about the handling.

We are treating them as a vendor.

Do we want to have the whole digitized as one project of a variety of content? Or as separate? We do not think that any one vendor will do transcription. If we do this as one project are we missing out on expertise from particular vendors?

We'll ask each vendor what they can or will do. Send them information about the content for the project, and begin the RFP process.

Talking with vendors will get us the cost information we need for SC.

AW talk to vendors by April 18^th.

Process from here

6.Cataloging - discuss on April 18^th.

Minutes from Thursday, 2.7.08

Present: Tom, Liz, Mikki, AW, Jolene, Jennifer

Re-cap of review of documents:

Maps - very valuable; ca. 30 maps; some have numbers that are codes. They are the maps that the assistants used to survey the city.
Box 1 - some good content; some not so valuable for the project; primarily docs. related to proposal for the book; interviews, Rockefeller Foundation; people from whom Lynch received input.
Liz noticed about the papers that the folder titles are those that Lynch used. Also saw proposal to foundation; also a summary report; Kepes' comments on the draft summary report.
Liz says do enough from the documents that talk about the photographs which ties the project together.
Tom says we should digitize the book "Image of the City". It's an MIT Press book. Talk with the Press? Tom will contact Ellen Ferrin at MIT Press. DEADLINE: February 15th
How to do document selection?
All the RVC photographs

Create a spreadsheet with box #, file folder, an id for the document, keep track of number of pages; which ones need to be copied for discussion with others (metadata, digitizing, etc.)?
Need to take the time to go through the boxes - 3. DEADLINE: March 10th

Do: proposal, summary, Kepes' comments on the summary.
Make photo copies? Liz wants to digitize from originals. Some have different color backgrounds; notes in margins.
Some of the legibility of the docs is not good. Copying might give you more legibility?
Scanning might be able to do this, too.

Pull sample documents for vendors to look at as part of RFP process.
Maps - do only Boston related maps.
Talk with Conservation about the maps. Tom will talk with Nancy about the maps. DEADLINE: February 14^th. Will figure out the time frame. She'll look within the month (February).

Vendors: quotes for scanning

BPI

NEDCC

Document Services
AW will look up information about digitizing text. DEADLINE: February 14th
Contact vendors: Jennifer/Jolene; set up meeting with Liz and Mikki

DEADLINE: February 21st

Next topics for discussion

Output:
Ask Sean Thomas about pdfs or what is best?
Exhibit page for the content as a collection
Cataloging: Jolene and Rebecca + Rob

Child pages

Minutes