David Taylor Model Basin Technical Reports Project

Title of Project

DavidTaylorModelBasin Technical Reports

Date of template (last revision)

February 21, 2008

Submitted by: name(s) & contact information

Carol Robinson, csrobins@mit.edu, 3-7749

Sponsoring Library/Libraries

Barker / Engineering and Science Libraries

Abstract (1-2 sentences)

This project proposes to create digital editions of all of the technical reports held by Barker Library in three series from the DavidTaylorModelBasin. 

The project could be expanded to include reports in these series held at other institutions in order to create a more complete set of these reports.

I.  PROJECT CONCEPT

A.  DESCRIPTION

Goals of project.  including desired end-product for users and MIT Libraries.

-          To share a uniquely complete collection of technical literature concerning hydrodynamics and engineering, based on research conducted with the DavidTaylorModelBasin.


-          To participate in the OCA scanning initiative.

-          To pilot, for OCA, a metadata creation and digitization workflow using DSpace that will be appropriate to resources without preexisting MARC metadata.


-          To contribute to national technical report digitization efforts (e.g. NRL Torpedo, OSTI e-prints and GWLA Trail)

Description of content. Subject and significance of content, relationship to scope and other collections of MIT Libraries, whether the content was produced at MIT, and if the content is unique.

-          Broad subject: ocean engineering (e.g. underwater robotics, hydrology)

-          The DavidTaylorModelBasin is one of the largest ship model basins — test facilities for the development of ship design — in the world. David Watson Taylor designed and supervised construction in 1896 of the Washington Navy Yard's Experimental Model Basin (EMB). The Basin named for him was built in 1939 in Bethesda,Maryland and contains a shallow water basin, a deep water basin, and a high-speed basin. The David Taylor ModelBasin is currently operated as a field activity of the Carderock Division, NavalSurfaceWarfareCenter.  For more information, see [http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5528.pdf.
]
-          Many reports were authored by MIT faculty, and distributed to MIT researchers in Ocean Engineering. An inventory has been done that will identify extent of MIT responsibility for content more precisely.

Spatial extent of content. Number of pieces / units and growth rates as well as other indicators of scale (e.g. file sizes).

Approximately 1000 pieces.  No pieces are being added.

Temporal extent of content. Span of years covered.

Approximately 1934-1980's (date range is being established by inventory of collection - completed Dec. 2007).

Rights and/or source of content, if known. Planned restrictions if any on distribution or access to digital versions in DOME; if permissions will be needed, have been granted, etc.

All are believed to be in public domain.  No restricted government reports.

Because the ModelBasin is a federal facility (US Department of the Navy), the content should not require permissions to digitize or share, nor does MIT have an exclusive right in this material.

US federal libraries with historic ties to the ModelBasin have been interviewed to determine if these materials have been digitized.  To the best of our knowledge, systematic digitization has not been done for these reports by anyone.

B. JUSTIFICATION

Anticipated audience(s) for content.  Include curricular or research needs that will be served; or benefits to audiences beyond MIT.

These resources would be of use to the MIT mechanical and ocean engineering student community as well as to students of aeronautics and astronautics.

The collection would also be of interest beyond MIT because of the uniqueness of the research facility where the research was conducted.

Anticipated benefits of digitization. (e.g. search, access, manipulation)

The primary benefit would be improved access to these reports both at MIT and beyond.  Specific priorities are OCR and metadata for figures (i.e., diagrams, etc.)

The secondary benefit would be to provide experience at MIT with technical report digitization standards and practices. This experience will be valuable because MIT Libraries have other, significant collections of technical reports, both academic and federal, in print and microformats.  Such legacy collections are often difficult to identify and use and present challenges related not only to format but complexity or obscurity of retrieval.

An MIT initiative in this area would also give us an opportunity to collaborate with other technical reports open content initiatives such as TRAIL (http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/techreports/) and OSTI's e-print network (http://eprints.osti.gov/) .

Is original content at risk or obsolete?

No, though as relatively rare printed material it is subject to loss and deterioration.

C.  FUNDING

Funding: is funding available now, what amounts; what are additional or likely sources of funding?

Proposed funding for this pilot effort would be provided by the MIT Libraries digitization fund.

Funding: . If no funding has been secured, where might funding be found?

If additional funds were needed, it might be possible to work with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and/or the Center for Research Libraries and GWLA.

D. SPECIFICATIONS

If analog, who manufactured this material?
Quality/condition as of today?
What preparation of the material is needed?

Printed by the US Government.

Print materials in fair to good condition. Some stapled, some bound.  Mostly Standard paper sizes, with many pages of figures and some fold outs.  See INVENTORY prepared by ESL. 

Preparation of material could include some disbanding (in case of stapled materials. 

May be some bleed-through in page images especially for some older reports.           

If already digitized, technical specifications for digital version; quality/condition as of today; should analog and digital be linked in some way.

Not applicable.

If born digital, technical specifications; quality condition as of today?  What standards/best practices were used?

Not applicable.

E.  METADATA

Does the project come with descriptive metadata?

No.  However, Excel inventory could be used to produce descriptive metadata.

Does the project come with technical metadata?

No.

Does the project come with administrative metadata?

No.

Does the project come with preservation metadata?

No.

Can the metadata be migrated?

TBD

Does the metadata conform to best practices?

Not applicable (not intent of inventory).

F. ACCESS / USABILITY

Will the content interoperate with our systems?

Proposed features and delivery requirements

Format

Data

Access

Usability

Full text searching for text;
Metadata and/or full text searching for the figures

Other comments

II. PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

A. Steps needed to produce product

Inventory was produced by ESL (Excel)

Project plan and budget.

Project approval and hand-off to Project Manager and Implementation team (not established yet)

B. Feasibility of each step in terms of:
Expertise
Staff time
Equipment, hardware,
software
Space
Funding
Other

Some questions to address:

Metadata: 1) Excel inventory as basic metadata; 2) metadata for "figures" (see Inventory column for Page Count)

OCR, including text in figures and captions

Foldouts?

Binding:  "Stapled"(Inventory doesn't distinguish side stapled from pamphlet style)


Vendor(s) capabilities and costs:  Metadata Unit; OCA; Doc Services

C. Can project be carried out in stages?

D.  Does project build on previous or concurrent work

AI Lab Working Papers
Sloan Working Papers

E.  What new capabilities are required

F.  Could these capabilities benefit other projects

G.  Sustainability requirements for: curation, technical support, addition of new content, development of new tools

Potential to add more DTMB reports that we don't currently have in our print collection.   Collaboration with other libraries may be possible.

H.  Other requirements