Past notes:

Questions re: Vision and Scope

  • Rebecca Lubas
  • Stephen Skuce
  • Ann Whiteside
  • Rob Wolfe

Broader questions

  • What is vision of project
  • What is sense of scope of project
  • What is being cataloged (look at photocopied samples)
  • What features to include or exclude
  • What does success look like
  • What do you envision as end project

Practical/logistical questions

  • What metadata needs to be collected (see what physical information has been collected in small sample)
  • What administrative and descriptive information needs to be collected; who determines technical metadata
  • What resources are needed to get descriptive metadata (item, published bibliographies in collection, web?, blog?, info from Aero library?, what else)
  • Do we need special cataloger; what skills, knowledge or experience are needed; how likely to find someone; how to write position description (scope & duties)
  • Who does research on collection's provenance, overall content and information about individual images - cataloger or someone else who might research/write broader material about collection (for web site?)

8/20/07  Nora and William met with all of the above

Strongly urged creation of workflow; suggested that we try different models & workflows if needed; try to generalize for benefit of future efforts; find out how to model a process based on the resources we have with thought to how to acquire additional resources

What about authority control and indexing structure; VRA Core can put in the source of information; use AAT http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/ and LC http://authorities.loc.gov/ forsubjectheadings (can add terms to both); can create local terms; think of headings and making it searchable; IRIR (filemaker pro based) uses VRA Core and takes excel fraily easily

Web page: design what we think people will use; do we just want access to to make it scholarly or in something else; can link on homepage to scholarly essay; have researcher/cataloger do web site?

Suggests that cataloger with BS in history and MLS could probably do research and catloging; CAMS can train and then check work; will probably need to work with originals; Rob and Stephen can train; recommend cataloging entire page, not just the image on the page

Scanning metadata:  size, when scanned, by whom, where the original item is, who cataloged it, when it was cataloged

Suggest talking with Jolene about workflow tracking

8/23/07  Nora and William met with Jolene de Verges

In IRIS can start with minimal cataloging  and metadata and can go back and enhance the record later with new information

IRIS starts with a work records with child record for image

IRIS has asset managment capabilities which allow you to track items in process (scanning, cataloging, storage); can use IRIS number and cross reference with Archives accession/item number

Use VRA Core and CCO for description

Suggest making a value judgement at the beginning to rate how much research each item gets

Catalog the page and index the images and any information on the page

Might want to catalog as a collection and have collection level records with items level records for individual images

When cataloging the title, go from most specific to more general

Postprocessing work:  cropping, adjusting the color; result is a raw tiff file

Decide how many derivatives we want:  thumb nail, screen size, class room projection

Snapdragon is more robust than IRIS; looking to move from Filemaker to (MYSQL?); Harvard is using 4th Dimension (as is Art Institute of Chicago?)

American Antiquarian Society http://www.americanantiquarian.org/digital2.htm#news doing a lot of digitization of collections

9/11/07  William and Nora met with Jolene

Jolene looked at ARTStor http://www.artstor.org/info/ since our last meeting & suggested it is a place to 'look around' (on 9/18/07 I couldn't get in)

Newspaper clippings are cataloged as an artifact; use 'circa' when date unknown

If scanning both sides of an item, the rector and verso can be one object; in IRIS would be 1 work record with 2 images; work record can have multiple image records

When cataloging can work with RVC staff to answer questions

Suggests a shared IRIS space rather than separate spaces; RVC has built a vocabulary that we can draw from and add to; use 1 server rather than 2

May want to group to conserve, catalog, etc., for example, prints, clippings, by size or subject

Can reserve IRIS numbers in groups or for entire body

OPAC for RVC slides is DOME https://dome.mit.edu/

Adding to IRIS drop down menus is easy; adding fields a little more difficult

'Old accession #" field in RVC IRIS can be used for Archives item number

Try 10 each in Archivists Toolkit and in IRIS?

IRIS doesn't deal with heirarchy; flattens everything

7/18/07 Nora and William met with Jennifer, Nancy and Ann Marie 

Set of questions re: Vision and Scope

  • Jennifer Banks
  • Nancy Schrock
  • Ann Marie Willer

Practical/logistical questions

  • What needs to be done before scaning
  • How to mark items for tracking (currently putting in folder even if image is much larger; could easily separate from item)
  • Type of marker
  • Where to mark item
  • What to write/mark (tracking #)

Nancy has looked at most of the collection; planning to bath prints to remove the backing board; will use 20 pt. acid-free matboards with mylar overlay for larger images, to be stored in drop-front boxes; smaller items to be in folders; wants to get work plan for ca. 30 color items and will ask fine arts conservator to consult and then determine if the work on color items can be done in-house or needs to go out

Conservation will take before and after photos (have been using slides and moving to digital) of each item treated; use color and grey-coated cards and scale and correct image colors

Need to find out how long it would take to scan ca. 1225 images; need to determine if work will be done in-house or go out

Possible resources:

Published materials can be tracked down through DDC and some in Barton; check aeronautical journals

University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Projects Unit http://www.library.unt.edu/digital haslots of information on their web site; Ann Marie has first-hand experience working with digital projects because of serving as consultant at UNT

Bill Comstock (formerly of Document Services), technical side, and Todd Bachman, metadata/cataloging side, at Harvard (part of Imaging Services in Weissman Preservation Center? http://preserve.harvard.edu/wpc.html)

Michelle Baildon, MIT Libraries subject specialist for history of science & technology, x3-9352 or baildon@mit.edu

Debbie Douglas, MIT Museum Curator for Science & Technology, x3-1766 or ddouglas@mit.edu

Jolene de Verges, Rotch Images Librarian

Visualizing Culture, John Dower

How to catalog? use MARC? RVC? put individual images in Barton or catalog web site for OCLC

Need to establish vocabulary or determine which standards to use for terms

Broader questions

  • What are assumptions about project
  • What is vision of project
  • What is sense of scope of project
  • What does success look like
  • What do you see as end product
  • What roles should Preservtion Services staff have or are interested in
  • Does preservation services have people/materials resources for items.  Thinking of hand-colored items but can they deal with entire 1,225+ items with current staffing.  How does time table/workflow affect resource availability
  • How to incorporate this project into conservation workflow
    Nancy could start conservation of Vail images after finishing William Barton Rogers material, ca. 9/1/07

Questions for TSAC

Vail Balloon Prints Digitization Project

9/12/07

Nora Murphy & William Reilly  

Areas for which we seek guidance about who makes the decisions (whether it is who should review the initial recommendation or who gives the go-ahead for a particular aspect of the project):   

Software and metadata
Who needs to participate in the decision-making?  Who makes the final decision?  (e.g. IRIS or Archivists Toolkit?  VRA Core or Dublin Core?  CCO or DACS?) 

Metadata
We've talked between ourselves and with others about what needs to be collected (conservation, scanning, descriptive) but is there someone/group to whom we can get a sign-off? 

Research and cataloging staffing
With a job description (or two) to be written, who is/are the appropriate people to sign off on the decision to hire (including Robin Deadrick, of course)?

Special conservator for color items
This position was mentioned in the proposal, but the same questions as above apply. 

Scanning
An initial discussion with Boston Photo Imaging was used for the donor proposal.  We intend to talk with Boston Photo Imaging and NEDCC, but is there someone/group who should give the approval for us to move ahead with one or the other?  Who signs the contract? 

DOME
is this assumed to be included in DOME? does it matter at this point? 

Access/presentation
Where to we go for final approval of the user interface or any web presence? 

Finances
Who manages the budget?  Where are financial decisions made?  

9/12/07 Nina wrote:

We had the discussion at TSAC this morning and since Marilyn asked for the document in digital format, I'm attaching a revised version for all.  The revision is one addition down at the bottom -- some guidelines about who makes financial decisions and who manages the budget for a funded project like this one.

Regarding the first two bullets, Rebecca reminded us that the Metadata Unit is poised to study these questions, consult with the appropriate individuals and groups, and come up with some recommendations for implementation.  This would have to be done as a consulting project, on a cost-recovery basis.  So the question then becomes, would such consulting work need to be covered by the project budget or would the Libraries foot the bill?

I am meeting with Sean in an hour and I plan to share all of this with him.  Rebecca, Tom, Jennifer, and Ann Whiteside (with Sean, we hope) will be meeting again on Friday to review the proposals our task force came up with in the spring.  Our goal is to prepare our questions and some proposed solutions for Marilyn to take to Steering Committee on 9/24.

Progress!

Nina

9/11/07 Nora Murphy wrote:

William, Nina & Tom:
I'm boldly sending this to all three of you - William hasn't had a chance to examine this except in an earlier draft and should make any amendments, corrections, etc.  With TSAC at 10 there probably isn't time for he and I to clean it up before sending it along while allowing Nina and Tom a chance to look it over.
Speaking for William (though he can correct me), we decided that to keep the areas needing decisions at a broad level, including no detail about our discussions with various colleagues or information about our leanings, but would gladly provide more detail if it will help discussion at any time (and expect to do so).
Nora

9/17/07

Nora met with Bill Smith and Dave Semberger of Boston Photo Imaging.

Suggest acetate folders for each item if unmounted or have them remain mounted

Don't need materials in any particular order (size, color, etc.)

Do we want film and digital (cost will go up) or just digital (their recommendation)

Do we want to b able to reproduce the images to size or larger; recommend scanning at 300 dpi to size

Recommend 16 bit vs. 8 bit scanning; cost the same but quality of product much better

Will use scan back camera which will allow for uninterpolated color (3 lines of 8K pixels each; one each red, blue & yellow)

Could start pilot or project January 2008; anticipate 3-4 weeks of work; can use 0330

Do we need staff to handle documents or supervise?

What do we want for 'original' and for derivatives?

Do we want to do pilot (10-15 items to test specs?); need to do pilot at their offices & would take several hours with set up

Questions re: Vision and Scope

  • Nina Davis-Millis
  • Carl Jones
  • Ann Whiteside (re: IRIS database)

Broader questions

  • What is vision of project
  • What is sense of scope of project
  • What features to include or exclude
  • What does success look like
  • What do you envision as end project

Practical/logistical questions
forthcoming

Discussion: 

Need to get workflow drafted

Should meet with Jolene de Verges

Use IRIS?  Ann Whiteside is training CAMS staff on how to use

STS will want to have a sense of the requirements of the project and anticipated demands on staff and resources

  • Carl and Sands may work on User Infterface, e.g.

draft a plan for a proof of concept for about 50 items; create an iterative design with a usability feedback loop to assess the process and the potential product

identify group to work on the proof of concept

Nina suggested that to facilitate our work it would be good to get Steering Committee approval/blessing/agreement in writing on the approval process for process questions and areas needing decisions (e.g., who designs, who assesses, who approves  such things as requirements for systems, metadata, VRA Core/IRIS, user interface, etc., etc., etc.) so that we do not find ourselves derailed later. She suggested Tom talk with Marilyn and have her present this at the next Steering Committee.  

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