Our Mistitled LITA Presentation October 27, 2008
Posted by wsexton in : Presentations , 3commentsSean Aery and I presented on Saturday, October 18 at the LITA National Forum on our homemade “Tripod” platform for digital collections. Here’s an embed of our Google slides:
We proposed this presentation back in February. The original title, “A Faceted Browsing Approach to Duke’s Digital Collections,” stuck, but by October 18, we had maybe one reference to facets in the presentation. I’m not sure what we should have called it. Something about the “three ‘bilities” might have been good, but that slide (#21) didn’t exist until October 16.
CHANGELOG, 2008 Oct. 24 October 24, 2008
Posted by wsexton in : Uncategorized , 3commentsWe posted a major build of the digital collections site today. 
The focus of the build was a set of five new collections; I know Jill intends to publicize them here, so instead of the prolix titles I’ll deploy their “collectionID” values: blake, esr, songsheets, strong and vica. In addition, we returned the asl collection to the internet after a rather lengthy, post-Texis hiatus. Since we focused on these great collections for this build, there are relatively few upgrades to the system to report, but I’ll list them here. (more…)
Why digital collections aren’t just a big pile of stuff October 17, 2008
Posted by Rich in : metadata , 1 comment so far
Continuing the introductions … I’m Rich Murray, and I’m one of two Metadata Librarians in the Digital Collections Program. I’m based in the Cataloging & Metadata Services Department, and I work with Noah Huffman (in the Rare Book, Manuscript, & Special Collections Library) to plan and create metadata for our digital collections.
What does that mean, exactly? Basically, Noah and I –- and the rest of the metadata team –- work to describe, organize, and allow users to discover the cool stuff in our digital collections. Metadata is “data about data,” and without it, a 5000-item digital collection is like 5000 photographs thrown into a big pile. You might be able to find what you want by going through them all one at a time, but it will probably take forever, and you may get to the end and discover that what you were looking for wasn’t in the big pile anyway.
With good metadata, though, you can find what you’re looking for much more efficiently and painlessly. We group objects into categories based on subject, format, time period, or anything else that makes sense. We apply captions to images, keywords to advertisements, plot summaries to videos, and anything else we think will help you find what you’re looking for. And if we’re doing our job right, the metadata we provide might even lead you to really, really cool stuff that you didn’t even know you were looking for.
Fortunately, Noah and I don’t have to do all this on our own. We work with a great group of folks, including the rest of the Digital Collections Implementation Team, the Metadata Advisory Group, and other staff throughout the libraries. It’s a team effort, and as our Digital Collections Program grows, more and more of us are involved in making it happen.
The other part of my job, which may sound completely unrelated at first but really isn’t, is serving as the Catalog Librarian for Spanish & Portuguese (and Catalan and Galician) Languages. Both parts of my job involve describing, arranging, and providing access to the library’s collections so you can find what you need.
Metadata isn’t something new –- it’s what librarians and archivists have been doing all along, even if we called it something else. Connecting people and ideas is what do best, and as part of the Digital Collections Program, I get to spend my days bringing some truly remarkable resources to an audience around the world. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Taking the blog for another spin October 14, 2008
Posted by Thomas Crichlow in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Since we are on a roll with team member introductions, I’ll take the blog for a spin and introduce myself.
I’m Thomas Crichlow, a Digital Projects Consultant/Web Designer at Duke University Libraries. I’ve worked with various portions of the Libraries’ websites since October 2005 and with the new Digital Collections system since October 2007.
My contributions to the Digital Collections Implementation Team are focused on the contextual pages that provide some of the background information related to each digital collection. I meet with the collection sponsors and help them develop and present their content.
Overall, the team has worked hard to create a common look and feel for our Digital Collections system while preserving the unique identity of each collection.
My favorite activities have been creating collection icons (how hard can it be to convey a collection’s identity in 60×60 pixels?) and creating slide shows on collection home pages highlighting compelling images (kudos to Joaquin Bueno for his contributions to slideshows).
Working with such great colleagues makes the job much easier and very enjoyable.
A metadata tool that scales October 10, 2008
Posted by wsexton in : Trident , 7commentsIn January of 2007 I sent a post to the Web4lib list titled “Metadata tools that scale.” At Duke we were seeking opinions about a software platform to capture metadata for digital collections and finding databases. The responses to that inquiry suggested that what we were looking for didn’t exist.
About a year ago, an OCLC report on a survey of 18 member institutions, “RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results,” supported that basic conclusion. When asked about the tools that they used to “create, edit and store metadata descrptions” of digital and physical resources, a sizable majority responded “customized” or “homegrown” tool.
Since my initial inquiry, we launched a new installation of our digital collections. Yet we still lack a full-featured software platform for capturing descriptive metadata.
(more…)
Keeping coordinated October 9, 2008
Posted by Jill Katte in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Will’s introduction of himself and of “megadata” inspired me to do an introduction, too. I’m Jill Katte, Coordinator of the Digital Collections Program in the Duke University Libraries. The Digital Collections Program currently focuses primarily on digitizing and publishing on-line our unique manuscripts, rare books, documentary photographs, historic advertisements, popular music, and much more, primarily from Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library and University Archives (where I worked from 2002-2007). My main role is to move these digitization projects from the idea phase all the way through to completion. I serve as a planner, project manager, liaison, communicator, negotiator, and cheerleader.
Most of the digital collection project ideas come from curators, but some have been submitted by Duke faculty, staff, and visiting scholars. I collaborate with these folks to develop their ideas into project proposals. Once the proposals get approved, production of the digital collections is accomplished by a cross-functional group called the digital collections implementation team. Team members represent several departments in the Duke University Libraries: Mike Adamo and Brian Davis (Digital Production Center), Noah Huffman (RBMSCL), Rich Murray (Metadata & Cataloging), Will Sexton (Information Systems), Sean Aery and Tom Crichlow (Digital Projects), and me (Collections Services). It is truly a dream-team, and I’m so lucky to be a part of it.
Megadata, an Introduction October 9, 2008
Posted by wsexton in : Uncategorized , 3commentsI’m Will Sexton, Metadata Analyst / Programmer here at Duke University Libraries. My job focuses on technical support for the metadata-heavy stuff: finding aids, finding databases (like this one) and digital collections. I’m part of a great team that includes Sean Aery, who designed the front end for our digital collections platform. Sean and I will present on that project next week at the LITA National Forum.
When I took this position six years ago my job title was the only “metadata” anything in the library. Now we have two Metadata Librarians, a committee called the Metadata Advisory Group, and an internal metadata “standard” named Duke Core (derived from that other core). What used to be our Cataloging Department is now known as Cataloging & Metadata Services. Yes (rubs hands together, cackles) my plan is working beautifully. Next I will change my job title to “Toll House Cookies for Everyone Analyst.”
Anyway, the first time I told a friend of mine outside of the library field about my job, she said, “Huh? Megadata? What’s megadata?” This particular friend was in law school at the time, so now when people ask her, “What do you do?” she says “I’m a lawyer.” I gave up answering that question directly; now I just say I’m a computer programmer (partially true) or a librarian (nominally untrue, though true in the sense of “a person who works in a library on library stuff”).
But at least now I have to explain my job less when I’m IN the library than I did six years ago.
Anyway, this Word Press thingie for digital collections has been sitting up on cinder blocks on the side of the house for a while, and I thought I’d take it for a spin. Wheeee! Before I move on to a subject other than “me me me” I’ll add that I contribute 6-to-8 hundred words of topical observation to the Chapel Hill News‘ “My View” feature every 7 weeks or so. My most recent column attempts to make issues relating to “megadata” and library technology seem like the kind of thing you talk about in a newspaper.
Coming soon … a post about metadata.
