Project name and URL
The Crime in New York 1850-1950
http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/crimeinny/
Organization name
Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/
Description of what was digitized
The project consists of two collections, the Crime in New York 1850-1950 Image Collection and the Crime in New York 1850-1950 Trial Transcripts Collection. The photographs digitized came from two papers in the Lloyd Sealy Library's special collection, including items such as crime scene photos and identification photos. The trial transcripts digitized were also part of the the special collection of Lloyd Sealy Library. The digitization of trail transcripts was done by iArchives.
Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
The project aims to provide information on the crime history in New York City. Any one interested can access it.
Type of project background information available on the site
The website provide short description on the sources of the project, funding and so forth.
Additional comments
Comparing to other web portal of digitization projects, this website is extremely uncomplicated and low-tech, but it is definitely useful. Users can search the image database or browse by title, description, source, and dates, and the available browsing options of trail transcripts are defendants, defense attorneys, judges, prosecuting attorneys, and charges. The meta data is simple, too. This a database interface cut out for criminal justice study. There is no terms of use or privacy policy on the website.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
JSC Digital Image Collection
Project name and URL
Johnson Space Center Digital Image Collection
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/
Organization name
This collection is maintained by NASA through the Johnson Space center
Description of what was digitized
NASA has taken over 9000 press release photos spanning the entire existence of the American space program.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in history and/or the space program.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is a brief project synopsis on the main page, as well as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page.
Additional comments
My excitement for finding this digital library was quickly abated when I made the realization that the images included in the project are only offered at a low resolution (640 by 480).
I found the "browse" search option to be more conducive to finding images than the search option, mainly because the "browse" feature allowed you to choose via the specific space missions (Apollo, SkyLab, etc).
Aside from the limited picture size, this digital library is still a valuable collection of pictures that allows the public a glimpse into the space program throughout the program's existence.
Johnson Space Center Digital Image Collection
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/
Organization name
This collection is maintained by NASA through the Johnson Space center
Description of what was digitized
NASA has taken over 9000 press release photos spanning the entire existence of the American space program.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in history and/or the space program.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is a brief project synopsis on the main page, as well as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page.
Additional comments
My excitement for finding this digital library was quickly abated when I made the realization that the images included in the project are only offered at a low resolution (640 by 480).
I found the "browse" search option to be more conducive to finding images than the search option, mainly because the "browse" feature allowed you to choose via the specific space missions (Apollo, SkyLab, etc).
Aside from the limited picture size, this digital library is still a valuable collection of pictures that allows the public a glimpse into the space program throughout the program's existence.
Million Book Project
Project name and URL
Million Book Project
http://www.ulib.org/
Organization name
Led by Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and University, the project has many partners in United States, China, Egypt, and India.
Description of what was digitized
Books in any language. The digitization of the first million books, less than 1% of the books published worldwide, was achieved in 2006-2007. The project avoids digitizing copyrighted materials, but there are many copyrighted items in the database with limited access.
Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
The project aims to preserve and provide access to all human knowledge for men and women worldwide.
Type of project background information available on the site
The funding of the project was from multiple sources, including money and manpower, that support the 50 copy centers functioning worldwide. One notable thing of the Million Book Project is that it accept gift that guarantee specified collection to be digitized. Most of the information is the concept and vision of the project, not much detail on how it works.
Additional comments
This is the only one site of the five digital library web portals I have problem accessing with Google Chrome. Universal Library web portal provides powerful search tools and intuitive interface, but the response time is extremely slow, possibly due to the high usage rate and large database. This is a project with great vision, with digitized items from all language and partners worldwide. An institution from Egypt is the most recent partner of the Million Book Project. It still got a long way to go.
Million Book Project
http://www.ulib.org/
Organization name
Led by Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and University, the project has many partners in United States, China, Egypt, and India.
Description of what was digitized
Books in any language. The digitization of the first million books, less than 1% of the books published worldwide, was achieved in 2006-2007. The project avoids digitizing copyrighted materials, but there are many copyrighted items in the database with limited access.
Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
The project aims to preserve and provide access to all human knowledge for men and women worldwide.
Type of project background information available on the site
The funding of the project was from multiple sources, including money and manpower, that support the 50 copy centers functioning worldwide. One notable thing of the Million Book Project is that it accept gift that guarantee specified collection to be digitized. Most of the information is the concept and vision of the project, not much detail on how it works.
Additional comments
This is the only one site of the five digital library web portals I have problem accessing with Google Chrome. Universal Library web portal provides powerful search tools and intuitive interface, but the response time is extremely slow, possibly due to the high usage rate and large database. This is a project with great vision, with digitized items from all language and partners worldwide. An institution from Egypt is the most recent partner of the Million Book Project. It still got a long way to go.
Oregon Blue Book
Project Name and URL:
Oregon Blue Book located at http://bluebook.state.or.us/misc/about/about.htm
Organization Name:
This project is compiled by the Oregon State Archives.
Description of what was Digitized:
A Governmental fact book found in one easy to use database and also holds a large variety of Oregon state history subjects in article and image formats.
Audience for the Project:
The Audience of this project is going to mostly be those wanting governmental information on the state of Oregon being people living in Oregon or those moving to Oregon. The website can also appeal to researchers interested in general Oregon facts.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The background the website contains looks to be rather plain. There is a small paragraph dedicated to their about, another showing the projects goals and features, and then a small section looking to get viewers to explore the website more in depth.
Metadata present:
Not a whole lot of metadata present in the factbook section of the project, while the section dedicated to the organization behind Oregon culture, arts, education has the organizations emails, phone, physical address, as well as their web address for users that are interested in exploring that website on some form of Oregon life.
Additional Information:
There is a large amount of information about Oregon’s government at the local, state, and national levels. The website itself would be a great asset to anyone doing research on modern Oregon’s government or the culture of Oregon. It seems like one big database dedicated to advertising the sights and sounds of Oregon to attract more people to coming to Oregon. There is a nice feature that allows you to view Oregon’s most scenic spots throughout the state in scenic images.
Oregon Blue Book located at http://bluebook.state.or.us/misc/about/about.htm
Organization Name:
This project is compiled by the Oregon State Archives.
Description of what was Digitized:
A Governmental fact book found in one easy to use database and also holds a large variety of Oregon state history subjects in article and image formats.
Audience for the Project:
The Audience of this project is going to mostly be those wanting governmental information on the state of Oregon being people living in Oregon or those moving to Oregon. The website can also appeal to researchers interested in general Oregon facts.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The background the website contains looks to be rather plain. There is a small paragraph dedicated to their about, another showing the projects goals and features, and then a small section looking to get viewers to explore the website more in depth.
Metadata present:
Not a whole lot of metadata present in the factbook section of the project, while the section dedicated to the organization behind Oregon culture, arts, education has the organizations emails, phone, physical address, as well as their web address for users that are interested in exploring that website on some form of Oregon life.
Additional Information:
There is a large amount of information about Oregon’s government at the local, state, and national levels. The website itself would be a great asset to anyone doing research on modern Oregon’s government or the culture of Oregon. It seems like one big database dedicated to advertising the sights and sounds of Oregon to attract more people to coming to Oregon. There is a nice feature that allows you to view Oregon’s most scenic spots throughout the state in scenic images.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia
Project Name and URL:
The New Georgia Encyclopedia located at http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsp
Organization Name:
This project is put on by Georgia Humanities Council, the University of Georgia, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor.
Description of what was Digitized:
The about NGE project page explains that the content of this digital repository is revolved around all aspects of Georgia in the format of documents and images. Some of its content subjects are people, places, events, historical themes, institutions and many others related to various topics.
Audience for the Project:
The audience of this project is the general public as well as scholars interested in anything related to Georgia and its rich history going back to colonial times.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The amount of background information is vast and the website does a good job of informing anyone interested virtually everything involved in putting this project together. The About NGE is equipped with its own subsections from the FAQ to Contributor Guidelines for those wishing to provide content to the NGE. The entire layout of the website is much more conducive to a positive experience with the site, more so than some of the other projects that provide an extensive project background.
How are the Digital Assets Presented:
The digital assets are presented through a basic 3 box search engine, selecting subject, a search term entered by the patron, and the search restriction the patron wishes to use. The content itself is neatly presented with authoritative information presented and a nice feature that highlights your original search term in the article. Some of the content proves to be in great detail allowing users to get what they would expect out of encyclopedia similar to Encarta or Britannica.
Metadata present:
The metadata contained in this project is less than other projects, but keep in mind that it is an encyclopedia. There is the main background information on the subject, followed by suggested readings and additional resources.
Additional Information:
There is a quick fact page on Georgia for basic background information on the state itself. The amount of content is large and it is not presented in a way that is going to feel overwhelming. It is concise yet informative enough to provide all the factual information one would need for a basic report. It also has on its main page sidebar a section dedicated to the encyclopedia’s most popular articles. It is an interesting addition to an already strong online encyclopedia that keeps the site well rounded and a fun page to visit and explore.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia located at http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsp
Organization Name:
This project is put on by Georgia Humanities Council, the University of Georgia, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor.
Description of what was Digitized:
The about NGE project page explains that the content of this digital repository is revolved around all aspects of Georgia in the format of documents and images. Some of its content subjects are people, places, events, historical themes, institutions and many others related to various topics.
Audience for the Project:
The audience of this project is the general public as well as scholars interested in anything related to Georgia and its rich history going back to colonial times.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The amount of background information is vast and the website does a good job of informing anyone interested virtually everything involved in putting this project together. The About NGE is equipped with its own subsections from the FAQ to Contributor Guidelines for those wishing to provide content to the NGE. The entire layout of the website is much more conducive to a positive experience with the site, more so than some of the other projects that provide an extensive project background.
How are the Digital Assets Presented:
The digital assets are presented through a basic 3 box search engine, selecting subject, a search term entered by the patron, and the search restriction the patron wishes to use. The content itself is neatly presented with authoritative information presented and a nice feature that highlights your original search term in the article. Some of the content proves to be in great detail allowing users to get what they would expect out of encyclopedia similar to Encarta or Britannica.
Metadata present:
The metadata contained in this project is less than other projects, but keep in mind that it is an encyclopedia. There is the main background information on the subject, followed by suggested readings and additional resources.
Additional Information:
There is a quick fact page on Georgia for basic background information on the state itself. The amount of content is large and it is not presented in a way that is going to feel overwhelming. It is concise yet informative enough to provide all the factual information one would need for a basic report. It also has on its main page sidebar a section dedicated to the encyclopedia’s most popular articles. It is an interesting addition to an already strong online encyclopedia that keeps the site well rounded and a fun page to visit and explore.
Tundra Times Photograph Project
Project Name and URL:
Tundra Times Photograph Project located at http://tundratimes.ilisagvik.cc/
Organization Name:
This small project is put on by the Ilisagvik College located at the Tuzzy Consortium Library.
Description of what was Digitized:
The Tundra Times was a biweekly newspaper from 1962-1997 that gave information to natives that were looking to empower their native people. This project looks to take a leading reporter on Alaskan Native life, and make its photographs that were placed in the newspaper during the course of its life open to the public in a digital repository.
Audience for the Project:
The Audience for this project could vary from old employees of The Tundra Times who are interested in their old photographs, also Natives or those interested in the Native movement and the publications that supported it. It appeals to the general public as well as modern researchers on Native tribes in Alaska.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The website contains a helpful history on the project itself, their goals as an organization and where they are on their project. I was surprised of the exciting story about Native oppression and the rise of a newspaper that helped bring that oppression to the forefront of Alaskan news. It all makes for a neat history of a project that goes beyond just digitization and preservation and allows for patrons to really connect with the projects content.
Metadata present:
The Metadata is somewhat unique because of the tribal content contained. Some of their unique metadata is that the images have descriptors like ethnicity of the photographer of the image, the caption from the original newspaper production, the number on their Free CDs that they give out containing all the images.
Additional Information:
The search bar is old fashioned and the website looks like it was made in the 90s, but that does not detract from the content. Some of the photographs contained in the digital repository tell their own unique stories revolving around Native political rights. Each image also asks if the patron viewing the image can answer any of the missing data on the image, which I think is a very cool feature.
Tundra Times Photograph Project located at http://tundratimes.ilisagvik.cc/
Organization Name:
This small project is put on by the Ilisagvik College located at the Tuzzy Consortium Library.
Description of what was Digitized:
The Tundra Times was a biweekly newspaper from 1962-1997 that gave information to natives that were looking to empower their native people. This project looks to take a leading reporter on Alaskan Native life, and make its photographs that were placed in the newspaper during the course of its life open to the public in a digital repository.
Audience for the Project:
The Audience for this project could vary from old employees of The Tundra Times who are interested in their old photographs, also Natives or those interested in the Native movement and the publications that supported it. It appeals to the general public as well as modern researchers on Native tribes in Alaska.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
The website contains a helpful history on the project itself, their goals as an organization and where they are on their project. I was surprised of the exciting story about Native oppression and the rise of a newspaper that helped bring that oppression to the forefront of Alaskan news. It all makes for a neat history of a project that goes beyond just digitization and preservation and allows for patrons to really connect with the projects content.
Metadata present:
The Metadata is somewhat unique because of the tribal content contained. Some of their unique metadata is that the images have descriptors like ethnicity of the photographer of the image, the caption from the original newspaper production, the number on their Free CDs that they give out containing all the images.
Additional Information:
The search bar is old fashioned and the website looks like it was made in the 90s, but that does not detract from the content. Some of the photographs contained in the digital repository tell their own unique stories revolving around Native political rights. Each image also asks if the patron viewing the image can answer any of the missing data on the image, which I think is a very cool feature.
Vincent van Gogh's letters
URL: http://vangoghletters.org/vg/
Organization: This digital project "is a co-production of the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute". It is a digital companion edition to the book: Vincent van Gogh - The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker.
Description: This is the latest in a long line of iterations of Van Gogh's letters. Here you will find "all 902 letters from and to Van Gogh, richly annotated and illustrated, with new transcriptions and translations". Every surviving letter written and received by Van Gogh is represented. "This edition has taken every possible advantage of the research into Van Gogh’s works and letters that has been done in more than a century. The self-evident endeavour to draw upon and present as much relevant material as possible is coupled with the expectation that the use of new digital media will open up the complete corpus to a much greater extent than was possible in the past". (Well put.)
Audience: "In traditional scholarly publishing terms, this web edition is a study edition. That is to say it is intended for Van Gogh specialists, art historians and literary scholars studying Van Gogh’s letters or work, and students of art history, the history of literature and allied disciplines. Of course the internet is an open medium accessible to anyone, but the decision to produce this as a scholarly edition implies that the level of the content of the textual apparatus is tailored to students and people with an academic background." Roger, that. I would add that this digital project is also worth consulting by anyone interested in digitization and the high standards that can be achieved with massive investments of time, money, and effort.
Project background: This impressively slick digital version of the new definitive collection of Van Gogh's letters didn't happen overnight. The Van Gogh museum started to plan the analogue edition back in 1990. "It was initially estimated that it would take three people five years to complete the work. A steering committee was set up to monitor progress and authorize significant decisions that affected the handling of the text". Well, 20 years worth of inventorying, reviewing, translating, researching, annotating, editing, and designing work later, it seemed like the fruits of all that labor might be constrained by the physical confines of printed volumes. Fortuitously, "changes in the world of publishing and the rapidly growing potential offered by electronic media had caused the steering committee to reconsider, and it was decided to publish the large, all-encompassing edition digitally". It appears that no expense was spared on the digital version which truly "does greater justice to the immense volume of material and the complex of interrelated layers of information, and gives visitors to the site more options and more ways to use the edition".
Features: Behold the letters, in chronological order. You can also view the letters arranged in 16 different time periods, which gives a birds-eye view of the more detailed chronology of Van Gogh's life that can be clicked through by year. Taking the leisurely route through the chronology affords the user brief descriptions of events of Van Gogh's life each year and includes hyperlinks to related letters. It's a seamless conflation of context and digital content that is too rarely seen in digital projects. Discovering this site felt like finding the Holy Grail.
Letters can also be viewed by correspondent and place. You can also see a list of all the letters that contain sketches with one mouse-click. Letters can be searched by keyword and letter number. If the Advanced Search interface seems daunting, you can click on a question mark icon at every field to bring up explanations of how they operate. The "Quick Guide" on the "Help information" page looks like a lot to comprehend at first, but it's actually pretty straightforward and doesn't confuse the issue with movies or other animation.
Viewing a letter itself is quite a marvel. A letter level view has 3 panes. The center pane contains basic bibliographic details about the letter and can be expanded to display more information. The side panes display the letter's content. By default, one side is the translated transcription and the other side is the transcription of the letter in the language in which it was written. There are options to view the transcriptions of the letter with the original line endings preserved, you can view high-resolutions of every page of each letter, you can view the annotations for the letter, and you can view any artwork that the letter includes. You see any two of these views of the letter in different panes at the same time. If you click on the facsimile of the letter itself, you can magnify each page many times. This operation is a little slow, but that's a minor issue with such an amazing level of almost effortless detail you can call up with this interface.
Every part of the text of the printed book is also provided. The in-text citations are hyperlinks that expand in a center pane and any letters noted in the text link directly to the digitized versions. This digital project is the pinnacle of what digitization can be. I suddenly want to learn more about Vincent van Gogh. And with this sublime digital project at my fingertips, I can do exactly that, and so can anyone. On the one hand, the people responsible for this awesome acme of digitization deserve high praise. On the other hand, they have set the digitization bar pretty damn high and may very well have ruined most other perfectly acceptable examples of digital libraries for me.
(Well, at least I saved the best for last. This concludes my postings for this blog.)
Organization: This digital project "is a co-production of the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute". It is a digital companion edition to the book: Vincent van Gogh - The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker.
Description: This is the latest in a long line of iterations of Van Gogh's letters. Here you will find "all 902 letters from and to Van Gogh, richly annotated and illustrated, with new transcriptions and translations". Every surviving letter written and received by Van Gogh is represented. "This edition has taken every possible advantage of the research into Van Gogh’s works and letters that has been done in more than a century. The self-evident endeavour to draw upon and present as much relevant material as possible is coupled with the expectation that the use of new digital media will open up the complete corpus to a much greater extent than was possible in the past". (Well put.)
Audience: "In traditional scholarly publishing terms, this web edition is a study edition. That is to say it is intended for Van Gogh specialists, art historians and literary scholars studying Van Gogh’s letters or work, and students of art history, the history of literature and allied disciplines. Of course the internet is an open medium accessible to anyone, but the decision to produce this as a scholarly edition implies that the level of the content of the textual apparatus is tailored to students and people with an academic background." Roger, that. I would add that this digital project is also worth consulting by anyone interested in digitization and the high standards that can be achieved with massive investments of time, money, and effort.
Project background: This impressively slick digital version of the new definitive collection of Van Gogh's letters didn't happen overnight. The Van Gogh museum started to plan the analogue edition back in 1990. "It was initially estimated that it would take three people five years to complete the work. A steering committee was set up to monitor progress and authorize significant decisions that affected the handling of the text". Well, 20 years worth of inventorying, reviewing, translating, researching, annotating, editing, and designing work later, it seemed like the fruits of all that labor might be constrained by the physical confines of printed volumes. Fortuitously, "changes in the world of publishing and the rapidly growing potential offered by electronic media had caused the steering committee to reconsider, and it was decided to publish the large, all-encompassing edition digitally". It appears that no expense was spared on the digital version which truly "does greater justice to the immense volume of material and the complex of interrelated layers of information, and gives visitors to the site more options and more ways to use the edition".
Features: Behold the letters, in chronological order. You can also view the letters arranged in 16 different time periods, which gives a birds-eye view of the more detailed chronology of Van Gogh's life that can be clicked through by year. Taking the leisurely route through the chronology affords the user brief descriptions of events of Van Gogh's life each year and includes hyperlinks to related letters. It's a seamless conflation of context and digital content that is too rarely seen in digital projects. Discovering this site felt like finding the Holy Grail.
Letters can also be viewed by correspondent and place. You can also see a list of all the letters that contain sketches with one mouse-click. Letters can be searched by keyword and letter number. If the Advanced Search interface seems daunting, you can click on a question mark icon at every field to bring up explanations of how they operate. The "Quick Guide" on the "Help information" page looks like a lot to comprehend at first, but it's actually pretty straightforward and doesn't confuse the issue with movies or other animation.
Viewing a letter itself is quite a marvel. A letter level view has 3 panes. The center pane contains basic bibliographic details about the letter and can be expanded to display more information. The side panes display the letter's content. By default, one side is the translated transcription and the other side is the transcription of the letter in the language in which it was written. There are options to view the transcriptions of the letter with the original line endings preserved, you can view high-resolutions of every page of each letter, you can view the annotations for the letter, and you can view any artwork that the letter includes. You see any two of these views of the letter in different panes at the same time. If you click on the facsimile of the letter itself, you can magnify each page many times. This operation is a little slow, but that's a minor issue with such an amazing level of almost effortless detail you can call up with this interface.
Every part of the text of the printed book is also provided. The in-text citations are hyperlinks that expand in a center pane and any letters noted in the text link directly to the digitized versions. This digital project is the pinnacle of what digitization can be. I suddenly want to learn more about Vincent van Gogh. And with this sublime digital project at my fingertips, I can do exactly that, and so can anyone. On the one hand, the people responsible for this awesome acme of digitization deserve high praise. On the other hand, they have set the digitization bar pretty damn high and may very well have ruined most other perfectly acceptable examples of digital libraries for me.
(Well, at least I saved the best for last. This concludes my postings for this blog.)
Museum of Houston
Project Name and URL:
Museum of Houston located at http://www.museumofhouston.org/
Organization Name:
Greater Houston Preservation Alliance and Rice University as well as other organizations in the Houston Bay-Area produce this digitization project with the objective of preserving Houston history.
Description of what was Digitized:
Houston area historical documents, photographs, maps, video and audio recordings as well, located in one location; the Museum of Houston. Content is provided by the cities educational and cultural institutions and is from the beginning of the city’s development to modern times.
Audience for the project:
The audience of this project is the public, but more specifically anyone who is interested in detailed Houston history rather than just a broader Texas History that some of the other Texas digitization projects contain. It says on their about page students, researchers, those interested in photography of Houston, and the general public, each with its own description of how they can utilize the site.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
There is not a whole lot of information on the about page about the project itself. It does mention several websites and facilities that currently lend their content to the Museum of Houston for digitization in the repository, but not so much information about the project in great detail. There is a nice section on the technology behind the project which states the project’s scanning standards and image resolution policy which is something I have not noticed in many other projects.
How are the digital assets presented:
The Museum of Houston has a very cool browse section where you can browse the content using a who, what, where, when, and search bars that help narrow searches by those categories or just an overall broad search. Unfortunately there is no refine search, thus making searching for specific content can be hit or miss. Each document, photograph, map, or video comes with its own descriptors that explain some of the basic information about what the patron is viewing.
Metadata Present:
The metadata specifically states that it follows the Dublin Core Metadata standards run by another organization The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, who strives to standardize metadata. The metadata presented in the site are the basics including rights, subject terms, abstract, date created, location, and holding location.
Additional Information:
The site itself is a concise repository in detail, while the content is very hearty containing over four million photographs presented through the Houston Public Library. I appreciate the search uniqueness, with a range that is small enough to actually make several of the choices in the who, what, where, when boxes useful in narrowing a search.
Museum of Houston located at http://www.museumofhouston.org/
Organization Name:
Greater Houston Preservation Alliance and Rice University as well as other organizations in the Houston Bay-Area produce this digitization project with the objective of preserving Houston history.
Description of what was Digitized:
Houston area historical documents, photographs, maps, video and audio recordings as well, located in one location; the Museum of Houston. Content is provided by the cities educational and cultural institutions and is from the beginning of the city’s development to modern times.
Audience for the project:
The audience of this project is the public, but more specifically anyone who is interested in detailed Houston history rather than just a broader Texas History that some of the other Texas digitization projects contain. It says on their about page students, researchers, those interested in photography of Houston, and the general public, each with its own description of how they can utilize the site.
Type of Project Background Information Available on Site:
There is not a whole lot of information on the about page about the project itself. It does mention several websites and facilities that currently lend their content to the Museum of Houston for digitization in the repository, but not so much information about the project in great detail. There is a nice section on the technology behind the project which states the project’s scanning standards and image resolution policy which is something I have not noticed in many other projects.
How are the digital assets presented:
The Museum of Houston has a very cool browse section where you can browse the content using a who, what, where, when, and search bars that help narrow searches by those categories or just an overall broad search. Unfortunately there is no refine search, thus making searching for specific content can be hit or miss. Each document, photograph, map, or video comes with its own descriptors that explain some of the basic information about what the patron is viewing.
Metadata Present:
The metadata specifically states that it follows the Dublin Core Metadata standards run by another organization The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, who strives to standardize metadata. The metadata presented in the site are the basics including rights, subject terms, abstract, date created, location, and holding location.
Additional Information:
The site itself is a concise repository in detail, while the content is very hearty containing over four million photographs presented through the Houston Public Library. I appreciate the search uniqueness, with a range that is small enough to actually make several of the choices in the who, what, where, when boxes useful in narrowing a search.
The MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations
Project name: The MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations
Organization name: University of North Carolina Library
What was digitized: Slides of illustrations from medieval medical texts and manuscripts.
Audience: An audience isn't specified, although the collection would be particularly helpful to students and researchers in the field of medieval studies.
Project background: The slides were digitized over a three month period in 2007. Five slides were scanned at a time at 4,000 pixels/inch with a Nikon SuperCool SCU 9000. Using Adobe Photoshop, the images were then sharpened, cropped, and color adjusted. Such adjustments were made so that the condition of the original slide could be accurately represented while maintaining a natural appears for users to view on computer screens. The original slides had not deteriorated physically, but there was visible discoloration. The color shifts ranged from moderate to severe, and so were corrected by Photoshop when possible.
Other information: The Library only owns the slides, not the actual manuscripts themselves. Dr. MacKinney was a medieval scholar and professor who built up a photographic collection of medieval medical illustrations during his studies, and so the source manuscripts are from various locations around the world. The source repository of each image is noted by the library, and users can choose to view the images by these locations.
Original Ektachrome slides make up most of the colleciton, and cannot be reproduced from a negative. Digitization allows for the protection of the original while also providing users with replicas of the slides as they currently are. The slides from this collection are actually a duplicate set; the master set is held by the National Library of Medicine of Bethesda.
Organization name: University of North Carolina Library
What was digitized: Slides of illustrations from medieval medical texts and manuscripts.
Audience: An audience isn't specified, although the collection would be particularly helpful to students and researchers in the field of medieval studies.
Project background: The slides were digitized over a three month period in 2007. Five slides were scanned at a time at 4,000 pixels/inch with a Nikon SuperCool SCU 9000. Using Adobe Photoshop, the images were then sharpened, cropped, and color adjusted. Such adjustments were made so that the condition of the original slide could be accurately represented while maintaining a natural appears for users to view on computer screens. The original slides had not deteriorated physically, but there was visible discoloration. The color shifts ranged from moderate to severe, and so were corrected by Photoshop when possible.
Other information: The Library only owns the slides, not the actual manuscripts themselves. Dr. MacKinney was a medieval scholar and professor who built up a photographic collection of medieval medical illustrations during his studies, and so the source manuscripts are from various locations around the world. The source repository of each image is noted by the library, and users can choose to view the images by these locations.
Original Ektachrome slides make up most of the colleciton, and cannot be reproduced from a negative. Digitization allows for the protection of the original while also providing users with replicas of the slides as they currently are. The slides from this collection are actually a duplicate set; the master set is held by the National Library of Medicine of Bethesda.
The Portal to Texas History
Project Name and URL:
The Portal to Texas History located at http://texashistory.unt.edu/
Organization Name:
This project is founded by University of North Texas Libraries' Digital Projects Unit.
Description of what was digitized:
Texas History Materials in the form of genealogies and pictures of relatives to historical maps.
Audience for the project:
The project is geared towards patrons who have an interest in Texas History or specific content formats like maps, photos, cities, etc.
Type of Project background Information available on site:
There is a small about us page that contains a basic synopsis of the type of content and where the content came from. It is a collection from Texas libraries, museums, genealogical societies, and private family collections which have come together in an all inclusive database. It is very similar to the Texas Heritage Online in its concept and in practice the two sites have very similar search bars and it is a bit of déjà vu. The project itself started in 2002 and really gained momentum in 2004 combining five different partners into one database. Today it has ninety-five partners and contains over 420,000 images of digitized content.
Metadata present:
It has a very basic metadata presence containing description, creator, location, creation date, partners, and the collection in their brief record. The full record contains more descriptors like language, subjects, keywords which is a help for patrons, resource type, and identifier.
Additional Information:
It has a nice section for educators on how to teach lessons revolving around the website and its content. They also have Facebook page with updates on their latest news and RSS feeds for heir information as well. These features add to an already positive environment that although it is not the grandest or most attractive site, for usability it proves to be a worthy digitization project with a nice database.
George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers
URL: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/aearhart/
Organization: "The world's largest collection of Amelia Earhart papers, photos, memorabilia and artifacts" is held by the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center located in the Humanities, Social Science & Education Library which is one of the Purdue University Libraries.
Description: "The online collection includes more than 3,500 scans of photographs, maps, and documents relating to Earhart. Copies of the maps that were used on her last flight are available as well as photographs that she took while on the flight and mailed back to her husband. Earhart's medals are also available online. These include the U. S. Distinguished Flying Cross, the Lindbergh Medal, and the National Geographic Society Medal. An interactive map of Earhart's flight is included on the web site." This digital collection is part of Purdue University Libraries' e-Archives.
Audience: This digital collection was created in response to the fact that "Access to original collection is restricted due to fragility of the collection." Its contents will be of interest to anyone researching Amelia Earhart. Perhaps director Mira Nair consulted them when she was working on the critically-criticized film Amelia.
Project Background: The Purdue University Libraries e-Archives went online in 2006 "as a result of the work of the Digital Initiatives Team in the Libraries Archives and Special Collections. The team, comprised of a Digital Initiatives Librarian, a Metadata Specialist, and an Archivist, evaluated existing digital asset management systems and chose to purchase and implement CONTENTdm, the software that runs e-Archives. Based on existing standards and best practices, the team also wrote selection criteria for digitization and workflows for digital imaging and metadata creation."
Features: Well, CONTENTdm pretty much tells you what you need to know here. In other words, the contents are displayed in the usual CONTENTdm fashion, which means, if you know what you are looking for, you have a decent chance of finding it.
The collection "Home" page has some links to help users contextualize the items in the digital collection. There's a short biography which is informative, but inexplicably has not a single hyperlink to collection content in it. There is a link to an interactive map of Earhart's fateful last journey that is a good way to explore the collection. Some of the locations are hyperlinks (you have to try each one to find out which, though) that bring up a window with a description of that part of the trip and a link to photographs of that location from the collection. You can also navigate to the "Previous City" and the "Next City" on the map from this box. Unfortunately, not all of the links in these cartographically-generated pop-up windows lead to content. If there are no results for photographs of New Orleans, I don't think there should be a link for that. Also, the map is conspicuously lacking a prominent notation of the aviatrix's last known point of contact. No red X, no question mark, nothing. I think this is odd, to say the least.
Seventeen of Amelia Earhart's medals are featured on a separate page. (I do not know if this is every medal she won, but this would have been a good place to note this information.) Eight of them are presented via QuickTime viewer and can be magnified and rotated. This is an example of a very useful page. But get this: a "Quick Search" using the term "medal" brings up 274 items! Changing the search term to "medals" yields 115 items -- and...NONE of them are pictures of the actual medals! Even an Advanced Search on "Any of the words" using "medal" and "medals" "Across all fields" and restricting the search to this particular collection and the related Amelia Earhart at Purdue collection returns 19 items, but still no images of the medals themselves. This is an example of federated search failure.
Getting back to the links on the collection's "Home" page...there is one that takes you to a "Timeline" page. Why isn't every year on this page a hyperlink to a set of digital images from that year? Why?
The "About" link on the "Home" page leads to a short synopsis of the much longer, 89-page finding aid to the entire analogue archives. However, neither the summary web page nor the .pdf they took the trouble to upload has a single hyperlink to the digital collection. The page of "Other Web Sites on Amelia Earhart" is proof that the designers of the George Palmer Putnam Collection portal understand the concept of hyperlinks.
The portal is a great resource with lots of authoritative information about Amelia Earhart. But it is not a very useful way to explore the related digital images in the e-Archive. The "Home" page entices a reader with this statement: "New additions include personal correspondence, her marriage license and her prenuptial agreement" but there is not a link in the sentence to any of these recently added digital items. Even the intrepid searcher who types "prenuptial agreement" into the collection's search box will not find the idiosyncratic epistle. In other words, much like the latest movie of Amelia Earhart’s life, this digital project is a little disappointing. The portal that describes the items one might find in the digital collection smacks of wasted potential in terms of hyperlinked access points into the 2,223-item online archive.
Organization: "The world's largest collection of Amelia Earhart papers, photos, memorabilia and artifacts" is held by the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center located in the Humanities, Social Science & Education Library which is one of the Purdue University Libraries.
Description: "The online collection includes more than 3,500 scans of photographs, maps, and documents relating to Earhart. Copies of the maps that were used on her last flight are available as well as photographs that she took while on the flight and mailed back to her husband. Earhart's medals are also available online. These include the U. S. Distinguished Flying Cross, the Lindbergh Medal, and the National Geographic Society Medal. An interactive map of Earhart's flight is included on the web site." This digital collection is part of Purdue University Libraries' e-Archives.
Audience: This digital collection was created in response to the fact that "Access to original collection is restricted due to fragility of the collection." Its contents will be of interest to anyone researching Amelia Earhart. Perhaps director Mira Nair consulted them when she was working on the critically-criticized film Amelia.
Project Background: The Purdue University Libraries e-Archives went online in 2006 "as a result of the work of the Digital Initiatives Team in the Libraries Archives and Special Collections. The team, comprised of a Digital Initiatives Librarian, a Metadata Specialist, and an Archivist, evaluated existing digital asset management systems and chose to purchase and implement CONTENTdm, the software that runs e-Archives. Based on existing standards and best practices, the team also wrote selection criteria for digitization and workflows for digital imaging and metadata creation."
Features: Well, CONTENTdm pretty much tells you what you need to know here. In other words, the contents are displayed in the usual CONTENTdm fashion, which means, if you know what you are looking for, you have a decent chance of finding it.
The collection "Home" page has some links to help users contextualize the items in the digital collection. There's a short biography which is informative, but inexplicably has not a single hyperlink to collection content in it. There is a link to an interactive map of Earhart's fateful last journey that is a good way to explore the collection. Some of the locations are hyperlinks (you have to try each one to find out which, though) that bring up a window with a description of that part of the trip and a link to photographs of that location from the collection. You can also navigate to the "Previous City" and the "Next City" on the map from this box. Unfortunately, not all of the links in these cartographically-generated pop-up windows lead to content. If there are no results for photographs of New Orleans, I don't think there should be a link for that. Also, the map is conspicuously lacking a prominent notation of the aviatrix's last known point of contact. No red X, no question mark, nothing. I think this is odd, to say the least.
Seventeen of Amelia Earhart's medals are featured on a separate page. (I do not know if this is every medal she won, but this would have been a good place to note this information.) Eight of them are presented via QuickTime viewer and can be magnified and rotated. This is an example of a very useful page. But get this: a "Quick Search" using the term "medal" brings up 274 items! Changing the search term to "medals" yields 115 items -- and...NONE of them are pictures of the actual medals! Even an Advanced Search on "Any of the words" using "medal" and "medals" "Across all fields" and restricting the search to this particular collection and the related Amelia Earhart at Purdue collection returns 19 items, but still no images of the medals themselves. This is an example of federated search failure.
Getting back to the links on the collection's "Home" page...there is one that takes you to a "Timeline" page. Why isn't every year on this page a hyperlink to a set of digital images from that year? Why?
The "About" link on the "Home" page leads to a short synopsis of the much longer, 89-page finding aid to the entire analogue archives. However, neither the summary web page nor the .pdf they took the trouble to upload has a single hyperlink to the digital collection. The page of "Other Web Sites on Amelia Earhart" is proof that the designers of the George Palmer Putnam Collection portal understand the concept of hyperlinks.
The portal is a great resource with lots of authoritative information about Amelia Earhart. But it is not a very useful way to explore the related digital images in the e-Archive. The "Home" page entices a reader with this statement: "New additions include personal correspondence, her marriage license and her prenuptial agreement" but there is not a link in the sentence to any of these recently added digital items. Even the intrepid searcher who types "prenuptial agreement" into the collection's search box will not find the idiosyncratic epistle. In other words, much like the latest movie of Amelia Earhart’s life, this digital project is a little disappointing. The portal that describes the items one might find in the digital collection smacks of wasted potential in terms of hyperlinked access points into the 2,223-item online archive.
Texas Constitutions 1824-1876
Institution: Tarlton Law Library, Jamail Center for Legal Research
Digitized items: Constitutions of Texas from its most turbulent historical period
Audience: Legal scholars, historians, interested locals
Background information: A detailed history is available, charting Texas' progress from 1824 to 1876 as a part of Mexico, an independent republic, and finally an American state. Possible uses for these documents are suggested, and the history of the project itself is listed.
During this period, Texas naturally underwent a huge upheaval in its local laws, and these constitutions serve as a great indication of just what the results of such dynamic government changes can be. The documents are mostly easily legible, with typed transcriptions where legibility is questionable. The background information is excellent, and clearly a lot of thought went into the purpose of this project and who would use it. A wonderful digitization in all areas.
Digitized items: Constitutions of Texas from its most turbulent historical period
Audience: Legal scholars, historians, interested locals
Background information: A detailed history is available, charting Texas' progress from 1824 to 1876 as a part of Mexico, an independent republic, and finally an American state. Possible uses for these documents are suggested, and the history of the project itself is listed.
During this period, Texas naturally underwent a huge upheaval in its local laws, and these constitutions serve as a great indication of just what the results of such dynamic government changes can be. The documents are mostly easily legible, with typed transcriptions where legibility is questionable. The background information is excellent, and clearly a lot of thought went into the purpose of this project and who would use it. A wonderful digitization in all areas.
Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library
Ever heard of crime broadsides? If not, picture going to the circus and buying a commemorative program from one of the vendors outside. Now pretend that instead of watching a modern-day circus, you're actually in Britain between 1700 and 1900 and you're part of a crowd waiting to watch someone be publicly executed. The commemorative program you're holding details the condemned person's life, crimes, and sentence. That's a crime broadside.
The Harvard Law School Library claims to have one of the largest collections of crime broadsides (500+), and the entire collection is now available for viewing online at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/. No audience is explicitly stated for the collection, but it would certainly appeal to both historians and the generally curious. The Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders site includes fairly extensive background information on the history of crime broadsides (see Introduction, About the Collection, and Resources) and some brief information on how the collection was actually digitized. Funding was provided by the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, while conservation and digitization services were provided by divisions of the Harvard library system. For anyone interested in publishing, ordering a reproduction of, or citing a broadside, a helpful FAQ page offers guidance and contact information.
The collection can be browsed, searched by keyword, or searched by category. For the casual user, the "search by category" feature is the most interesting (and macabre). It allows users to search by crime, victim, and/or condemned (among other categories). Some of the more intriguing crime categories include body snatching, fortune-telling, and seduction, but the standard robbery, arson, and murder are also options. The search results view shows title (e.g., "Confession of Dr. Pritchard to the murder of his wife"), creator (e.g., Pritchard, Edward William), date, and a link for each result. Clicking on the link opens a new window with an on-screen image of the selected broadside, which can be zoomed in on, rotated, or converted to PDF for saving and printing.
The browse feature is less interesting for the broadside novice because rather than allowing a user to casually page through random broadsides, the feature instead requires users to "browse" through alphabetical lists of titles or names, select a record, and click on the link within the record to open a broadside. The user then must return to the results list to select another record for viewing.
I spent some time exploring how Harvard manages and delivers its digital content and was interested to read the overview of its Digital Repository Service. Given our recent discussions about digital preservation, I found this statement particularly interesting: "The DRS is both a preservation and an access repository. Its obligations include assurances that stored digital content will remain both viable and accessible into the indefinite future despite a constantly changing technological environment. All objects managed in the DRS will receive the highest level of preservation service consistent with the object’s characteristics and the current technical capabilities of the DRS and its staff." As I continue to learn about managing digital content, I will definitely return to the Harvard University Library site to remind myself of what it means to thoughtfully plan for the longevity of a digital project.
The Harvard Law School Library claims to have one of the largest collections of crime broadsides (500+), and the entire collection is now available for viewing online at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/. No audience is explicitly stated for the collection, but it would certainly appeal to both historians and the generally curious. The Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders site includes fairly extensive background information on the history of crime broadsides (see Introduction, About the Collection, and Resources) and some brief information on how the collection was actually digitized. Funding was provided by the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, while conservation and digitization services were provided by divisions of the Harvard library system. For anyone interested in publishing, ordering a reproduction of, or citing a broadside, a helpful FAQ page offers guidance and contact information.
The collection can be browsed, searched by keyword, or searched by category. For the casual user, the "search by category" feature is the most interesting (and macabre). It allows users to search by crime, victim, and/or condemned (among other categories). Some of the more intriguing crime categories include body snatching, fortune-telling, and seduction, but the standard robbery, arson, and murder are also options. The search results view shows title (e.g., "Confession of Dr. Pritchard to the murder of his wife"), creator (e.g., Pritchard, Edward William), date, and a link for each result. Clicking on the link opens a new window with an on-screen image of the selected broadside, which can be zoomed in on, rotated, or converted to PDF for saving and printing.
The browse feature is less interesting for the broadside novice because rather than allowing a user to casually page through random broadsides, the feature instead requires users to "browse" through alphabetical lists of titles or names, select a record, and click on the link within the record to open a broadside. The user then must return to the results list to select another record for viewing.
I spent some time exploring how Harvard manages and delivers its digital content and was interested to read the overview of its Digital Repository Service. Given our recent discussions about digital preservation, I found this statement particularly interesting: "The DRS is both a preservation and an access repository. Its obligations include assurances that stored digital content will remain both viable and accessible into the indefinite future despite a constantly changing technological environment. All objects managed in the DRS will receive the highest level of preservation service consistent with the object’s characteristics and the current technical capabilities of the DRS and its staff." As I continue to learn about managing digital content, I will definitely return to the Harvard University Library site to remind myself of what it means to thoughtfully plan for the longevity of a digital project.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
World War Poster Collection
Project name and URL
World War Poster Collection
http://digital.library.unt.edu/browse/department/rarebooks/wwpc/
Organization name
This collection is part of the University of North Texas Library collection
Description of what was digitized
The University of North Texas have digitized collections of war propaganda posters from both world wars.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in world war propaganda posters.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is little project background information available on the site
Additional comments
This digital collection is very detailed, each entry is not only referenced by keywords and artist, but cross referenced by subject, organization, sponsors. Each entry includes a written description of the poster, and contains details to the size of the poster as well.
The images are all scanned at high resolution and are highly detailed. The search function allows you to search full text, metadata, title, subject or creator. If the user clicks on the image in the search results, they are given the full sized image. Or they can click on the text and be brought to the main entry. At the main entry page there is also a link to the image.
World War Poster Collection
http://digital.library.unt.edu/browse/department/rarebooks/wwpc/
Organization name
This collection is part of the University of North Texas Library collection
Description of what was digitized
The University of North Texas have digitized collections of war propaganda posters from both world wars.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in world war propaganda posters.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is little project background information available on the site
Additional comments
This digital collection is very detailed, each entry is not only referenced by keywords and artist, but cross referenced by subject, organization, sponsors. Each entry includes a written description of the poster, and contains details to the size of the poster as well.
The images are all scanned at high resolution and are highly detailed. The search function allows you to search full text, metadata, title, subject or creator. If the user clicks on the image in the search results, they are given the full sized image. Or they can click on the text and be brought to the main entry. At the main entry page there is also a link to the image.
Strong National Museum of Play Online Collections
URL: http://www.museumofplay.org/collections/online/
Organization: The Strong National Museum of Play is located in Rochester, NY. In addition to housing the National Center for the History of Electronic Games and publishing the interdisciplinary and peer-reviewed American Journal of Play, the museum hosts one of the most fun digital collections you are likely to come across. And if that isn't enough pure, unadulterated nostalgic fun for you, the museum's National Toy Hall of Fame entire collection is also online.
Description: For a change, sufficient adjectives fail me. This collection is a 9,668 digital object trip down memory lane. The web site describes it like this: "Each of the objects featured in Online Collections includes a documentary photograph and factual information that can range from basic to extensive, including the maker, material, title, place of origin, and date. For a growing proportion of objects, you’ll also find additional information about the object’s historical context or specific significance". I say: it's awesome.
Audience: My first inclination is to say this digital project will delight anyone old enough to know how to use a computer. However, as it is under the auspices of a national museum, the contents are almost 100% all-American, so it's possible that this collection might not have global appeal. Also, while the Electronic Games gallery does feature the latest console games, previous eras are strongly represented and divided into 5-year time frames. A large part of the items in the overall collection are from times just long enough ago that the people in the class who are writing this blog will remember them fondly. Today's youngsters will recognize Elmo (wow - did you know about this?), but will probably be puzzled by a blast from the past like The Sunshine Fun Family (insert wistful sigh here). There are also plenty of very old toys, and vintage photographs, too.
Project Background: Once upon a time, someone had, like, the coolest idea EVER! Well, actually, Margaret Woodbury Strong founded the museum in 1968. In 2002, the museum acquired the National Toy Hall of Fame and has steadily evolved into a major center for the study of fun. (Can I interest you in reading the abstract for "A Digital Game Preservation White Paper"?) Although I can't find it stated explicitly, I strongly suspect that the museum's on-site 100,000 volume research library and archives was involved in the online collection that draws on the museum's catalog records. For the record, one disappointing thing is that this library does not have a bigger presence on any of the museum's web pages.
Features: The National Toy Hall of Fame page has a continuous scroll of all 44 inducted toys. If you hover over the scroll, it slows down, and clicking on one of the images brings up a brief history of the toy (or object)* and additional, non-clickable images. This page also has links to a list of the 44 toys, a FAQ page, a nomination form, and a virtual tour of the National Toy Hall of Fame gallery. (It will probably make you want to go to the museum, so click on those links carefully.)
The Online Collections main search interface could not be simpler. Each of the 5 main categories is shown in a primary-colored box ("Toys", "Dolls", "Games", "Electronic Games", and "More Play Stuff"). These 5 main categories are divided into sub-sets that make perfect sense. A breadcrumb trail means you won't get lost no matter how far you wander into the collection. The search box stays in the upper right-hand corner of whatever page you are on, but it is a little picky. For example, if you mis-remember "Candy Land" as being one word, you will be disappointed.
I'm not sure how the images in each sub-division of the main categories is arranged (and it really doesn't matter in this case, because discovery is half the fun here). Thumbnail images enlarge a little bit when you mouse over them and the name of the toy appears. Clicking on an image brings up the item record which contains information about the toy's manufacturer, material, origin, database object ID number, and date the toy was made. There is also a larger image of the toy that you can magnify to see in greater (and sometimes gently worn) detail. Some toys have additional information about them. But, of course, a picture can be worth a thousand words, right?
Another cool thing I noticed while clicking around (and around, and around) the site is that every time you click on, or refresh, one of the 5 main category pages, the images that appear over the sub-division labels change. This means that you see a lot of new toys automatically. The fun is basically exponential! Do yourself a favor and go explore this digital collection right now. I guarantee that you will have fun. And, you're welcome. :-) (But special thanks goes to the genius otherwise known as Jon Stewart who featured this amazing museum on his show.)
(*If you click on no other link in this post, please click on this one. It's too fabulous for words.)
Organization: The Strong National Museum of Play is located in Rochester, NY. In addition to housing the National Center for the History of Electronic Games and publishing the interdisciplinary and peer-reviewed American Journal of Play, the museum hosts one of the most fun digital collections you are likely to come across. And if that isn't enough pure, unadulterated nostalgic fun for you, the museum's National Toy Hall of Fame entire collection is also online.
Description: For a change, sufficient adjectives fail me. This collection is a 9,668 digital object trip down memory lane. The web site describes it like this: "Each of the objects featured in Online Collections includes a documentary photograph and factual information that can range from basic to extensive, including the maker, material, title, place of origin, and date. For a growing proportion of objects, you’ll also find additional information about the object’s historical context or specific significance". I say: it's awesome.
Audience: My first inclination is to say this digital project will delight anyone old enough to know how to use a computer. However, as it is under the auspices of a national museum, the contents are almost 100% all-American, so it's possible that this collection might not have global appeal. Also, while the Electronic Games gallery does feature the latest console games, previous eras are strongly represented and divided into 5-year time frames. A large part of the items in the overall collection are from times just long enough ago that the people in the class who are writing this blog will remember them fondly. Today's youngsters will recognize Elmo (wow - did you know about this?), but will probably be puzzled by a blast from the past like The Sunshine Fun Family (insert wistful sigh here). There are also plenty of very old toys, and vintage photographs, too.
Project Background: Once upon a time, someone had, like, the coolest idea EVER! Well, actually, Margaret Woodbury Strong founded the museum in 1968. In 2002, the museum acquired the National Toy Hall of Fame and has steadily evolved into a major center for the study of fun. (Can I interest you in reading the abstract for "A Digital Game Preservation White Paper"?) Although I can't find it stated explicitly, I strongly suspect that the museum's on-site 100,000 volume research library and archives was involved in the online collection that draws on the museum's catalog records. For the record, one disappointing thing is that this library does not have a bigger presence on any of the museum's web pages.
Features: The National Toy Hall of Fame page has a continuous scroll of all 44 inducted toys. If you hover over the scroll, it slows down, and clicking on one of the images brings up a brief history of the toy (or object)* and additional, non-clickable images. This page also has links to a list of the 44 toys, a FAQ page, a nomination form, and a virtual tour of the National Toy Hall of Fame gallery. (It will probably make you want to go to the museum, so click on those links carefully.)
The Online Collections main search interface could not be simpler. Each of the 5 main categories is shown in a primary-colored box ("Toys", "Dolls", "Games", "Electronic Games", and "More Play Stuff"). These 5 main categories are divided into sub-sets that make perfect sense. A breadcrumb trail means you won't get lost no matter how far you wander into the collection. The search box stays in the upper right-hand corner of whatever page you are on, but it is a little picky. For example, if you mis-remember "Candy Land" as being one word, you will be disappointed.
I'm not sure how the images in each sub-division of the main categories is arranged (and it really doesn't matter in this case, because discovery is half the fun here). Thumbnail images enlarge a little bit when you mouse over them and the name of the toy appears. Clicking on an image brings up the item record which contains information about the toy's manufacturer, material, origin, database object ID number, and date the toy was made. There is also a larger image of the toy that you can magnify to see in greater (and sometimes gently worn) detail. Some toys have additional information about them. But, of course, a picture can be worth a thousand words, right?
Another cool thing I noticed while clicking around (and around, and around) the site is that every time you click on, or refresh, one of the 5 main category pages, the images that appear over the sub-division labels change. This means that you see a lot of new toys automatically. The fun is basically exponential! Do yourself a favor and go explore this digital collection right now. I guarantee that you will have fun. And, you're welcome. :-) (But special thanks goes to the genius otherwise known as Jon Stewart who featured this amazing museum on his show.)
(*If you click on no other link in this post, please click on this one. It's too fabulous for words.)
Civil War Diaries and Letters
Project name and URL
Civil War Diaries and Letters
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cwd/"
Organization name
This collection is a University of Iowa Libraries collection
Description of what was digitized
The University of Iowa has collected materials from Iowa citizens that were also soldiers during the civil war and digitized them. Pictures, letters, full and partial diaries are scanned in and completely searchable.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in civil war materials.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is a brief project synopsis on the collection main page.
Additional comments
This is a small collection of materials (I think a total of 53 items). On the main page, they provide users with "Sample Searches" which do a good job of acting like a menu system, as all the "samples" cover the entire scope of the collection. That's not to say the search function is not necessary, just that they've given users a good idea as to what the limitations of the collection are.
For each entry there is a toolbar which provides users the options to fit the image to the page, rotate the image or zoom in and out. The toolbar is simple and easy to use, images load quickly with very little lag time.
Civil War Diaries and Letters
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cwd/"
Organization name
This collection is a University of Iowa Libraries collection
Description of what was digitized
The University of Iowa has collected materials from Iowa citizens that were also soldiers during the civil war and digitized them. Pictures, letters, full and partial diaries are scanned in and completely searchable.
Audience for the project
The main audience for the project is the general public, anyone who has an interest in civil war materials.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is a brief project synopsis on the collection main page.
Additional comments
This is a small collection of materials (I think a total of 53 items). On the main page, they provide users with "Sample Searches" which do a good job of acting like a menu system, as all the "samples" cover the entire scope of the collection. That's not to say the search function is not necessary, just that they've given users a good idea as to what the limitations of the collection are.
For each entry there is a toolbar which provides users the options to fit the image to the page, rotate the image or zoom in and out. The toolbar is simple and easy to use, images load quickly with very little lag time.
The National Library of Ireland's Digital Photographs Collection
Project Name: Digital Photographs Collection
Organization Name: National Library of Ireland
Description of what was digitized: This project includes over 20,000 glass plate negatives which were digitized from the following collections currently existing at the National Library of Ireland: Poole Whole plate, Independent H, Lawrence Royal and part of the Lawrence Cabinet collection.
The Poole collection comprises 5,119 glass plate negatives and was created by the family firm of A.H. Poole in Waterford between 1884-1954. The majority of images in the collection are studio portraits but the Poole Whole Plate subset which consists of 5,119 images, reflects the diversity of the collection with studio portraits, social and political events and also images of architecture and industry in the south east of Ireland.
The Independent Newspaper collection of some 3,000 images, is made up of glass plates, plastic negatives and a small number of prints. The Independent H collection is a subset of the collection and contains 3,250 glass plates negatives dating from 1912-1936. It provides a record of many aspects of 20th century Irish life, and is particularly strong in the coverage of politics and sport in Ireland.
The Lawrence Collection consists of 12,824 glass plate negatives from 1870-1914. The images were produced commercially and capture topographical scenes of that period throughout Ireland. The entire Lawrence Royal collection (10,784 plates) and part of the Lawrence Cabinet collection (2,040 plates) are available here to view online.
All these images are accessible here at a low resolution with basic information, including title, date and location where available.
Audience of the Project: As one of the roles of national libraries is to strive principally to collect and preserve the nation's literature, their role also includes to promote the national culture and heritage to all the peoples they serve. Although it is not stated, this project is not intended for a specific group of users, instead for those who are interested in learning about the historical aspect of Ireland through its pictures.
Type of project background information available on this site: The "About" section of this project explains that in 2007 the National Library undertook a major enterprise to digitize its collections of glass plate negatives. No information is provided about funding and/or how long this project took place as well as who was involved in developing it.
How the Digital assets presented? The National Library of Ireland's Digital Photographs project was developed using the CONTENTdm platform. The functionality commonly offered by this software is found as part of this project; additionally, proper links to the Copyright office of the NLI as well as contact information to the reference desk was provided to request permission to reproduce material included in this project. The landing page provides the user with the option to provide an open ended search or to directly browse each one of the collections of this project.
What metadata is present: The metadata of the digitized photographs contain basic information, including an identifier number, title, creator, date, source, coverage, rights and collection name. The National Library, when describing the project, commented that the information accompanying a number of the images has not yet been enhanced that in practice means that some captions, which were transferred directly from original indexes/ lists, are very brief and sometimes inaccurate. My searches confirmed that is the case with many items in the collection. After having performed a search and an item selected, the images are displayed at full size. There is not an option to zoom in or out, or have them displayed outside the platform.
What additional information is presented and is it easy to use? The collection includes the necessary information for anyone to understand what it is about. Additional information about its funding, its timeline as well as plans for its future would have been neat to have included. Instead an open ended comment that the National Library is going to continue working on implementing future collections is posted.
As far as the implementation of CONTENTdm, it was done nicely and its customization follows the palette of colours which are standard to the web page of the National Library of Ireland. I found pleasing the fact that copies of the any of the items showcased in the Digital Photographs could be ordered directly from the library, and that patrons could use their own digital cameras to photograph material from the Library's collections (printed and manuscript).
Digital Image Collection (Western Illinois University)
Project name and URL
Digital Image Collection (Western Illinois University)
http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/index_wiu_digimgc.php?CISOROOT=/wiu_digimgc
Organization name
Western Illinois University
Description of what was digitized
This is a digital library of images from central Illinois, with emphasis on Western Illinios University, Macomb, IL, and McDonough county
Audience for the project
The audience for this project is anyone who is interested in pictures of small town america, scholars and historians of the early twentieth century.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is minimal information about this collection, just a brief blurb on the project main page. It is connected to several other collections throughout Illinois, however.
Additional comments
This small collection of photographs helps tell the story of a small college town in Illinois and how it has changed over the previous century. One thing I really liked about this database is that it was clearly put together by knowledgeable people-- as many of the photographs have meaningful blurbs describing the pictures. And in the case of stores that have moved, there is also previous locations listed, and other little trivia tidbits when necessary.
The search function is rudimentary, and unless you knew what exactly you were looking for wouldn't be much help. When you "browse" the collection, the files are all listed in alphabetical order. This doesn't help much, as there is very little intelligence to the file name. The files are just numbers, and are seemingly in randomly. That is, the pictures themselves aren't related to each other.
Still, for someone looking for photographs of a small town grocery store, or old university pictures, this is a decent collection.
Digital Image Collection (Western Illinois University)
http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/index_wiu_digimgc.php?CISOROOT=/wiu_digimgc
Organization name
Western Illinois University
Description of what was digitized
This is a digital library of images from central Illinois, with emphasis on Western Illinios University, Macomb, IL, and McDonough county
Audience for the project
The audience for this project is anyone who is interested in pictures of small town america, scholars and historians of the early twentieth century.
Type of project background information available on the site
There is minimal information about this collection, just a brief blurb on the project main page. It is connected to several other collections throughout Illinois, however.
Additional comments
This small collection of photographs helps tell the story of a small college town in Illinois and how it has changed over the previous century. One thing I really liked about this database is that it was clearly put together by knowledgeable people-- as many of the photographs have meaningful blurbs describing the pictures. And in the case of stores that have moved, there is also previous locations listed, and other little trivia tidbits when necessary.
The search function is rudimentary, and unless you knew what exactly you were looking for wouldn't be much help. When you "browse" the collection, the files are all listed in alphabetical order. This doesn't help much, as there is very little intelligence to the file name. The files are just numbers, and are seemingly in randomly. That is, the pictures themselves aren't related to each other.
Still, for someone looking for photographs of a small town grocery store, or old university pictures, this is a decent collection.
NYS Aerial Photographs (Cornell)
New York State Aerial Photographs
URL: http://library24.library.cornell.edu:8280/luna/servlet/CORNELL-AER~2~2
Organization Name: Cornell University
Description of What's Been Digitized:
The collection consists of 3,390 aerial photographs of New York State. The photographs range in date from 1938 to 1991 and five counties--Cayuga, Tompkins, Onondaga, Wayne, and Cortland--are represented in the collection.
Assumed Audience:
I presume the collection primarily appeals to researchers, historians, and photographers.
Background Information:
The site contains very little background or supplemental information--perhaps because the collection is relatively straightforward; however, there is mention of how the project was funded. Production was financed under a Cornell University Library Faculty Grant.
Presentation:
NYS Aerial Photographs may be browsed in its entirety (browse all), by county, or by date. In addition, there is an advanced search option that allows users to keyword search the collection. Users also have the ability to expand their search beyond NYS Aerial Photographs to include 27 other Cornell digital collections--a nice feature.
Initially, users are presented with a series of thumbnail images. When one hovers over a thumbnail, a pop-out media summary containing basic metadata appears--this is an important feature as the thumbnail images are more or less indecipherable from one another (at least to my untrained eye). When the user selects a thumbnail, she's presented with an enlarged image of the photograph--there's a pretty serious zoom function. An extensive list of metadata is available for each image in the left-hand toolbar.
Metadata:
The following metadata is available: collection, accession number, date made, classification, county, display site, state, description, repository, institution, rights, image ID, resolution size, format, media type, file name, width, and height.
Global Performing Arts Database
URL: http://www.glopad.org/pi/en/index.php
Organization: The Global Performing Arts Database (GloPAD) is a project of the Global Performing Arts Consortium (GloPAC) and the Cornell University Library.
Description: "(GloPAC) is an international organization of institutions and individuals committed to using innovative digital technologies to create easily accessible, multimedia, and multilingual information resources for the study and preservation of the performing arts." GloPAC created and maintains GloPAD which contains images, video and audio clips, and other digital objects related to performing arts from around the world. It also contains authoritative information about people, pieces, performances, productions, and places in a number of languages to facilitate research on performing arts. The digital items stored in GloPAD are intended to supply content for Performing Arts Resource Centers (PARCs). The PARC is another concept GloPAC is developing, designed to be "Web-based learning environments," each with its own "specific focus, which may be geographic (Japan), temporal (turn of the 20th century), ethnic (Afro-American), thematic (feminist theatre), or audience-oriented (teen PARC)".
Audience: GloPAD is ostensibly for anyone interested in performing arts, but the content appears to be largely historical in nature, so will probably be used mostly by those researching the past. The first, prototype PARC is the Japanese Performing Arts Resource Center (JPARC), so there are a lot of records pertaining to Japanese performing arts in GloPAD. The level of detail in individual records also indicates that content is geared toward adult scholars and researchers.
Project Background: In 2002, through the Cornell University Library, GloPAC received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to create GloPAD. A web interface was created, and two other related databases were merged and restructured to support the metadata standards GloPAC developed as part of GloPAD's mission. The development of the Metadata Standards GloPAD uses was an important part of the project. An interesting essay describes why standardizing performing arts metadata was crucial. The resulting schema is considered a marked improvement in describing the myriad elements relating to performances worldwide, and will be revised and expanded as GloPAD continues to be developed. At least, according to the web site: "GloPAD is in a continual process of development". However, the "Current Development Team" page has the copyright statement listed as "1998-2006", and the initial $470,000 grant provided funding only through September 2005. While GloPAD is being maintained by Cornell, it is unclear if the project is still cultivating participants.
Features: The "Home" page is simple and shows the categories of searches that can be performed. Several "Suggested Searches" are listed under each category. These are hyperlinks to the specific search results and have been chosen because they are "examples that will return large sets of records", according to the "Search Tips" page. The "Using GloPAD" page gives useful tips on viewing records, using the copyright information in records, and multilingual searching. The site has a few short screencast movies that go into more detail about how to use the database. Statements on the "Using GloPAD" and "Tools" pages suggest that more advanced searching features were planned, but their continued absence is another indication that the project may be in a state of limbo. Indeed, most of the current funding seems to be aimed at the JPARC.
Performing a search brings up a record, or set of results. An individual record may also contain links to "Associated Items" which lead to other records. Result sets display up to 15 at a time, but what order they are in is not at all clear. If you find an item you want to return to, the best thing to do is to take note of the "GloPAD ID" number because results pages are sort of slow to load, and there is no way to skip ahead to a certain page of results.
I think that, in addition to consolidating far-flung performing arts historical ephemera and developing a global metadata standard for performances, GloPAD was designed to be a trusted digital repository for material from other institutions that have performing arts-related items which are not otherwise easily accessible. For example, may of the 89 items retrieved in the "San Francisco" search are from the Performing Arts Library in the Museum of Performance & Design. Located in San Francisco (and formerly known as the San Francisco Performing Arts Library Museum, or SFPALM, a change not noted in GloPAD records), this museum is a treasure trove of the city's rich performing arts history. While it has apparently recently decided to expand its focus internationally, the museum is quite small (the 3.5 million items it claims to have must include subscription database material because I've been there and there is just no way...) and it does not have any digital exhibitions or collections on its own web site. GloPAD is a way for similar institutions to afford the world glimpses into their holdings without having to create independent digital projects and programs from scratch. As a passionate patron of the arts, I hope that JPARC proves GloPAC's concept and that GloPAD content can be expanded to encompass more contemporary performances.
Organization: The Global Performing Arts Database (GloPAD) is a project of the Global Performing Arts Consortium (GloPAC) and the Cornell University Library.
Description: "(GloPAC) is an international organization of institutions and individuals committed to using innovative digital technologies to create easily accessible, multimedia, and multilingual information resources for the study and preservation of the performing arts." GloPAC created and maintains GloPAD which contains images, video and audio clips, and other digital objects related to performing arts from around the world. It also contains authoritative information about people, pieces, performances, productions, and places in a number of languages to facilitate research on performing arts. The digital items stored in GloPAD are intended to supply content for Performing Arts Resource Centers (PARCs). The PARC is another concept GloPAC is developing, designed to be "Web-based learning environments," each with its own "specific focus, which may be geographic (Japan), temporal (turn of the 20th century), ethnic (Afro-American), thematic (feminist theatre), or audience-oriented (teen PARC)".
Audience: GloPAD is ostensibly for anyone interested in performing arts, but the content appears to be largely historical in nature, so will probably be used mostly by those researching the past. The first, prototype PARC is the Japanese Performing Arts Resource Center (JPARC), so there are a lot of records pertaining to Japanese performing arts in GloPAD. The level of detail in individual records also indicates that content is geared toward adult scholars and researchers.
Project Background: In 2002, through the Cornell University Library, GloPAC received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to create GloPAD. A web interface was created, and two other related databases were merged and restructured to support the metadata standards GloPAC developed as part of GloPAD's mission. The development of the Metadata Standards GloPAD uses was an important part of the project. An interesting essay describes why standardizing performing arts metadata was crucial. The resulting schema is considered a marked improvement in describing the myriad elements relating to performances worldwide, and will be revised and expanded as GloPAD continues to be developed. At least, according to the web site: "GloPAD is in a continual process of development". However, the "Current Development Team" page has the copyright statement listed as "1998-2006", and the initial $470,000 grant provided funding only through September 2005. While GloPAD is being maintained by Cornell, it is unclear if the project is still cultivating participants.
Features: The "Home" page is simple and shows the categories of searches that can be performed. Several "Suggested Searches" are listed under each category. These are hyperlinks to the specific search results and have been chosen because they are "examples that will return large sets of records", according to the "Search Tips" page. The "Using GloPAD" page gives useful tips on viewing records, using the copyright information in records, and multilingual searching. The site has a few short screencast movies that go into more detail about how to use the database. Statements on the "Using GloPAD" and "Tools" pages suggest that more advanced searching features were planned, but their continued absence is another indication that the project may be in a state of limbo. Indeed, most of the current funding seems to be aimed at the JPARC.
Performing a search brings up a record, or set of results. An individual record may also contain links to "Associated Items" which lead to other records. Result sets display up to 15 at a time, but what order they are in is not at all clear. If you find an item you want to return to, the best thing to do is to take note of the "GloPAD ID" number because results pages are sort of slow to load, and there is no way to skip ahead to a certain page of results.
I think that, in addition to consolidating far-flung performing arts historical ephemera and developing a global metadata standard for performances, GloPAD was designed to be a trusted digital repository for material from other institutions that have performing arts-related items which are not otherwise easily accessible. For example, may of the 89 items retrieved in the "San Francisco" search are from the Performing Arts Library in the Museum of Performance & Design. Located in San Francisco (and formerly known as the San Francisco Performing Arts Library Museum, or SFPALM, a change not noted in GloPAD records), this museum is a treasure trove of the city's rich performing arts history. While it has apparently recently decided to expand its focus internationally, the museum is quite small (the 3.5 million items it claims to have must include subscription database material because I've been there and there is just no way...) and it does not have any digital exhibitions or collections on its own web site. GloPAD is a way for similar institutions to afford the world glimpses into their holdings without having to create independent digital projects and programs from scratch. As a passionate patron of the arts, I hope that JPARC proves GloPAC's concept and that GloPAD content can be expanded to encompass more contemporary performances.
ICDL--International Children's Digital Library
Organization name: The International Children's Digital Library Foundation, a non-profit organization is dedicated to the mission of supporting "the world's children in becoming effective members of the global community - who exhibit tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online free of charge. . . by building a digital library of outstanding children's books from around the world and supporting communities of children and adults in exploring and using this literature through innovative technology designed in close partnership with children for children."
Description of what was digitized: The goal of the Foundation is to digitize and make freely available at least 10,000 books in at least 100 languages from throughout the world. According to statistics on the site, to date 4346 books in 54 languages are in the collection. Over 1 million people from 166 countries have visited the site. The library relies on librarians, publishers, illustrators, and authors to submit books to the collection. Instructions for doing so and guidelines for what kinds of materials are appropriate are included on the site. It does not appear that sumissions are monitored in any systematic way. This is truly a voluntary, collaborative effort.
Audience for the project: In keeping with its goal of promoting tolerance, the Foundation hopes to reach children and educators from throughout the world.
Type of project background information available on the site: The site provides extensive information on the goals of its creators, plus the history of the Foundation. Copyright Policy, Collection Development Policy, Fast Facts, and Privacy Policy are all posted. Some technical information is included in the instructions provided for adding an object to the collection.
Metadata and search access: Detailed instructions about assignment of metadata are provided for potential submitters of content. Each field is defined and acceptable tags are identified. When an item is selected the related metadata is displayed. The search function is simple in keeping with the intended audience. Searches can be conducted by country, theme, length, country of origin, language. My personal favorite search strategy--the user can search by the color of the cover of the book, which I think is brilliant! Users have the opportunity to add tags for items, which seems like a great way to get children involved in adding value to the content of the collection.
Copyright issues: It is the responsibility of the party submitting the title for inclusion in the digital library to contact the rights' holder of the work and confirm that all intellectual property concerns have been cleared. The ICDL reserves the right to remove any item where it appears copyright status is a concern. According to a posted statement, the site functionality does not allow printing, downloading, or emailing of any of the work. Of course, there is no way to completely prevent this from happening.
Additional comments: This is a wonderful collection of content that most children (and adults) would never get the opportunity to experience. My one concern is that it seems to be little-known. The project has funding from some major organizations (American Library Association, Library of Congress, Microsoft, the National Science Foundation), but there does not seem to be much written about the project. It seems like more resources should be spent on promotion to spread the word about a great resource.
Description of what was digitized: The goal of the Foundation is to digitize and make freely available at least 10,000 books in at least 100 languages from throughout the world. According to statistics on the site, to date 4346 books in 54 languages are in the collection. Over 1 million people from 166 countries have visited the site. The library relies on librarians, publishers, illustrators, and authors to submit books to the collection. Instructions for doing so and guidelines for what kinds of materials are appropriate are included on the site. It does not appear that sumissions are monitored in any systematic way. This is truly a voluntary, collaborative effort.
Audience for the project: In keeping with its goal of promoting tolerance, the Foundation hopes to reach children and educators from throughout the world.
Type of project background information available on the site: The site provides extensive information on the goals of its creators, plus the history of the Foundation. Copyright Policy, Collection Development Policy, Fast Facts, and Privacy Policy are all posted. Some technical information is included in the instructions provided for adding an object to the collection.
Metadata and search access: Detailed instructions about assignment of metadata are provided for potential submitters of content. Each field is defined and acceptable tags are identified. When an item is selected the related metadata is displayed. The search function is simple in keeping with the intended audience. Searches can be conducted by country, theme, length, country of origin, language. My personal favorite search strategy--the user can search by the color of the cover of the book, which I think is brilliant! Users have the opportunity to add tags for items, which seems like a great way to get children involved in adding value to the content of the collection.
Copyright issues: It is the responsibility of the party submitting the title for inclusion in the digital library to contact the rights' holder of the work and confirm that all intellectual property concerns have been cleared. The ICDL reserves the right to remove any item where it appears copyright status is a concern. According to a posted statement, the site functionality does not allow printing, downloading, or emailing of any of the work. Of course, there is no way to completely prevent this from happening.
Additional comments: This is a wonderful collection of content that most children (and adults) would never get the opportunity to experience. My one concern is that it seems to be little-known. The project has funding from some major organizations (American Library Association, Library of Congress, Microsoft, the National Science Foundation), but there does not seem to be much written about the project. It seems like more resources should be spent on promotion to spread the word about a great resource.
Maine Music Box
Project name and URL
Maine Music Box
http://mainemusicbox.library.umaine.edu/
Organization name
The Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine initiated this project partnership with the Bagaduce Music Lending Library and the Bangor Public Library.
Description of what was digitized
Over 22,000. pieces of sheet music from 5 collections of partner libraries, from popular music to violin scores, dating from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, were digitized. High resolution digital images are available for music in public domain; music published after 1934 can be found in Maine Music Box but only text record and a thumbnail of the sheet music is available.
Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
Assumed audience is anyone interested in sheet music of that time period. Main Music Box provide a specially designed interface for teachers, who are probably one group of audience of this project.
Type of project background information available on the site
There are three steps in digitizing sheet music. First is to create a digital music files of the form of MIDI and Scorch through music-recognition progress. Scorch is digital music file with MIDI playback capacity, create by Sibelius Scorch; it enables viewers to change the key, see the cursor while playing, print out sheet music, and many other powerful functions. Second is to prepare various version of the image of music for website use, such as thumbnail or high resolution ones for printing. Third is to create lyrics for vocal work.
Additional comments
Although the Scorch software sounds amazing, I can't get to try it seems its only available in the password-protected instructional interface. That is the while competence of this project, as stated in the “about” page, and the other part of the project is OK. There are many browsing and searching functions, but do not come in handy. In the “about” page there are plenty information on the project worth looking, including meta data, copyright, file specification and so on.
Maine Music Box
http://mainemusicbox.library.umaine.edu/
Organization name
The Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine initiated this project partnership with the Bagaduce Music Lending Library and the Bangor Public Library.
Description of what was digitized
Over 22,000. pieces of sheet music from 5 collections of partner libraries, from popular music to violin scores, dating from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, were digitized. High resolution digital images are available for music in public domain; music published after 1934 can be found in Maine Music Box but only text record and a thumbnail of the sheet music is available.
Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
Assumed audience is anyone interested in sheet music of that time period. Main Music Box provide a specially designed interface for teachers, who are probably one group of audience of this project.
Type of project background information available on the site
There are three steps in digitizing sheet music. First is to create a digital music files of the form of MIDI and Scorch through music-recognition progress. Scorch is digital music file with MIDI playback capacity, create by Sibelius Scorch; it enables viewers to change the key, see the cursor while playing, print out sheet music, and many other powerful functions. Second is to prepare various version of the image of music for website use, such as thumbnail or high resolution ones for printing. Third is to create lyrics for vocal work.
Additional comments
Although the Scorch software sounds amazing, I can't get to try it seems its only available in the password-protected instructional interface. That is the while competence of this project, as stated in the “about” page, and the other part of the project is OK. There are many browsing and searching functions, but do not come in handy. In the “about” page there are plenty information on the project worth looking, including meta data, copyright, file specification and so on.
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