Digitization Projects at UNLV Libraries

This week marks the start of an online course my employer was kind enough to pay for me to attend called "Metadata for You and Me: A Training Program for Shareable Metadata".

I was interested in taking this course for two main reasons: first, because in the world of digitization we spend a huge amount of time creating metadata on the item level for every digital object in out repositories and this equates to lots of dollars in staff time. So, I'd like to spend some time thinking about this investment and what type of returns it is providing for us. Are we agonizing over the right things? Spending too much time or detail? Using appropriate standards?

Secondly, we do indeed have the noble goal of providing accurate, easily discoverable, re-useable records but are we delivering the goods or deluding ourselves? What exactly does our metadata look like outside our own local repository and does it mind its manners? As much as I'd like to say that my metadata is a model citizen...I just don't really know. With more and more materials being aggregated with the goal of broader access, it's time to try and find out.

I logged into the on-line course this morning and printed out some of the readings for the first module. I couldn't help but draw attention to a fabulous article, Metadata For All: Descriptive Standards across Libraries, Archives, and Museums that worked miracles in helping me to understand what exactly we are talking about when we discuss metadata (especially across library, museum, and archives standards). It is also recent enough (2007) to provide up-to date information about recent trends and proposes a format-based way of looking at standards in the parallel disciplines. A very good read.

I will update this blog as I progress through the course and learn more!

The University Libraries are pleased to announce the launch of a new digital collection:

The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project
http://digital.library.unlv.edu/ntsohp/

The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project documents the remembered past of persons affiliated with and affected by the Nevada Test Site during the era of Cold War nuclear testing. Through the Libraries' partnership with the UNLV College of Liberal Arts, a wide range of oral history interviews were organized to be presented in an digital collection representing diverse points of view including: scientists and engineers; labor and support personnel; military personnel and corporate executives; Native American leaders; peace activists and protesters; Nevada ranchers and communities downwind of the test site. The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project was directed by Mary Palevsky from September 2003 through July 2007 with funding from U.S. Depts. of Energy and Education. For the academic year 2007-2008 work on final interviews, the digital collection, and project website was supported by the University Libraries and the Department of History.

Nearly 200 full-text searchable transcripts and audio clips are now available in this digital collection. For more information about the collection, or to share your comments, please feel free to contact me via e-mail at cory.lampert@unlv.edu.

Just released today, a new report by Robert Buckley and published by the Digital Preservation Coalition is titled, JPEG 2000 - a Practical Digital Preservation Standard? and addresses archival and preservation issues with the JPEG2000 format.

Aren't sure what JPEG2000 is all about? The report also does a good job of concisely explaining the attributes and advantages of the format:

A single architecture for lossless and visually lossless image compression
• A single JPEG 2000 master image can supply multiple derivative images
• Progressive display, multi-resolution imaging and scalable image quality
• The ability to handle large and high-dynamic range images
• Generous metadata support

With JPEG 2000, an application can access and decode only as much of the compressed image as needed to perform the task at hand.

JPEG 2000 also improves a user’s ability to interact with an image. The zoom, pan, and rotate operations that users increasingly expect in networked image systems are performed dynamically by accessing and decompressing just those parts of the JPEG2000 codestream containing the compressed image data for the region of interest.

Using a single JPEG 2000 master to satisfy user requests for dynamic viewing reduces storage costs and management overhead by eliminating the need to maintain multiple derivatives in a repository.

To see JPEG2000 files in action, try examining one of the maps in the Southern Nevada History in Maps collection. After selecting an image of interest, click on Zoom and Pan in the record and compare what is viewable by zooming in from the default size to 100% to see the amazing detail available.

Check out this interesting article, Strains and Joys Color Mergers Between Libraries and Tech Units about the possibilities of merging librarians and IT departments to help provide user-centric services.

David W. Dodd, the CIO who arrived at Xavier University in 2005, said students and faculty members wanted three basic things: "Provide the services I'm looking for, in the manner I want, and get out of my way." They weren't getting any of them.

It doesn't look easy or comfortable, as you can see reflected in this quote from a failed merger:

Tensions arose when technology workers, ponytailed young men, began sharing the same office space with librarians, most of whom were older women, said Ms. Wagner. According to her account, the men brought in a huge microwave, were slobs, had messy cords dangling from equipment, and said they worked much harder than the librarians who left work at 4:30 and took breaks throughout the day.

While this may be a humorous quote, you can imagine some librarians being rocketed right out of their comfort zone as they experience being "blended" with IT staff. And it can be hard to imagine some IT departments ever refining their customer service skills to the standards most librarians pride themselves on. If this is the way things are headed we all need to start thinking about our current library culture and how we can integrate the best of both worlds to benefit our users.

About a year ago I observed a group of New Media researchers from a variety of disciplines, including the UNLV School of Journalism, who came together to research the Consumer Electronics show, trade shows, and technology through a variety of academic disciplines. These scholars, working with the Center for History and New Media proposed an interesting methodology of "swarm" scholarship (spontaneous, "in the moment", data collection) combined with a hybrid publication of both a monograph and an evolving digital component (a wiki) to complement the content. This was the first time I was introduced to the idea, and shortly thereafter I was asked to collaborate with some of my UNLV colleagues on a book chapter for Library 2.0 Initiatives in Academic Libraries using many of the same techniques.

While writing about Library 2.0 was exciting, it was equally as intriguing to be part of a new type of dynamic scholarship that involved not only research, writing and editing, but also continuing updates and status reports on projects that, at this minute, are evolving and growing. There were times in the past year that I admit I became burned out on Web 2.0. I felt like it was everywhere and un-escapable; a trend that was going to be worn out by the time the book hit the publisher. But, the beauty of the hybrid project is that the projects detailed in the various chapters are not confined to the print their authors composed last year! They can be modified and reported upon as they mutate into new initiatives, are evaluated and refined, and as they transform from experiments into integrated library services. This is the most exciting thing about the Library 2.0 project. The print publication is available from ALA and the wiki will follow the projects through the next two years.

This type of hybrid research presents all sorts of interesting challenges and opportunities for libraries. How do we assist with this new type of research (topics that are a moving target or require timeliness and nimbleness, collaboration and new technological tools)? How do we as consumers of information adapt (if we can't just wait for it to be printed, cataloged, shelved and circulated)? And how do we preserve this new type of information resource into the future (is it ever really "finished"...)? I, for one, find these two projects compelling as they seem to give life and vitality to the somewhat stodgy and oppressive "traditional" world of publishing and provoke all sorts of interesting discussions of "Librarianship 2.0".