We have just received the DVD copy of the November Digitization Workshop. If you were unable to attend the presentations by Roy Tennant and Ann Lally, they are now available (with Powerpoint slides) on DVD. We are currently looking into the best options for making the video available, in the meantime please contact Cory Lampert for more information. Thanks!
December 2006 Archives
UNLV Libraries uses CONTENTdm digital media management software to build our digital collections. It is a very useful software that allows you to store and search digital images (scanned pictures, documents, digitized multimedia files, etc.) and build collections in a collaborative environment. One regional project that UNLV Libraries have contributed to is the Mountain West Digital Library that gathers collections from 12 institutions in the Mountain West geographic region together in one searchable database. More information about CONTENTdm can be found at the DiMeMa website.
Last week, I attended the CONTENTdm Advanced Topics training offered through OCLC. This course has been requested by CONTENTdm users to help those of us that are primarily project managers to learn the nitty gritty components of CONTENTdm reporting functions, batch importing of records, and customization of the web templates. The training was informative and helped me to gain more insight into the programming needed to work with the web templates, which was my number one goal in attending. Unfortunately, OCLC's staff has a difficult job trying to teach this type of course. Typically many people work together on digital collections and they often have a variety fo technical skills. Some of the attendees (including Kee Choi from UNLV) were probably bored by the slower pace of this course.
We will be utilizing some of the skills reviewed in the training when we import art slide metadata and scanned images into CONTENTdm from the system Vireocat in use at the Visual Resources Collection in the art department. This is one of the key steps in the pilot project that the Campus Images Group is leading to explore the use of CONTENTdm for storage, retrieval and repurposing of art images for teaching.
When browsing a collection of really cool digital images, it can be easy to claim ignorance of the important role metadata plays in navigating a digital collection. To be honest, not many folks show a real passion for understanding and exploring why metadata matters so much. But, it truly is a very important part of any digital collection and I'd like to focus on one aspect of why it plays such an important role. In the recent workshop we held at UNLV, one question came up repeatedly, "Okay, so metadata is important. Well, what exactly is good metadata and what can good metadata do for me?" I have located a great article (mentioned in the workshop) that addresses this subject. Moving Towards Shareable Metadata concisely describes not only the importance of metadata, but some practical ways to create shareable metadata. As defined in the article, sharebale metadata is defined as
Metadata which can be understood and used outside of its local environment by aggregators to provide more advanced services.In the collections we are currently working on, we use the Dublin Core metadata standard and include fields that refer to both the item itself and the physical collection it comes from. We also have built-in layers of quality control that help check for consistency and even levels of granularity between records. By conforming to recognized standards, including information that provides context outside the local environment, and by striving for consistency UNLV LIbraries is contributing shareable metadata and contributing to interoperabilty between diverse digital collections.
