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SAA2007: Publishers’ Bindings Online – Digitization, Collaboration, Standardization and Community Building (Session 707)

September 22, 2007 2 Comments

Session 707 of SAA2007 in Chicago discussed many aspects of the project that created Publishers’ Bindings Online (PBO). The full title of this session was The Anatomy of a Collaborative Digital Project and Lessons Learned in the Realms of Access, Outreach, and Creative Success: A Multi-Disciplinary Look at Publishers’ Bindings Online, 1815-1930: The Art of Books. The presenters have kindly posted the full slide deck from their panel online. In this post I attempt to capture the main points of the presentation and Q&A discussion of PBO.

Who Spoke?

Jessica Lacher-Feldman (session chair) – University of Alabama, PBO project manager

Amy Rudersdorf – now at North Carolina State University, Digital production coordinator, NCSU special Collections, but was at University of Wisconsin, Madison during PBO project

Kristy Dixon – University of Alabama , PBO staff

PBO Project Overview

PBO was made possible by a 3 year Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant. Originally awarded in 2003, the grant was extended once (and I think they mentioned additional funding being applied for). The primary grant funded the digitization of 10,000 images from up to 5000 book bindings. Ultimately 10,570 images were added to PBO and made searchable by metadata. The bindings selected included books from 1815-1930, primarily US titles and mostly in English.

Their guiding vision was of “giving something to the world that is both needed and useful” (and really beautiful). And they succeeded! PBO is a lot more than 10,000+ digitized book bindings. The project strived to make the information available in many different ways, including via:

a web-based database
online exhibits & galleries,
vodcasts and podcasts
web-based tutorials
virtual and real exhibits
presentations & class lectures
opportunities to adapt the project to other disciplines – history, book arts, librarianship, literature.. K-12 and more

Technology and Processes

The division of labor for PBO was split between the University of Alabama and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Many extensions to the OCLC SiteSearch based database were made by the UWDCC (UW Digital Collections Center) digital production center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison .

They went through an overview of the participants and staff – who did what.. what skills were needed and what was brought by the two institutions to the collaboration. They acknowledged their fabulous advisory group including Sue Allen – “the expert on publisher’s bindings”. Individuals from outside their teams contribute based on their special interest and knowledge about a specific individual (this contribution is still ongoing).

Working in collaboration forced them to wrestle with many challenges including:

staff in two locations – most of whom had never met
“long distance relationships are hard”
they had to work hard to ensure that all were ‘equally-valued participants’
standards – you need ground rules from the outset

Collaboration & Description

“Every pair of eyes are different”. PBO tapped into the resource of the ‘young fertile minds’ to power the project out of the local MLS programs at both institutions. Even with a detailed description form – there was confusion over subject headings and overlap – especially when those selecting subject headings were grad students who might not know the official terms for things. For example, the list of terms might include Ouroboros – but the students might not know this it is the term for a snake eating it’s own tail.

Ultimately they had to do quality control at a single location. They spent a LOT of time on this.

Their top tips for cultivating continuity for virtual project teams:

write into your grants money for travel (they stressed that your grant includes funds to support people meeting each other)
continuous communication is critical
‘shared working group website’ available online
email, conference calls and instant messaging (IM) for communication
regular reporting to each other
being project manager means that you have to be on top of everything – you need to be the glue
focus on the deliverables – use planning tools and timelines

They discovered that IM was key to developing trust between the two institutions.

Metadata – the core of the project

The key to their metadata approach was to consider a book less as a ‘bibliographic object’ and more as an ‘art object’.

They called books in PBO ‘objects’ but still kept the bibliographic metadata. They used Dublin Core by pulling the MARC data into the Dublin Core structure. As part of this they took all the subjects from the bibliographic info and moved it to the Dublin Core description and labeled it ‘book topic’. Then they used the ‘Subjects’ portion of the Dublin Core record to describe the binding and talk about what the images are OF. This is where the subject terms from the controlled vocabulary were added.

These are the steps of their metadata workflow process:

selection from collections of note – faculty, consultants and library staff did this step
description – used a paper form, described the books on paper and joined that description to what was in the MARC record – done by the grad students and library staff
metadata entry – entry of data through an online form – done by students (overseen by library staff) actually ended up being cheaper to manually enter the MARC data (rather than automated extraction)
quality control – content, grammar, spelling – done by library staff (took a lot more time than anyone expected)
no live update between their working Filemaker Pro database and the final SiteSearch database
record ownership – indicated in the identifier field (with a special code in the identifier) AND in the Submitter field

A lot of description went into this project.

They needed to develop a controlled vocabulary for the project. To do this they first worked with content specialists to develop a list. They used Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) terms where they could, as well as Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus. Then they added some local terms. The controlled vocabulary list evolved with the project and is the foundation of all teaching, search and more.

The speaker showed an example of the controlled vocabulary – the terms really are a window into the past. Users can browse the controlled vocabulary through the front end.

On the description paper form they had a list of ‘binding themes’ for those doing the description to pick from. A lot of work was done to get the huge list of themes onto a single page. Ultimately they had to provide some fill in the blank extension fields. For example, rather than believing they had listed every useful trade or profession, there was a section on the list labeled: Profession/Trade – _______________ with the expectation that those describing a binding might need to fill in the blank.

Digitization and The Database

Generally two scans were taken from each book, but sometimes as many as five. What did they scan? Front cover, spine, back cover and end papers.

There were two different image reformatting standards at the two institutions – 300 DPI vs 600 DPI. Both used a black background when scanning. All books were presented in as in condition – some have front/back covers missing. After the scanning they began with master TIFs and then transformed them to JPGs in three sizes in 72 DPI.

The presentation showed screen shots of:

simple search
brief view record in search results — which includes subjects
full record view – including display of all images associated with the book object record
gallery view – thumbnail, title and indication if there are one or more images related to the title
guided search (advanced search)
clickable subject headings

All the images in PBO are freely available for download.

With an eye to digital preservation, all the original uncompressed TIF images are archived in triplicate to digital archive tape and stored in three different locations. The metadata is stored with images in both text and SGML format (which is what SiteSearch works with). The full process documents are available on the project site.

Future Growth

The PBO team is talking to Louisiana State University (LSU) to figure out how PBO can grow. LSU would need to work and live with the way PBO works and learn their processes. They are talking to other institutions – if you are interested in adding content to PBO, please contact them.

The Richard Minsky Collection has been purchased and is being added to the project. This is a rich collection that was gathered to create a catalog. PBO has the catalog and all of Minsky’s research that goes with the collection. The goal is to feed as much of this rich data into PBO as possible. They are working with individual scholars and collectors to find other avenues for growth.

Value Added Components

One of the focuses of PBO has been to look beyond the digital images themselves to creating value added components for their user community.

A tutorial for users is provided, including information about how to email a record. A comprehensive bibliography has been created and is used by scholars. The page prompts users to submit feedback so the bibliography is a live document.

Over 30 galleries have been created – organizing access to essays and additional info by topic. Types of galleries include:

Galleries on Bindings and Book binding techniques – these are not really related to individual book objects – but give more information, for example Silver & Gold: The Art of Metal Stamping
Galleries on Collections – for example the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture
Galleries on Artistic Styles and Movements – a narrative approach provides information on the historical roots of the movements and show how the bindings fit into the movements
Galleries on History – they have 11 of these galleries,including major historical events, literature and culture of the time
Galleries on Literature

Links to trusted information outside of PBO’s site are shown whenever possible. For example – links to the full text of books are provided via Project Gutenberg. Throughout the site’s text link to sources such as the Library of Congress, .gov sites, PBS and so forth can be found.

Canned searches are provided to make it easy for users to explore content. An example of this is the Silver & Gold: The Art of Metal Stamping search that will find every binding with either silver or gold stamping. This is in contrast with making users figure out the right syntax to submit the search criteria themselves.

The Teaching Tools portion of the site provides sample lesson plans on all sorts of topics. They worked with some high school history teachers via focus groups and got feedback about what they needed and wanted. The Industrial Revolution lesson plan was created based on that feedback.

The research tools that were created as a result of the PBO project and are made available online are:

glossary – 456 terms defined using ten major authorities
bibliography of print & web resources
controlled vocabulary for subject headings
publishers map – an interactive map that includes 2123 publishers so far
tutorials on various subjects

Signed or Designer bindings is a new resource to which scholars continue to contribute new information.

Through collaboration with teaching faculty they developed the presentation such as Indians, the Frontier, and the West in American Bookbindings. This presentation will eventually be podcast on the PBO site. It talks about how these books inspired people to move west and inspired kids to read.

Another podcast is on the way addressing the representation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It will discuss how the book was it marketed to different groups – Yiddish, German… etc. There already exists a gallery and essay on Uncle Tom’s Cabin .

Conclusions

The team has been very pleased by the tangible scholarly impact of PBO. They have seen extensive collaboration with the university community, new research, and promotion of the use of special collections materials in the classroom using digital resources. They point to PBO as showing a path to preserve these increasingly fragile books by moving out of the general stacks and into special collections – with a result of increased access to the book and decreased handling.

The presenters avowed that PBO could never have been created by their team alone – working with consultants and advisers was the key to their success. They needed input from experts and others to help PBO grow and keep it sustainable. This interaction makes the project strong – it has it’s own legs and won’t cease to exist when the money disappears.

Publicity and outreach got attention on the PBO project from the very beginning. They made documenting their experiences and making recommendations about how to market digital projects part of the original plan in their grant proposals. These documents were part of their deliverables. They even published a white paper about PBO and outreach.

PBO uses Google Analytics so they can see where their users are coming from. Also it makes cool talking points for your reports and fun things to tell the Dean!

I think the best conclusion to my summary of the presentation portion of this session is the list of points on the final slide titled “Beyond the grant: Room to Grow”:

Potential future contribution from other repositories in the US and abroad…
Potential future collaboration with teaching faculty at UA and beyond
With additional collections, the database and the project will only grow stronger
Potential as a web portal, clearing house, or consortium
Additional potential funding opportunities, scholarship, and ways to highlight collections, resources, knowledge, and abilities

Questions and Answers

Keep in mind throughout this section that I am summarizing and paraphrasing the questions and their answers. Please do not take any statements as full and complete quotes. In cases where I missed too much of the question or answer I generally skipped including it in the list below. If you are anxious to know exactly what was said, you would need to buy and listen to the conference recordings for this session.

Question: Who maintains the website and who makes decisions about how things are going to get updated?
Answer: UA maintains the static web pages and UW maintains the database. The project manager has been in charge.. made prototypes of new design and sent it around for feedback. They have standards for colors in their handbooks.

Question: If the grant funding dried up right now would the project be sustainable?
Answer: There is support from the institutions… for example, it is just one project of many at UW.

Question: How did you get such good scans of the book spines?
Answer : At UW they used blocks or boxes to prop up the books and laid black foam core on top on flatbed scanners. At UA – they used black paper covered blocks in combination with overhead scanners.

Question: How did you get the full cover scans?
Answer: They very carefully lay the cover flat – so the pages sticking are sticking up.

Question: Who customized SiteSearch – OCLC or UW?
Answer: UW did the work – they had one and a half dedicated IT staff to do the customizations.

Question : Have you had to negotiate copyright issues for bindings from the late end of the time range of the project
Answer: No.

Question : Are you aware of others doing similar projects? Have you been approached and or are looking for others who want to contribute?
Answer: Yes. Right now they are working with LSU and are not actively seeking out new participants. There are plans to grow the project eventually.

Question: Did you think about the fact that you were creating your own online publication?
Answer: They didn’t realize it ahead of time – they didn’t realize how powerful the database was going to be to fuel their ability to build further on the work.

Question: Can you search for ‘young people’s covers’ – is there metadata for what age groups might enjoy specific books?
Answer: It depends on if it was part of the descriptive information, but you can search on ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ or ‘juvenile’ and gain useful results.

Question: Can you talk about the work behind the MARC to Dublin Core migration?
Answer: In some ways it was easier than they thought it would be – so many of the fields transfer directly from MARC to Dublin Core.. it was the revelation about the book as art object that made them realize the work they needed to do. Building the controlled vocabularies was where the heavy lifting occurred. It involved going through giant spread sheets with subject terms in alphabetical order looking for typos and working toward consistency (ie, use plurals). The spreadsheet didn’t show how many items used each term – it was hard to know how many changes would be needed.

Question: Do you get hits from the standard online catalog into PBO?
Answer: This is not happening now. They would love to build a better connection between the OPAC and PBO in both institutions.

Question: How did you make decisions when there were disagreements?
Answer: “I don’t remember any more.. it was all so beautiful…” <laughter > . There were no big issues about standards. There were more issues about the grant and things like how many images or books they were supposed to scan. In some cases it was easy because they were in charge of very different project areas – each team had “their own little fiefdom”.

Question: Do you think you might sell images to generate revenue?
Answer: They have considered it. The have made a calendar and a poster, but gave them away. They also have used images for making holiday cards. They don’t see selling images as a main goal right now.

Question: Have you considered pursuing online collaborative methods for work with the scholars and collectors?
Answer: No, but they think that would be useful to explore.

My Thoughts

I loved the energy and connection displayed by the presenters. It was fun to see a team of people who clearly were so proud of their work and pleased by its reception. I was personally intrigued by the highlighted challenge of coming up with (and painstakingly validating) their controlled vocabulary for subjects. I firmly believe that the topic of subject terms and their standardization across repositories will only grow in importance. For those interested in some of what is being done on this front – take a look at both the UK based High Level Thesaurus (HILT) and the Simple Knowledge Organisation Systems Core (SKOS) project. I suspect many will be intrigued by the SKOS use case titled An integrated view to medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Even given the mammoth effort required to create a shared controlled vocabulary, it is clear that the benefits they have reaped from this effort are still being discovered. The speakers mentioned on multiple occasions how pleased (and surprised) they were to realize how powerful their database of metadata has proven to be. All the amazing value added features build on this ‘heavy lifting’.

While it will be rare for such item level attention to be given to most archival documents, PBO sets the bar high for what can be done via collaboration across institutions. Their dedication to sharing their lessons learned is a fine example of what all big projects who are forging new frontiers could be doing. Finally – it is the weight of all the value added elements (galleries, tutorials, lesson plans.. and the list goes on) that have raised what could have been just a set of classified images in a database to being an active community with a growing draw for many types of users from around the world.

As is the case with all my session summaries from SAA2007, please accept my apologies in advance for any cases in which I misquote, overly simplify or miss points altogether in the post above. These sessions move fast and my main goal is to capture the core of the ideas presented and exchanged. Feel free to contact me about corrections to my summary either via comments on this post or via my contact form.

Public.Resource.Org: Creative Financing and Public Domain Content

July 29, 2007 1 Comment

Public.resource.org is dedicated to using funds contributed by individuals to buy public domain content. This content is then released online in multiple locations such as the Internet Archive and Google Video for use by anyone. I love their tag line: Underwritten By The Feds! Overwritten By You!

I spotted this in boingboing’s post Liberated public domain government docs surfacing online and I was immediately intrigued. This isn’t really an archiving issue exactly – though you could decide that it takes more of a LOCKSS approach to preservation. I also wonder how this approach could be used to finance the digitization of other public domain materials.

The website explains on their About Us page that they have recently applied for non-profit status with the IRS, so soon the purchase price of these materials could become a tax deduction for those who file US Tax Returns. They feature materials from 54 different US Federal agencies – from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the IRS. There are materials on the Environment, Public Health, Flying and many more.

But that isn’t all they are tackling – back in May they issued a message to The Internet discussing their attitude toward (and frustration with) the Smithsonian Images website. It begins:

We write to you today on the subject of SmithsonianImages.SI.Edu, a government ecommerce site built on a repository of 6,288 images of national significance. The site is breathtaking in scope, with imagery ranging from the historic cyanotypes of Edward Muybridge to historic photos from aviation, natural history, and many other fields. If the Smithsonian Institution is our attic, these photos are our collective scrapbook.

However, the web site imposes draconian limits on the use of this imagery. The site includes a copyright notice that to the layman would certainly discourage any use of the imagery. While personal, non-commercial use is purportedly allowed, it requires a half-dozen clicks before the user is allowed to download a low-resolution, watermarked image. An image without the watermark and at sufficient resolution to be useful requires a hefty fee, manual approval by the Smithsonian staff, and the resulting invoice specifically prohibits any further use without permission.

The letter goes into great detail about why they disagree with how things are being done – take a look if you are curious. Also -they didn’t just create this letter – they also created a free to download book titled Public Domain Prospectus which they declare as a tool for those researching the public domain status of the 6,288 images included (in their low resolution watermarked versions).

I went hunting on the Smithsonian Images site to see for myself. I found a few things. While the prices for prints or digital files do seem expensive to my eyes – there is the following note included in the Product and Pricing Information:

Special Note on Pricing: Smithsonian Photographic Services, as an instrument of the Smithsonian Institution, is a non-profit entity. Fees associated with the delivery of images represent material fees only and go to support the broader mission to create, archive, and preserve images associated with the Institution and it’s holdings.

That page also includes some information about how the images may be used, but for the full story I headed over to the Copyright Policy. That is when I started to get confused. The copyright policy on that page talks about “Use of text, images and other content on this website…”. Does that mean these same rules apply to the images you purchase as well?

Let’s take a closer look at one of the pages about a specific image. Here is a nice one of Fireworks over National Monuments. I click on the tempting ‘Download Image’ button and now I see more about what the Public.Resource.Org folks are talking about. One more click and I finally find what appears to be the official Commercial Use of Smithsonian Images page which concludes with:

Commercial distribution, publication or exploitation of Smithsonian files is specifically prohibited. Anyone wishing to use any of these files or images for commercial use or publication must first request and receive prior permission by contacting [Smithsonian Institution Office of Imaging & Photographic Services]. Permission for such use is granted on a case-by-case basis. A usage fee may be involved depending on the type and nature of the proposed use.

There is a special policy for school, teacher and student use of the watermarked versions of the images for free (with the right citations of course).

If I understand the Public.Resource.Org’s issues, it isn’t predominately with the price of the high resolution digital versions or even the print versions of these photos (though they DO touch on it in their letter and I think I side with Smithsonian Images on that aspect – it does cost money and time to make all that available). Rather it is with the firmness that Smithsonian Images claims that you must request permission to use any of the images you purchase for anything beyond personal or educational use. I think I like what NARA has on their website concerning the publication of their still photos which begins with these two paragraphs:

Generally, photographic records copied and sold by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) may be published without special permission or additional fees. NARA does not grant exclusive or non-exclusive publication privileges. Copies of Federal records, as part of the public domain, are equally available to all.

A portion of the photographs among our holdings are or may be subject to copyright restrictions. The National Archives does not confirm the copyright status of photographs, but will provide any information filed with the photograph. It is important to note that all of the digital images that are available on our website are in the public domain.

I can see how it might seem safer (from a “don’t sue us” point of view) to force a search by hand for each and every image as users request to use them. At the same time I would like to think that the folks over at Smithsonian Images already know which images are in the public domain. Maybe I am oversimplifying this, but I want to believe that the details of copyright are part of the metadata that could be supplied along with the date, photographer’s name and description.

I prefer the National Archives’ approach of stating clearly that they do not confirm the copyright status of photographs. They put it in the hands of the entity who wants to use the materials – though that might be small comfort to the average citizen not well versed in copyright rules.

The Wikipedia page on Copyright status of work by the U.S. government includes sections about digital historical material as well as work produced by government contractors. Reading through this makes me realize how quickly the copyright status of images such as those provided by Smithsonian Images and NARA can get confusing.

I think what Public.Resource.Org is doing with their propagation of public domain materials to locations where the public can actually get at them easily is interesting. I want to check back in a year and see how much they have set loose – and what materials they are asking for help to liberate. As I mentioned above, I think there could be some interesting models of individuals donating money to finance the digitization and of public domain materials. Something like what Fundable does to take pledges toward a specific fund-raising goal – and then only turn those pledges into funds if the goal is reached.

As for their great frustration with Smithsonian Images? Well, I see Public.Resource.Org’s side. In this age of Flickr.com – people are growing used to watching for Creative Commons Licenses. With so much out there with liberal Creative Commons Licenses and in the Public Domain, why struggle with images that are copyright protected unless you really need to?

I would like to think that rights management is one of the first things that would get sorted out before a large image collection is put online – especially if the goal is to produce a revenue stream. That said – I would love to know the real story here. I can imagine that the rights on many of those images are not clear cut. But if the Smithsonian Image people know that some of them are in the public domain – then why would they go through all that extra trouble to force a rights search for every image? Why not distinguish the ones which require research from those that don’t? Couldn’t it only help support the work of the Smithsonian to have their images used by as many projects as possible? Anyone reading this have an answer for us from the inside?

About the image above: Given that I prefer images without watermarks (as provided by Smithsonian Images) and that I know that the images on NARA’s site are in the public domain I went hunting for something pretty – and found the image I feature above. To find it yourself do a search for [Sunrise on Malibu Lake] in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). These are the details included with the image:

Sunrise on Malibu Lake in the Santa Monica mountains near Malibu, California, which is located on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County. The mountains contain the last semi-wilderness in Los Angeles County. This area so far has escaped development pressure. Some 84 percent of the state’s residents live within 30 miles of the coast and this concentration has resulted in increasing land use pressure. Several commissions have been authorized by the legislature to restrict coastal development, 05/1975.

Item from Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 – 2000. NARA NAIL Control Number: NWDNS-412-DA-15109. Photograph by Charles O’Rear.

Thoughts on Digital Preservation, Validation and Community

July 6, 2007 2 Comments

The preservation of digital records is on the mind of the average person more with each passing day. Consider the video below from the recent BBC article Warning of data ticking time bomb.

Microsoft UK Managing Director Gordon Frazer running Windows 3.1 on a Vista PC
(Watch video in the BBC News Player)

The video discusses Microsoft’s Virtual PC program that permits you to run multiple operating systems via a Virtual Console. This is an example of the emulation approach to ensuring access to old digital objects – and it seems to be done in a way that the average user can get their head around. Since a big part of digital preservation is ensuring you can do something beyond reading the 1s and 0s – it is promising step. It also pleased me that they specifically mention the UK National Archives and how important it is to them that they can view documents as they originally appeared – not ‘converted’ in any way.

Dorthea Salo of Caveat Lector recently posted Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?. She has a lot to say about digital curation , IR (which I took to stand for Information Repositories rather than Information Retrieval) and librarianship. Coming, as I do, from the software development and database corners of the world I was pleased to find someone else who sees a gap between the standard assumed roles of librarians and archivists and the reality of how well suited librarians’ and archivists’ skills are to “long-term preservation of information for use” – be it digital or analog.

I skimmed through the 65 page Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) report Dorthea mentioned (Dealing with data: Roles, rights, responsibilities and relationships). A search on the term ‘archives’ took me to this passage on page 22:

There is a view that so-called “dark archives” (archives that are either completely inaccessible to users or have very limited user access), are not ideal because if data are corrupted over time, this is not realised until point of use. (emphasis added)

For those acquainted with software development, the term regression testing should be familiar. It involves the creation of automated suites of test programs that ensure that as new features are added to software, the features you believe are complete keep on working. This was the first idea that came to my mind when reading the passage above. How do you do regression testing on a dark archive? And thinking about regression testing, digital preservation and dark archives fueled a fresh curiosity about what existing projects are doing to automate the validation of digital preservation.

A bit of Googling found me the UK National Archives requirements document for The Seamless Flow Preservation and Maintenance Project. They list regression testing as a ‘desirable’ requirement in the Statement of Requirements for Preservation and Maintenance Project Digital Object Store (defined as “those that should be included, but possibly as part of a later phase of development”). Of course it is very hard to tell if this regression testing is for the software tools they are building or for access to the data itself. I would bet the former.

Next I found my way to the website for LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe). While their goals relate to the preservation of electronically published scholarly assets’ on the web, their approach to ensuring the validity of their data over time should be interesting to anyone thinking about long term digital preservation.

In the paper Preserving Peer Replicas By RateLimited Sampled Voting they share details of how they manage validation and repair of the data they store in their peer-to-peer architecture. I was bemused by the categories and subject descriptors assigned to the paper itself: H.3.7 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Digital Libraries; D.4.5 [Operating Systems]: Reliability . Nothing about preservation or archives.

It is also interesting to note that you can view most of the original presentation at the 19th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP 2003) from a video archive of webcasts of the conference. The presentation of the LOCKSS paper begins about halfway through the 2nd video on the video archive page .

The start of the section on design principles explains:

Digital preservation systems have some unusual features. First, such systems must be very cheap to build and maintain, which precludes high-performance hardware such as RAID, or complicated administration. Second, they need not operate quickly. Their purpose is to prevent rather than expedite change to data. Third, they must function properly for decades, without central control and despite possible interference from attackers or catastrophic failures of storage media such as fire or theft.

Later they declare the core of their approach as “..replicate all persistent storage across peers, audit replicas regularly and repair any damage they find.” The paper itself has lots of details about HOW they do this – but for the purpose of this post I was more interested in their general philosophy on how to maintain the information in their care.

DAITSS (Dark Archive in the Sunshine State) was built by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) to support their own needs when creating the Florida Center for Library Automation Digital Archive (Florida Digital Archive or FDA). In mid May of 2007, FCLA announced the release of DAITSS as open source software under the GPL license.

In the document The Florida Digital Archive and DAITSS: A Working Preservation Repository Based on Format Migration I found:

… the [Florida Digital Archive] is configured to write three copies of each file in the [Archival Information Package] to tape. Two copies are written locally to a robotic tape unit, and one copy is written in real time over the Internet to a similar tape unit in Tallahassee, about 130 miles away. The software is written in such a way that all three writes must complete before processing can continue.

Similar to LOCKSS, DAITSS relies on what they term ‘multiple masters’. There is no concept of a single master. Since all three are written virtually simultaneously they are all equal in authority. I think it is very interesting that they rely on writing to tapes. There was a mention that it is cheaper – yet due to many issues they might still switch to hard drives.

With regard to formats and ensuring accessibility, the same document quoted above states on page 2:

Since most content was expected to be documentary (image, text, audio and video) as opposed to executable (software, games, learning modules), FCLA decided to implement preservation strategies based on reformatting rather than emulation….Full preservation treatment is available for twelve different file formats: AIFF, AVI, JPEG, JP2, JPX, PDF, plain text, QuickTime, TIFF, WAVE, XML and XML DTD.

The design of DAITSS was based on the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). I love this paragraph from page 10 of the formal specifications for OAIS adopted as ISO 14721:2002.

The information being maintained has been deemed to need Long Term Preservation, even if the OAIS itself is not permanent. Long Term is long enough to be concerned with the impacts of changing technologies, including support for new media and data formats, or with a changing user community. Long Term may extend indefinitely. (emphasis added)

Another project implementing the OAIS reference model is CASPAR – Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval. This project appears much greater in scale than DAITSS. It started a bit more than 1 year ago (April 1, 2006) with a projected duration of 42 months, 17 partners and a projected budget of 16 million Euros (roughly 22 million US Dollars at the time of writing). Their publications section looks like it could sidetrack me for weeks! On page 25 of the CASPAR Description of Work, in a section labeled Validation, a distinction is made between “here and now validation” and “the more fundamental validation techniques on behalf of the ‘not yet born'”. What eloquent turns of phrase!

Page 7 found me another great tidbit in a list of digital preservation metrics that are expected:

2) Provide a practical demonstration by means of what may be regarded as “accelerated lifetime” tests. These should involve demonstrating the ability of the Framework and digital information to survive:
a. environment (including software, hardware) changes: Demonstration to the External Review Committee of usability of a variety of digitally encoded information despite changes in hardware and software of user systems, and such processes as format migration for, for example, digital science data, documents and music
b. changes in the Designated Communities and their Knowledge Bases: Demonstration to the External Review Committee of usability of a variety of digitally encoded information by users of different disciplines

Here we have thought not only about the technicalities of how users may access the objects in the future, but consideration of users who might not have the frame of reference or understanding of the original community responsible for creating the object. I haven’t seen any explicit discussion of this notion before – at least not beyond the basic idea of needing good documentation and contextual background to support understanding of data sets in the future. I love the phrase ‘accelerated lifetime’ but I wonder how good a job we can do at creating tests for technology that does not yet exist (consider the Ladies Home Journal predictions for the year 2000 published in 1900).

What I love about LOCKSS, DAITSS and CASPAR (and no, it isn’t their fabulous acronyms) is the very diverse groups of enthusiastic people trying to do the right thing. I see many technical and research oriented organizations listed as members of the CASPAR Consortium – but I also see the Università degli studi di Urbino (noted as “created in 1998 to co-ordinate all the research and educational activities within the University of Urbino in the area of archival and library heritage, with specific reference to the creation, access, and preservation of the documentary heritage”) and the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, University of Glasgow (noted as having “developed a cutting edge research programme in humanities computing, digitisation, digital curation and preservation, and archives and records management”). LOCKSS and DAITSS have both evolved in library settings.

Questions relating to digital archives, preservation and validation are hard ones. New problems and new tools (like Microsoft’s Virtual PC shown in the video above) are appearing all the time. Developing best practices to support real world solutions will require the combined attention of those with the skills of librarians, archivists, technologists, subject matter specialists and others whose help we haven’t yet realized we need. The challenge will be to find those who have experience in multiple areas and pull them into the mix. Rather than assuming that one group or another is the best choice to solve digital preservation problems, we need to remember there are scores of problems – most of which we haven’t even confronted yet. I vote for cross pollination of knowledge and ideas rather than territorialism. I vote for doing your best to solve the problems you find in your corner of the world. There are more than enough hard questions to answer to keep everyone who has the slightest inclination to work on these issues busy for years. I would hate to think that any of those who want to contribute might have to spend energy to convince people that they have the ‘right’ skills. Worse still – many who have unique viewpoints might not be asked to share their perspectives because of general assumptions about the ‘kind’ of people needed to solve these problems. Projects like CASPAR give me hope that there are more examples of great teamwork than there are of people being left out of the action.

There is so much more to read, process and understand. Know of a digital preservation project with a unique approach to validation that I missed? Please contact me or post a comment below.

International Environmental Data Rescue Organization: Rescuing At Risk Weather Records Around the World

June 7, 2007 2 Comments

In the middle of my crazy spring semester a few months back, I got a message about volunteer opportunities at the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization (IEDRO). I get emails from from VolunteerMatch.org every so often because I am always curious about virtual volunteer projects (ie, ways you can volunteer via your computer while in your pajamas). I filed the message away for when I actually had more time to take a closer look and it has finally made it to the top of my list.

A non-profit organization, IEDRO states their vision as being “.. to find, rescue, and digitize all historical environmental data and to make those data available to the world community.” They go on to explain on their website:

Old weather records are indeed worth the paper they are written on…actually tens of thousands times that value. These historic data are of critical importance to the countries within which they were taken, and to the world community as well. Yet, millions of these old records have already perished with the valuable information contained within, lost forever. These unique records, some dating back to the 1500s, now reside on paper at great risk from mold, mildew, fire, vermin, and old age (paper and ink deteriorate) or being tossed away because of lack of storage space. Once these data are lost, they are lost forever. There are no back up sources; nothing in reserve.

Why are these weather records valuable? IEDRO gives lots of great examples. Old weather records can:

inform the construction and engineering community about maximum winds recorded, temperature extremes, rainfall and floods
let farmers know the true frequency of drought, flood, extreme temperatures and in some areas, the amount of sunshine enabling them to better plan crop varieties and irrigation or drainage systems increasing their food production and helping to alleviate hunger.
assist in explaining historical events such as plague and famine, movement of cultures, insect movements (i.e. locusts in Africa), and are used in epidemiological studies.
provide our global climate computer models with baseline information enabling them to better predict seasonal extremes. This provides more accurate real-time forecasts and warnings and a better understanding of global change and validation of global warming.

The IEDRO site includes excellent scenarios in which accurate historical weather data can help save lives. You can read about the subsistence farmer who doesn’t understand the frequency of droughts well enough to make good choices about the kind of rice he plants, the way that weather impacts the vectorization models of diseases such as malaria and about the computer programs that need historical weather data to accurately predict floods. I also found this Global Hazards and Extremes page on the NCDC’s site – and I wonder what sorts of maps they could make about the weather one or two hundred years ago if all the historical climate data records were already available.

There was additional information available on IEDRO’s VolunteerMatch page. Another activity they list for their organization is: “Negotiating with foreign national meteorological services for IEDRO access to their original observations or microfilm/microfiche or magnetic copies of those observations and gaining their unrestricted permission to make copies of those data”.

IEDRO is making it their business to coordinate efforts in multiple countries to find and take digital photos of at risk weather records. They include information on their website about their data rescue process. I love their advice about being tenacious and creative when considering where these weather records might be found. Don’t only look at the national meteorological services! Consider airports, military sites, museums, private homes and church archives. The most unusual location logged so far was a monastery in Chile.

Once the records are located, each record is photographed with a digital camera. They have a special page showing examples of bad digital photos to help those taking the digital photos in the field, as well as a guidelines and procedures document available in PDF (and therefore easy to print and use as reference offline).

The digital images of the rescued records are then sent to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina. The NCDC is part of the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) which is in turn under the umbrella of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NCDC’s website claims they have the “World’s Largest Archive of Climate Data”. The NCDC has people contracted to transcribe the data and ensure the preservation of the digital image copies. Finally, the data will be made available to the world.

IEDRO already lists these ten countries as locations where activities are underway: Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Zambia, Chile, Uruguay, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

I am fascinated by this organization. On a personal level it brings together a lot of things I am interested in – archives, the environment, GIS data, temporal data and an interesting use of technology. This is such a great example of records that might seem unimportant – but turn out to be crucial to improving lives in the here and now. It shows the need for international cooperation, good technical training and being proactive. I know that a lot of archivists would consider this more of a scientific research mission (the goal here is to get that data for the purposes of research), but no matter what else these are – they are still archival records.

reCAPTCHA: crowdsourcing transcription comes to life

May 28, 2007 5 Comments

With a tag-line like ‘Stop Spam, Read Books’ – how can you not love reCAPTCHA? You might have already read about it on Boing Boing , NetworkWorld.com or digitizationblog – but I just couldn’t let it go by without talking about it.

Haven’t heard about reCAPTCHA yet? Ok.. have you ever filled out an online form that made you look at an image and type the letters or numbers that you see? These ‘verify you are a human’ sorts of challenges are used everywhere from on-line concert ticket purchase sites who don’t want scalpers to get too many of the tickets to blogs that are trying to prevent spam. What reCAPTCHA has done is harness this user effort to assist in the transcription of hard to OCR text from digitized books in the Internet Archive. Their website has a great explanation about what they are doing – and they include this great graphic below to show why human intervention is needed.

reCAPTCHA shows two words for each challenge – one that it knows the transcription of and a second that needs human verification. Slowly but surely all the words OCR doesn’t understand get transcribed and made available for indexing and search.

I have posted before about ideas for transcription using the power of many hands and eyes (see Archival Transcriptions: for the public, by the public) – but my ideas were more along the lines of what the genealogists are doing on sites like USGenWeb. It is so exciting to me that a version of this is out there – and I LOVE their take on it. Rather than find people who want to do transcription, they have taken an action lots of folks are already used to performing and given it more purpose. The statistics behind this are powerful. Apparently 60 million of these challenges are entered every DAY.

Want to try it? Leave a comment on this post (or any post in my blog) and you will get to see and use reCAPTCHA. I can also testify that the installation of this on a WordPress blog is well documented, fast and easy.

Copyright Law: Archives, Digital Materials and Section 108

April 12, 2007 2 Comments

I just found my way today to Copysense (obviously I don’t have enough feeds to read as it is!). Their current clippings post highlighted part of the following quote as their Quote of the Week.

“[L]egislative changes to the copyright law are needed. First, we need to amend the law to give the Library of Congress additional flexibility to acquire the digital version of a work that best meets the Library’s future needs, even if that edition has not been made available to the public. Second, section 108 of the law, which provides limited exceptions for libraries and archives, does not adequately address many of the issues unique to digital media—not from the perspective of copyright owners; not from the perspective of libraries and archives.” Marybeth Peters , Register of Copyrights, March 20, 2007

Marybeth Peters was speaking to the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch of the Committee on Appropriations about the Future of Digital Libraries.

Copysense makes some great points about the quote:

Two things strike us as interesting about Ms. Peters’ quote. First, she makes the quote while The Section 108 Study Group continues to work through some very thorny issues related to the statutes application in the digital age […] Second, while Peters’ quote articulates what most information professionals involved in copyright think is obvious, her comments suggest that only recently is she acknowledging the effect of copyright law on this nation’s de facto national library. […] [S]omehow it seems that Ms. Peters is just now beginning to realize that as the Library of Congress gets involved in the digitization and digital work so many other libraries already are involved in, that august institution also may be hamstrung by copyright.

I did my best to read through Section 108 of the Copyright Law – subtitled “Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives”. I found it hard to get my head around … definitely stiff going. There are 9 different subsections (‘a’ through ‘i’) each with there own numbered exceptions or requirements. Anxious to get a grasp on what this all really means – I found LLRX.com and their Library Digitization Projects and Copyright page. This definitely was an easier read and helped me get further in my understanding of the current rules.

Next I explored the website for the Section 108 Study Group that is hard at work figuring out what a good new version of Section 108 would look like. I particularly like the overview on the About page. They have a 32 page document titled Overview of the Libraries and Archives Exception in the Copyright Act: Background, History, and Meaning for those of you who want the full 9 years on what has gotten us to where we are today with Section 108.

For a taste of current opinions – go to the Public Comments page which provides links to all the written responses submitted to the Notice of public roundtable with request for comments. There are clear representatives from many sides of the issue. I spotted responses from SAA, ALA and ARL as well as from MPAA, AAP and RIAA. All told there are 35 responses (and no, I didn’t read them all). I was more interested in all the different groups and individuals that took the time to write and send comments (and a lot of time at that – considering the complicated nature of the original request for comments and the length of the comments themselves). I was also intrigued to see the wide array of job titles of the authors. These are leaders and policy makers (and their lawyers) making sure their organizations’ opinions are included in this discussion.

Next stop – the Public Roundtables page with it’s links to transcripts from the roundtables – including the most recent one held January 31, 2007. Thanks to the magic of Victoria’s Transcription Services, the full transcripts of the roundtables are online. No, I haven’t read all of these either. I did skim through a bit of it to get a taste of the discussions – and there is some great stuff here. Lots of people who really care about the issues carefully and respectfully exploring the nitty-gritty details to try and reach good compromises. This is definitely on my ‘bookmark to read later’ list.

Karen Coyle has a nice post over on Coyle’s InFormation that includes all sorts of excerpts from the transcripts. It gives you a good flavor of what some of these conversations are like – so many people in the same room with such different frames of reference.

This is not easy stuff. There is no simple answer. It will be interesting to see what shape the next version of Section 108 takes with so many people with very different priorities pulling in so many directions.

The good news is that there are people with the patience and dedication to carefully gather feedback, hold roundtables and create recommendations. Hurrah for the hard working members of the Section 108 Study Group – all 19 of them!

Book Review: Digital Preservation

January 18, 2007

In my quest for information about archiving geospatial data last term, I got my hands on a copy of Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner’s Digital Preservation (part of the Digital Futures Series). This excellent volume consists of nine chapters each written by different authors who are leaders in their respective fields (shown in order of their respective chapters):

David Holdsworth: known for his work on the CEDARS and CAMiLEON projects
Robin Wendler: metadata analyst at the Harvard University Library Office for Information Studies
Julien Masanès: co-founder of the European Archive
Elisa Mason: maintains the Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog
Brian F. Lavoie: a research scientist at OCLC
Stephen Chapman: Preservation Librarian for Digital Initiatives in the Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard University Library
Peter McKinney: research officer for the espida project at the University of Glasgow
Jasmine Kelly: a former research assistant at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London

This fabulous band of writers and researchers were led by Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner, both based out of the King’s College London.

Published in 2006, this is one of the most comprehensive and up to date books I found on the subject. The book starts out with two chapters addressing the basic issues related to digital preservation. Subsequent chapters present information about all kinds of metadata, web archiving, the costs of digital preservation and an overview of European approaches. The final chapter presents an extensive series of case studies – complete with URLs to give you plently of information online to explore.

This book gave me a great foundation from which to explore the details of various geospatial data and GIS archiving efforts. For those faced with the challenge of planning for digital preservation, the two chapters on costs should be very useful. So many articles talk about how it will be so expensive to ensure proper digital preservation, but don’t give people in the field any practical advice in planning for the costs – this book is different. The exploration of existing approaches being used at major institutions throughout Europe give a good sense of evolving standards and best practices.

If you are looking for a way to get a handle on the issues involved in digital preservation – this a great starting point. The final chapter on case studies alone could keep you busy for a month as you explore all the websites of projects from around the world. While the book has a decidedly European focus, the concepts are applicable the world over. If you are responsible for ensuring that digital records (either digitized or born digital) are protected and preserved – this book explains the basics and explores various strategies. They don’t oversimplify things – but take the time to explain things well. They are honest about those questions that aren’t answered yet… and they point to as many resources, standards and examples as they can. While Digital Preservation cannot provide a formula for everyone to follow, it can help you start asking the right questions and begin to understand the possibilities.

Footnote.com and US National Archives records

January 17, 2007 8 Comments

Thanks to Digitization 101‘s recent post “Footnote launches and announces partnership with National Archives” I was made aware of the big news about the digitization of the US National Archives’ records. Footnote.com has gone live with the first of apparently many planned installments of digitized NARA records. My first instinct was one of suspicion. In the shadow of recent historian alarm about the Smithsonian/Showtime deal, I think its valid to be concerned about new agreements between government agencies and private companies.

That said, I am feeling much more positive based on the passage below from the the January 10th National Archives Press Release about the agreement with Footnote (emphasis mine):

This non-exclusive agreement, beginning with the sizeable collection of materials currently on microfilm,will enable researchers and the general public to access millions of newly-digitized images of the National Archives historic records on a subscription basis from the Footnote web site. By February 6, the digitized materials will also be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington D.C. and regional facilities across the country. After an interval of five years, all images digitized through this agreement will be available at no charge through the National Archives web site .

This sounds like a win-win situation. NARA gets millions of records digitized (4.5 million and counting according to the press release). These records will be highlighed on the Footnote web site. They will have the advantages of Footnote’s search and browse interfaces (which I plan to do an in depth review of in the next week).

When signing up for my free account – I actually read through the entire Footnote Terms of Service including this passage (within the section labeled ‘Our Intellectual Property Rights’ – again, emphasis mine):

Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only as permitted through the functionality of the Website and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners . Footnote.com reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Website and the Content. You agree not to engage in the use, copying, or distribution of any of the Content other than expressly permitted herein, including any use, copying, or distribution of User Submissions of third parties obtained through the Website for any commercial purposes. If you download or print a copy of the Content for personal use, you must retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained therein.

These terms certainly are no different from that under which most archives operate – but it did give me a moment of wondering how many extra hoops one would need to jump through if you wanted to use any of the NARA records found in Footnote for a major project like a book. A quick experiment with the Pennsylvania Archives (which are available for free with registration) did not show me any copyright information or notices related to rights. I downloaded an image to see what ‘copyright and other proprietary notices’ I might find and found none.

In his post “The Flawed Agreement between the National Archives and Footnote, Inc.“, Dan Cohen expresses his views of the agreement. I had been curious about what percentage of the records being digitized were out of copyright – Dan says they all are. If all of the records are out of copyright – exactly what rights are Footnote.com reserving (in the passage from the terms of service shown above)? I also agree with him in his frustration about the age restriction in place for using Footnote.com (you have to be over 18).

My final opinion about the agreement itself will depend on answers to a few more questions:

1) Were any of the records recently made available on Footnote.com already digitized and available via the archives.gov website?

2) What percentage of the records that were digitized by Footnote would have been digitized by NARA without this agreement?

3) What roadblocks will truly be set in place for those interested in using records found on Footnote.com?

4) What interface will be available to those accessing the records for free in “National Archives research rooms in Washington D.C. and regional facilities across the country” (from the press release above)? Will it be the Footnote.com website interface or via NARA’s own Archival Research Catalog (ARC) or Access to Archival Databases (AAD)?

If the records that Footnote has digitized and made available on Footnote.com would not otherwise have been digitized over the course of the next five years (a big if) then I think this is an interesting solution. Even the full $100 fee for a year subscription is much more reasonable than many other research databases out there (and certainly cheaper than even a single night hotel room within striking distance of National Archives II).

As I mentioned above, I plan to post a review of the Footnote.com search and browse interfaces in the next week. The Footnote.com support folks have given me permission to include screen shots – so if this topic is of interest to you, keep an eye out for it.

OBR: Optical Braille Recognition

January 9, 2007 1 Comment

In the interest of talking about new topics – I opened my little moleskine notebook and found a note to myself wondering if it is possible to scan Braille with the equivalent of OCR.

Enter Optical Braille Recognition or OBR. Created by a company called Neovision, this software will permit anyone with a scanner and a Windows platform computer to ‘read’ Braille documents.

Why was this in my notebook? I was thinking about unusual records that must be out in the world and wondering about how to improve access to the information within them. So if there are Braille records out there – how does the sighted person who can’t read Braille get at that information? Here is an answer. Not only does the OBR permit reading of Braille documents – but it would permit recreation of these same documents in Braille from any computer that has the right technology.

Reading through the Wikipedia Braille entry, I learned a few things that would throw a monkey wrench into some of this. For example – “because the six-dot Braille cell only offers 64 possible combinations, many Braille characters have different meanings based on their context”. The page on Braille code lists links to an assortment of different Braille codes which translate the different combinations of dots into different characters depending on the language of the text. On top of the different Braille codes used to translate Braille into specific letters or characters – there is another layer to Braille transcription. Grade 2 Braille uses a specific set of contractions and shorthand – and is used for official publications and things like menus, while Grade 3 Braille is used in the creation of personal letters.

It all goes back to context (of course!). If you have a set of Braille documents with no information on them giving you details of what sort of documents they are – you have a document that is effectively written in code. Is it music written in Braille Music notation? Is it a document in Hiranga using the Japanese Code? Is this a personal letter using Grade 3 Braille shorthand? You get the idea.

I suspect that one might even want to include a copy of both the Braille Code and the Braille transcription rules that go with a set of documents as a key to their translation in the future. If there are frequently used records – they could perhaps include the transcription (both literal transcription and a ‘translation’ of all the used Braille contractions) to improve access of analog records.

In a quick search for collections including braille manuscripts it should come as no surprise that the Helen Keller Archives does have “braille correspondence”. I also came across the finding aids for the Harvard Law School Examinations in Braille (1950-1985) and The Donald G. Morgan Papers (the papers of a blind professor at Mount Holyoke College).

I wonder how many other collections have Braille records or manuscripts. Has anyone reading this ever seen or processed a collection including Braille records?

Google Earth, Historical Maps and Ideas on Context

December 15, 2006

I have maps on the brain right now (just finished a 15 page paper about appraising geospatial electronic records) and a while ago LifeHacker gave me an excuse to install the latest version of Google Earth on my computer.

From LifeHacker’s Post: “To view these new old maps, you’ll need the latest version of Google Earth (use the program’s check-for-updates feature if you’re not sure you have it). In the layers section, select All Layers, then look for Featured Content > Rumsey Historical Maps.”

For the biggest bang – try the ‘Lewis and Clark 1814’ layer. I never really understood how large an area they traversed. This is such a great example of giving an archival record context. In this case it isn’t the context of who, when or why the record was created – it gives the user context that connects the record to the rest of the world. For maps this is easy to imagine (especially with Google Earth’s snazzy new Historical Maps), but what if we thought of ways to not only frame archival records within the context of their creation – but ways also to connect them with the current world.

When reading a newspaper article about a current event, the reader often will wonder about things that happened in the past that are related to what they are reading. One of the glories of the web is having terms hotlinked to other pages that give you more information about that term.

As more and more archival records are digitized (or are just born digital in the first place), the archival community will have the opportunity to find better and better ways to encourage the rest of the world to use said records in a quest to better understand current events. I see this as a major way for archives to earn the respect and understanding of the average person.

To some degree there is nothing now to stop a top notch newspaper (pick your favorite with a good online presence) from adding a “Learn more about this issue in history” sort of sidebar that links to a select list of relevant archival records. Many articles do this already to some degree simply by including images related to the story.

Take the recent Washington Post article Quarantined about a woman diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1954. If you click the link to the photo gallery and go to the 4th photo in the set you will see an image from the Library of Congress. While it is attributed (in teeny tiny type) there is no easy way to go and explore other images like this one. Ah – but by doing a search over on the LOC.gov site on the words tuberculosis poster kiss, I find my way back to this same poster shown to the left (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, WPA Poster Collection, [LC-USZC2-5369 ]).

I am trying to imagine what the next leap beyond the sort of usage demonstrated by the Washington Post article would look like. Could we come up with a centralized virtual archive with the ability to do the following?

permit registration of specific records – and allow assignment of meta data (such as date, location/GIS info, topic, and perhaps some keywords)
build an interface for those who want to fish for related records to feature on their sites
ensure that when a link to a record is shown, that the proper credits and links to the home institution are included

I guess what I am imagining is the equivalent of Google Ads for archival records. Sort of funny when I think of it that way. In fact – it makes me wonder if access to such a repository of well organized archival records available for use by online publishers could create some sort of revenue stream for those who carefully populate the metadata for records such that the online publishers can quickly find what they need. Would the keepers of the records provide the images themselves or thumbnails of the images with a link to the primary copy deep in their repository’s website? Talk about an interesting engine for fueling outreach and bringing in new web traffic.

I know that there are a million issues I am not thinking of (or thinking of and carefully ignoring) – but the best wild ideas pay no attention to the fine details when they are in the brainstorming stage. Let’s just leave it with the fact that I really like the idea of increasing exposure of the general public to primary sources. If we can both encourage and make it easier for purveyors of online content to use archival records to enhance their websites (especially with deep links back to the websites of online repositories) I think it can only serve to increase the profile of archives and their repositories.

Category: digitization