Digital Storytelling

I have looked at the website for “Through Our Parents’ Eyes,” several times since starting the IRLS program and each time I am surprised how much that I overlooked before. Now looking at it from a digital storytelling perspective it is as if it is all new to me. I wish I had time to review it all, but my available time limits me, so I'll have to add more in a later post. For now here's ~

Finding a Place in America – A Collaborative Conversation

As I looked through the texts for this project the content reminded me of the Capture Wales site that we looked at in class. They are short messages about self and community, and understanding ourselves and our place in this world. I think that adding images and audio to this project would give this project more depth and dimension. While reading the text is valuable, written words don’t convey the nuances that speech provides. The written word doesn’t show what the tone of voice or tense that gives different value to the words when spoken. When Kevin Courtney talks about growing up “off Broadway” in New York City, and he writes about his friend Al from “the Carolinas” it would be great to hear the his voice imitating his friend’s drawl. While his words create a vivid picture it would be amazing to add images of him and Al and New York that would give us his perspective of the experience which he relates. In another “conversation,” Joan Allemon shares her feelings about art. She says “I try to imagine a world without Art; without pictures, stories, songs, dance, theater, architecture. I cannot. It is a glorious place to go to. It's my space travel, my religious experience, my spirit trip, and probably the primary force behind why I make pictures or at least why I keep returning to my empty canvases." While text only is not an empty canvas it can be like viewing rainbows in black and white. The addition of audio and images or video each adds colors and dimensions to these stories that would give them personality and life. I wonder why this project wasn’t continued. It would be interesting to see this project start again and develop it with an emphasis on digital storytelling.

More on Digitization

Working as a student employee in a special collection library, I remember being amazed at the hidden treasures that were in the stacks. As I became familiar with the collections I learned that the metadata could be accessed on the university library website, but the link was as hidden as the resources (and essentially the location) of the special collections. Some of the collections however, were still accessed by large binders of finding aids in print form. Specialized collections, when not restricted by copyright or privacy issues, benefit from being digitized and made available to a broader audience. The originals see less wear and tear, and the user group becomes much larger as materials become more accessible. The November 28, 2007 Digitizationblog entry highlights the RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results. Beyond the need to get the information digitized, one item I realized that hadn’t given enough thought to was “the disconnect between libraries’ interest in creating metadata to serve their primary audiences and the inability to serve that audience within the most commonly used discovery systems (such as Google, Yahoo, etc.)” (Smith-Yoshimura 4). When institutions create their own specialized metadata instead of using a more standardized format that can be accessed with web crawlers then, even if the material is digitized, they have still limited their audience, and their own effectiveness of being an information resource. The Cornell Tutorial states that the “goal of digital preservation is to maintain the ability to display, retrieve, and use digital collections in the face of rapidly changing technological and organizational infrastructures and elements.”

Digitization continued...

The fact that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been preserved for as long as they have been is miraculous. No less miraculous is that anyone can view them now thanks to digitization. Projects like this bring to the forefront many of the aspects of the value of digitization. The exposure to the elements can have detrimental effects that the average user may never consider when seeking information sources. An article states that the “conservation, preservation and documentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls have concerned both scholars and conservators ever since their discovery.” While most archives won’t be dealing with anything of value comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls, it should not lessen the dedication and concern shown the local artifacts they are storing. The second section of the Cornell Tutorial, provides a valuable set of question that should be used as a checklist for considering items for digitization. Archivist cannot let artifacts sit in the back rooms until they are too brittle to digitize. Making a surrogate copy protects the original. Here are some of the questions from the Cornell Tutorial that should be asked:
 Does the material lend itself to digitization?
 Can the informational content be adequately captured in digital form?
 Do the physical formats and condition of the material represent major
impediments?
 Would the material be put at risk in the digitization process?
 Would digital surrogates reduce use of the originals, thereby offering them
protection from handling?
 Is the digital reproduction seen as a means to replace the originals?
By starting with a few considerations a collection can be better preserved for generations.

Digitization

Sometimes the smallest thing can inspire a flood of ideas. For me this was one line in the Digital Document Quarterly newsletter linked in the Digitizationblog for October 13. 2007. The author of the newsletter asks the question, what might be done to achieve the long-standing medical dream called “the longitudinal patient record”? In his footnote he details that a longitudinal patient record is a lifetime collection of the medical records of a human being, held to be readily available. This may seem a tangential topic, but for a medical librarian it could help in the organization of records. Companies add and drop insurance providers, people bounce from doctor to doctor, vital records get lost in the shuffle. It would be interesting to see a digital medical library develop that would allow doctors and patients to upload their information to a secure location where it can be managed and accessed as needed. This could include basic records, X-rays, MRI data, and lab tests. By have a single collective location for a patient’s records the history of a patient’s health would be complete allowing physicians to better diagnose illnesses that might be chronic. Researchers could also get a better understanding of hereditary illnesses, as a family’s records would be more complete and traceable. Or an adopted child could be provided with a familial medical history without having to track down biological parents if they given the child limited access to the records (no names or addresses, just pertinent medical information) as a part of the adoption process.

A library such as this would require some careful consideration in regards to data management and systems. The Cornell Tutorial addresses this by listing some points to consider.

Follow some basic file system recommendations:
 Use a file naming scheme that is compatible with whatever operating systems and storage media you plan to use
 Use standard file extensions for different file types
 Don't overload directories with too many files
 Rely on storage management software to manage large collections across multiple physical disk drives
 Allow for generous amounts of collection growth

It seems that a beneficial resource that could be developed, but it needs to be available to different doctors or patients who may have different operating systems (no pun intended) or the information won't be accessible.

Digitization Podcast

(This is the text for a podcast that is presently not available. This will be updated as soon as possible.)

Welcome back for my final podcast for IRLS 571, this is Verlene Schafer and today I am going to review some digitization projects. Digitization has been growing as a vital way to access archival materials without compromising their condition. But as more and more information sources are born digital, digitization becomes less of a optional method and more of a necessity for libraries to maintain their collection and meet user demands.

The Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) website offers a wealth of valuable information whether you are beginning a digitization project or working on an existing one. The site outlines four basic areas to consider which I will use to review some sites. They are managing, creating, delivering, and using a digitization project.

Managing –

It may seem that managing would come after the creation of a project but it is important that you know what you are getting into before you start a project. You need to know your limitations such as budget, time constraints, copyright issues, metadata, and once all these are considered, organizing resources for longevity, and overseeing the day to day project management. TASI notes that “each main area has its own set of key activities. While many of these tasks will follow each other in a linear fashion, they are seldom distinct and may overlap considerably.” Management should be considered in the development of the project and then continued while implementing the other areas of digitization.

The Online Archive of California (OAC) has been available now for nearly 15 years. It has grown by forming partnerships with other libraries and organizations such as the California Digital Library. This organization “brings together historical materials from a variety of California institutions, including museums, historical societies, and archives and provides over 120,000 images; 50,000 pages of documents, letters, and oral histories.

The University of Pittsburgh has a Digital Research Library (DRL) which from the beginning focused on creating text-based collections though they have now added photographs, map images and audio-visual materials. That growth requires foresight and an ability to adapt as the media changes and develops. Unfortunately, this collection requires a user/student account to access the contents, which is something I will address in a moment.

Last, there is the Collaborative Digitization Program (CDP) which began in the fall of 1998. Once again it requires good management to have a project continue for nearly a decade and the site notes that the key to the success of the CDP is collaboration.

Creating –

Creating a digital collection is more than just the scanning and loading of images and documents, though this step does require some attention to detail and quality. The Cornell tutorial site Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives, based on a book by the same name, emphasizes the need for quality control as “an integral component of a digital imaging initiative to ensure that quality expectations have been met.”

The other aspect of creating is the metadata used to describe the items. Metadata supports navigation and file management, so it is vital that this information be well organized. The OAC provides a large number of photographs but when focusing a search to the date or publisher or the list of photos, the searches often don’t sort the information properly. This happened when a photo had a number in the title. It would sort that number in with the dates, even though at times the photo provided a date that would place it elsewhere in the list. Problems like these make it hard for users to find the resources they are seeking and also can complicate management of the collections.

Delivering-

Once the collection has been created it is important that the database be made available to users. Points to consider are the size and quality of images. Not all users have the same access points and so items need to be formatted to the various needs. The Cornell Tutorial suggests “if resources allow, the best approach is to offer multiple versions of images, taking advantage of greater capacity where it exists, but also supporting low bandwidth connections with lower quality images.” The OAC search offers a thumbnail view of images which guides users to find what they are looking for. This is a great way to allow user to browse a collection. The CDP has a great collection of Colorado Historical Newspapers but it loads large images and can be time consuming to navigate, but the images are quality, and a thumbnail view of a newspaper would hardly be informative about the content for the user. Collection developers need to consider their collection as well as the users when developing the presentation and delivery.

Using - Technical Advisory Service for Images
There are several things to consider for user access to digitized materials. TASI advises that “a search mechanism is planned and implemented, to make best use of the available Metadata and to fit within the delivery mechanism. User access and digital rights management must be considered.” Plans need to include who is going to be able to access the data. For the CDP and OAC anyone can view the materials, but the University of Pittsburgh requires a user account to access their digital library. The CDP allows users to download PDF files of their newspaper archive but photographs are subject to copyright restrictions which vary depending on what collection they belong to. Some state that use of digital images found on a website is permitted for private or personal use only, while others may not be reproduced in any way without permission. These policies must be made clear to protect the collection’s integrity and to protect the user from breaking the law.

While the scope of creating a digital collection can seem overwhelming using tutorials like the one provided by Cornell, and reviewing other collections, can help to guide your own collection development. The information needed is available and with careful planning and management organization, digitization can give users valuable information that otherwise they would not have access to.

This is Verlene Schafer for IRLS 571 wishing you a happy holiday season. Thanks for listening.