Minutes for 01/19/2016

Digital Archive Committee

1/19/2016
1:00 - 2:30

Minutes

Person Entities and Sensitive Fields: On our original Metadata Plan we included two possibly controversial fields, gender and race, and Jordan asked for a discussion whether we wanted to include these fields in our Person Entity forms.  Jordan emphasized that filling them in would be optional.  

It was suggested that we include ethnicity and after much discussion we agreed that we should use a controlled vocabulary for these fields.  Though the Person Entity form already has a biographical notes field it was also suggested to add a demographic notes field to document, if the inputter desired, how he/she came about deciding on the gender, race, or ethnicity.

We then moved onto a discussion about whether we wanted separate fields for employment/profession.  Including this field group will give us greater flexibility in tying people to the organizations for which they worked.  This group of fields would be optional and remain collapsed unless the inputter wanted to add the data.  Jordan expects that we would also add start and end employment dates to this field group.

All present were fine with the additions of sensitive fields.

Metadata for Families: Jordan and Mark discussed the possibility of treating families like organizations in that they would be an entity.  This would allow us to associate people and their objects, like a photo of their house, etc., to a family name as well as offer a descriptive summary about the history of the family.  Mark emphasized that we would not want to create a Family Entity for every Person Entity that gets added to the archive, but it would be used for the prominent families in a region or in a collection.

Many members expressed that they liked the idea and Jordan emphasized that we need to come up with the necessary fields and standards for this entity type.  Jordan asked to form a subcommittee to tackle these issues. Mark, Jessica, Alysa, Lacy and Jordan all volunteered.

Statistics: Lacy, who is migrating her Past Perfect data into the archive, asked Marmot what type of statistics would be available from Islandora.  At present, all statistics would be handled by Google Analytics, but if any of us need data outside of what Google provides, to please share that information with Jordan and Marmot will work on capturing that data in Islandora. If access to Google Analytics is a barrier, please talk to Mark. Nicole asked if there would be a counter in the patron UI that showed the number of downloads of a particular file. Mark said there was no plan at this time, but if her project needed this that they could chat later.

Islandora Update: Jordan has been busy turning metadata plans into the data entry forms on Islandora and started training Mesa and Bud Werner.  Once a library has a login, they will have a sidebar menu customized to their collection. Jordan uses universal forms and then modifies them based on your metadata needs.  She can easily add your own wording for instructions and can autofill any fields like copyright, organizations, or publishers, etc.

Jordan then demoed how one would use Islandora to add data and showed the difference between adding data for an object vs. adding an entity.  Entities are an event, organization, person or a place and make it possible for us to create the linked data model we studied last year.  Unlike traditional cataloging where you describe an object with just one form, here if your object is associated with a person, place, event, or organization (an entity), you might want to create a record for that entity as well.

This means data entry can be done one of 2 ways:

1. Enter data for your object and add entity records at the same time.

2. Enter all of your entities first and then reference them when doing the data entry for the object.

Each library will need to come up with their own workflow.  Jordan and Mark realize that this is not an ideal solution, but this version of the software does not support linked data and this our “work-around.”  When we upgrade our software, data entry should not be as complicated.

Jordan then demoed the different type of entity forms and the various metadata fields associated with them as well as the search functionality.  Mark asked if it would be helpful if Tammy put together some training videos on how to add objects and entities, and all agreed it would be very helpful. Jordan then demoed the viewer that multi-page documents like magazines, thesis, etc., would use.

Pika Update: Mark reports that with the holidays not much got done on Pika.  He is currently working on the Explore More sidebar and the slider within the search results, and hopes to demo this at the Discovery Meeting and again at our next meeting.  We would not be featuring any of our digital collections at this time, only our library’s physical collections.

As part of the Code4Lib conference Jordan and Mark are asking libraries to contribute objects associated with World War II so that they can demo the power of linked data.

Round robin project updates

• Nicole at Adams State got the approval form to display thesis online. She has also been talking to other departments and they have expressed that they might want to participate by limit access locally. She will chat with Mark about setting that up. Jordan noted that if you have permission forms associated with an object that they can be uploaded and would be suppressed from the patron UI.

• Ft. Lewis reports that Marmot has their data and once all of the entities have been added they will migrate over.

• Gunnison is waiting for their new scanner and laptop to arrive.  They will also being doing a local presentation on their project.

• Pine River ??? (sorry Alysa can’t read her notes here.)

• Salida was not present

• Western State is going through their metadata fields for photos and trying to create authority control on author names.  They too will be migrating their Past Perfect database.

• Garfield did not have an update but will touch base with Jordan next week.

• Lacey at Eagle started to hand-type the text contained with the Red Book to facilitate keyword searching.  She is also scanning the original text to see if OCR is a possibility.

• Mesa is working on the Veterans Remember project to better understand workflow.

• Bud Werner has volunteers vetting the transcripts against the oral interviews and John and Alysa are gearing up to start adding data.

• Vail is getting ready to order a scanner and they did their first oral history recording of an elderly mountaineer. Walter Gallager, the creator of Emigrant Stories, was paid to conduct the interview and did an outstanding job. Jordan had used his services in the past and he will be doing the Art Around Town artist interviews for Garfield.  Both Jordan and Jo highly recommend him.  Vail also found one of the original quilters and they will be conducting an oral interview for her as well.

• Carol McArdell is waiting to do a project in the future.

• Grand County does not have a project at this time, but is getting getting ideas from all of us.