Minutes for 02/16/2016

Digital Archive Committee

2/16/2016
1:00 - 2:30

Minutes

1. Request for Minutes - Nicole

2. Islandora Update (Jordan)

The Eagle Valley Past Perfect migration, which consists of 4,500 images as well as entities for each image, is close to being finished.  This will serve as a model for future migrations.  Other areas of concentration include reworking XML forms for consistency, assisting current projects with configuration, and fixing bugs.  

Pika update (Mark)

Mark demonstrated the Explore More bar, which is integrated into the results list in Pika and shows items from the archives related to the search.  Mark and Jordan are working on improving the display and search functionality.  Within the archives, work continues on linking subjects (perhaps ignoring more common subject terms for the future) adding additional facets, and considering using outside websites like findagrave and Wikipedia to enhance current metadata.  There was a discussion on how to assign appropriate subject headings for linking, and of the possibility of listing outside website results (EDS, Wikipedia, etc.) in the Explore More bar alongside archives results.

Digitizing Hidden Special Collections Grant (Jordan)

Jordan attended a webinar on the Council on Library and Information Resources’ Digitizing Hidden Collections grant.  This is a large grant that awards collaborative partners with sizable collections that have a high interest to scholars funding to digitize those collections.  The grant money can go to the salary of permanent staff.  Jordan ended by asking the committee to think of possible projects that could fit this criteria and be made into a grant for the future.

Metadata SubCommittee Report (Lacy)

The metadata subcommittee examined three topics.  The first was to look at metadata fields for families.  To this end they suggested having a narrative or notes field and having a controlled vocabulary and dates field to manage relationships and chronology.  The second topic was looking at a vocabulary for race and ethnicity.  The committee decided that, rather than a controlled vocabulary, a fluid set of guidelines would be preferred, and these would be drafted by Martha of Fort Lewis.  The third topic was how to display names for person entities.  The committee decided the display should be first then last name, in keeping with the genealogy project.  Nicknames should be in quotations in the middle.  Jordan and Mark will work out something for those names already entered in a different format.

CAL Proposal (Martha)

Martha submitted a proposal for a presentation titled “Building a Community of Digital Archive Collections” to be presented at the Colorado Association of Libraries Conference.  This conference includes the MPLA this year.

1. Round Robin Project Discussion (all)

   1. Adams State is continuing to digitize theses.

   2. Bud Werner  is  working on the World War history archives, fine-tuning data entry and staff workflow.

   3. CCU is waiting to input their project data into Islandora

   4. EVLD is cleaning up metadata and red book entities.

   5. Fort Lewis is waiting to put in data in this summer,

   6. Garfield is constructing an art around town map.

   7. Gunnison has training scheduled.

   8. Mesa County’s next collection for digitization is wildlife in Colorado.

   9. Pine River

   10. Salida has just joined the group, and has digitzed items at http://salidaarchive.info/

   11. Vail has set up the scanner and is working on workflows and collecting interviews.

   12. Western State