Minimal Metadata: or how we sped from 0 to 27,000 images in 1095 days
John Pollitz, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
In 2013 The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire did not have a digital collection. Nor did we have a pot of money to create said collection. We had fallen behind other universities and we were coming up on our centennial celebration in 2016 when our historical collections would be in high demand. We had to move fast if we were to catch up and be part of the celebration. With a very limited budget but a wealth of material and a clear understanding of our audience we chose an open source tool for our platform. We staffed the project with students, interns and available staff. Perhaps our most critical decision was to create homegrown natural language metadata instead of established controlled vocabulary. We used Excel to create our metadata vocabulary dictionary. This streamlined dictionary allowed us to move quickly from initial scanning to finished product. By February 2014 we had a complete collection our university yearbook from 1917-1995 and our first 300 historic campus photos as a resource for centennial exhibits. By the end of that year we added 1,200 photographs, athletic yearbooks, and a collection of newsletters from the Western Wisconsin CCC camps from 1925-1941. We are currently adding a complete collection of our student newspaper from 1916-2004 in time for our fall celebration. While our metadata may not be as deep as some it has been fine tuned to our campus audience.
Digital Archives in the Literature Classroom
Sarah Dennis, St. Ambrose University
I plan to talk about my experiences teaching with digital archives at St. Ambrose University. I will discuss how my class used online archives to develop arguments about select 19th Century texts and how those archives benefited my classroom practice. I will also talk about how using digital archives in the classroom could serve students well in their future pursuits, such as graduate school or nonacademic careers.
Treat Your Digital Collection Like a Crime Scene
Steven Fowler Giese, Des Plaines Public Library
Using social media networks to market your digital collection can be a significant way to drive users to your collection, but success is often elusive. Treating your digital collection like a crime scene and creating an evidence board is a novel way to analyze the social media traffic to and from your digital collection beyond conventional user statistics analysis. In much the same way as law enforcement investigators use this visual technique to discover and track criminal connections, creating an evidence board for your digital collection can help you map the activities of your followers on social media, pinpoint the dead ends in your social media strategy and drive new users to your collection.
Accessibility and usability of library websites for visually impaired users compared to sighted users: a usability study
Rochelle La Macchio, Wayne State University
There are over 285 million visually impaired people worldwide. However there are limited usability studies for web development that include visually impaired users in their studies. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the accessibility and usability issues that participants encounter when completing a set list of tasks on two library websites. Both visually impaired and sighted users will be included in the study for comparison. The study aims to address whether there is need for improvement to current ISO standards to more effectively address accessibility and usability issues for all users by way of universal design. Method: A purposive sample of 10 visually impaired and 10 sighted users will perform set computer tasks for two library websites in a usability study. Data will be collected and recorded using Morae as well as pre and post questionnaires.
From the CMS to Cdm: Moving Museum Data into Campus Digital Collections
Josh Hickman, Beloit College
During the last few years, a partnership between Beloit College's Morse Library and Logan Museum of Anthropology has led to the addition of several thousand images of museum collection items to the campus digital collections in CONTENTdm. To prepare for this project, staff from both the library and the museum worked to establish a scheme to map the museum data to Dublin Core and to develop a means by which images and data could be easily transferred. The resulting procedure involves the careful selection of appropriate data in the museum's collection management system, Re:discovery Proficio, as well as light packaging of the exported data and images to allow for the upload of objects both simple and compound into CONTENTdm. This presentation will provide an overview of the steps taken by the museum and library staff to ensure the successful and ongoing transfer of these unique digital collection items.
