Site Visit: The Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
The trip to Cornell was very illuminating.
In terms of planning and implementation, Cornell started is projects
about ten years ahead of UVM. This
gives us some advantages: we can learn from their mistakes; we have even
better technology to start with; and we are better-prepared for change.
Interestingly, CIDC was not as centralized as may have
been expected. Most digital projects
work independently of each other, and we often had the sense that people
working on the projects were learning about each other's methods for the
first time. However, CIDC did provide
the initial funding as well as the software (for both data and images) which
is currently used by all of the projects.
Major funding originally came from an anonymous donor,
but most projects require additional funding which is sought out by the keepers
of the collections in partnership with CIDC.
CIDC has strong support from the Cornell administration.
Trip to
On our trip to
Some of the issues with organizing digital projects
across campus were discussed. These included communications, and being able
to learn who did what within the different departments.
Knowledge of responsibilities and projects would avoid duplication
and would enable utilization of already existing resources.
It was noted that "Digitization" only described a part
of the process. "Digitization" was
the creation of a digital surrogate, but then there was the need to make
that digital object available to people who wish to use it, and to place
it within a context. Technology was
described as the tool, and digitization as the process.
The center's goal could be about bringing together what had gone
through the process of digitization.
Accessibility would be an important part of the Center's goal.
The goals for the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
were read and discussed. These goals
for the Institute included: to create
and maintain digital resources; to incorporate digital collections into the
classroom, etc.; to conduct research into the utilization of digital collections;
to educate and train people in the use of digital imaging technologies.
These goals seemed to fit well with what was being discussed for
the
The Center was described not as a custodian of the collections
that were digitized, as much as a framework of knowledge, as had been outlined
in the original proposal.
The Center was described as a physical, social space
where people can discuss, share ideas, and critique together.
On Thursday afternoon, the UVM group met at Kroch
Library with Peter Hirtle (Director, Cornell
Institute for Digital Collections), Eleanor Brown (Digital & Technology
Archivist, Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections),
Susette Newberry (Visual Resources Archivist), and Patrick Stevens
(Curator of the Icelandic Collection).
Mr. Hirtle gave an overview
of the origins of the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections.
He described preliminary
pilot projects carried out with Kodak.
The initial organizers were Tom Hickerson and
Peter Gay, who was close friends with the initial anonymous donor who has
continued to support the Institute.
He described the initial impetus to be the wish to unite scattered, visually
interesting materials from around the campus.
The Utopia project was described.
This project was designed with faculty involvement and was carried
out before any data standards had been set up.
The decision to create a "generic image catalog" for
the University was
Outlined. There were initial
attempts to link this project to needs within the University administration
(for example, in the tracking of correspondence).
The decision was ultimately made to use a Museum collections database
produced by
The selection of Luna Imaging to manage the University
wide image collection was made because Luna permits the tools for tracking
and directly working with the images.
Luna can be linked with AMICO, and also permits cross-collection searching.
An example of the use of Luna by students and faculty
was described. The Herbert Johnson
Museum exhibition "Friends of the Cold Season:
Pine, Bamboo and Plum in East Asian Art" done two years ago, was
developed by an art history class working closely with a Museum curator and
utilizing images provided via Luna.
Early imaging was often done through outsourcing, but
there were many issues with quality control.
Many of the digital images created by outside firms needed to be
cleaned up one by one or even re-scanned.
Overall, Luna did do a better job than other consultants when it created
digital images for the project.
The Museum is now carrying out most of its own scanning,
and has its own way to directly capture digital images from the originals
[decribed later].
The creation of digital images is now generally project
based. For example, the Museum collections are one group; Library projects
are often by exhibition or by specific, separately funded projects such as
the
CIDC funding is not on a cost-recovery basis.
Much of it comes from the single anonymous donor.
There is cost-sharing with other, project-based grants.
The Museum as well as the Library have
their own departments which seek out funding.
There is also an internal,
CIDC has very strong support from the provost and from
central administration.
The need to do more outreach with faculty was noted.
Some training has been done on the use of Luna
InSight technology. The use
of images by freshman writing seminar classes was described as one of the
best examples of the use of image resources by a class at CU.
The Slide Library and the Museum were described as the best sources
for outreach to faculty. There is
a CU Academic Technology Center, but there is not much contact between this
group and CIDC.
Eli Brown stated that she now had a mandate for the
Rare Book and Manuscript Collections:
that all exhibitions mounted had a web presence.
Issues with legacy data were described.
Data standards continue to develop and technology continues to change.
The last major data conversion was to MultiMimsy
. One major lesson learned about this
was: as few applications should be
utilized as possible, and file setups need to be very clear.
This permits easier conversion when necessary.
Possible joint efforts between UVM and CU were brought
up.
The UVM group met at the slide library with:
Margaret Webster (Director, Knight Visual Resources Facility [slide
collections]), Eric Schwab (Assistant Director), Leah
Theis (Curator).
The slide collections from the CU College of Architecture
and from the Department of the History of Art have been merged over the past
year. This has brought up many issues
of cataloguing, methodology, and utilization of the collections.
KVR was an original part of the IMAG/CU group.
MultiMimsy 2000, chosen because it met
the Museum's needs, has been very problematic for a slide collection, and
they will probably change over to an Access database.
MultiMimsy does allow them to share
authority files and bibliographic references with the Museum.
Luna Imaging has been a good image-delivery tool since it permits
campus-wide delivery and cross-collection searching.
Currently, the Luna database is not populated with enough data to
meet the needs of the users of the Slide Collections.
Slides are scanned in-house, and which slides are scanned
is determined by faculty requests.
Slide collections by their very nature are faculty-driven.
Larger projects are outsourced.
Slides are generally scanned as TIFF files, at 18 MB.
Adjustments to the image are generally not made, since slides are
considered imperfect anyway. Files
are archived on CD.
Images from the slide collections are used a number
of ways within the classroom.
Faculty have used them within PowerPoint for presentations to their
classes. Others have used Luna for
these presentations, and it is considered even better because images can
be shown side-by-side and images can be placed into groups.
Image groups have been used as study aids, but are not necessarily
being projected in classes. There
does need to be work to get faculty interested in the use of IMAG/CU, and
set up opportunities for training.
Luna is not necessarily easy to learn; it utilizes different icons from the
standard ones.
The
Slide collections are considered teaching tools, not
research tools. Slides have now become
a more university-wide resource at Cornell. There is a need to become less
territorial about resources, especially as they are digitized and become
part of an image database. Now the
user is not necessarily someone known to the department.
The slide library currently bears the costs of digitization.
Payments are sometimes made for time and materials.
It is the KVR employees who actually create basic websites for faculty
and populate them with images. This
enables them to remove the websites at the end of the semester, and keep
control of image use.
Lessons learned over the course of the project have
been the need to clearly communicate.
Faculty and patrons must be clearly told and must understand the time and
costs necessary to digitize images.
Time should also be allowed for appropriate cataloguing—not just for the
digitization of the images.
On Friday morning, the UVM group met with Matt Ferrari
(Digital Photographer, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art), Rhea
Garen (Digital Photographer, CIDC) at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum
of Art
The first digital projects at the
Priorities for photography are determined by Museum curators.
Photologs are kept manually, with curatorial
needs outlined with each object (such as makers' marks).
Much of the photographers' time is spent adjusting lighting
and setting up each shot. The image
size is adjusted, and boundaries are determined via a live video feed from
the camera to a computer monitor.
Images are captured using 30-36 tiles and 30 strobe flashes.
This permits real dimensionality and depth for the image.
Matt is an employee of the Museum, and he has a part
time assistant who does a lot of the color adjustment.
Both are funded via project-based grant money.
Museum employees use Luna to access created images,
but archived images are pulled for publication needs.
The group met with Ellen Avril
(Curator of Asian Art,
Ellen and Robin described the creation of the exhibition
"Friends of the Cold Season: Pine,
Bamboo and
Robin creates cataloguing information directly into
MultiMimsy.
This info is then linked to Luna InSight via
an Access database.
The group met with Suzette Newberry, Kurt Jordan
(Project Archivist, Political Americana Collection, CU
Library) at Kroch Library
Suzette described the Library's use of
MultiMimsy 2000, which permits strict authority controls and facilitates
item-by-item cataloguing. Ultimately
the Library hopes to move to a Luna cataloguing module.
Currently there are about 10,000 subject terms in the
MultiMimsy subject catalog.
IMAG/CU has facilitated discussions between Library
and Museum groups regarding issues around authorities and standards.
Suzette demonstrated the Luna A.D. White architectural
photograph collections. Catalog data
was taken from MultiMimsy and placed into set
fields within Luna. Currently deeper
subject term searches are not possible.
The web version of Luna is very stable and has few glitches.
There is an upcoming new version which will permit cataloguing directly
within Luna, as well as the ability to search selected collections (rather
than all of them at once). The new
Luna will also permit the use of sound files.
The Political Memorabilia project is funded by an IMLS
grant. There are about 5,000 items
within the collection and all are being catalogued using
MultiMimsy.
Lunch
The Encompass program is considered to be in development
and very far in the future. CIDC became
co-developers of this product (a Voyager product) a few years ago.
The anti-slavery pamphlet collection is catalogued in Encompass.
Finding aids are currently being developed in HTML.
All guides are being moved to the new EAD.
Tom Hickerson spoke briefly
to the group. He noted that there
were far better opportunities today (technologically speaking) than there
were 10 years ago. He noted the need to accommodate technological change
when created digital information.
He said that there was a need for more integration within the general library
system, and it would have been better if that had been done at the very beginning.
UVM delegation:
Bill Lipke, Chris Burns,
Ines Berrizbeitia
, Deborah Boothby, Hope Greenberg, (notes by)