METADB: A DISTRIBUTED METADATA CREATION TOOL · “admin” users have access to project and user...

METADB: A DISTRIBUTED METADATA CREATION TOOL

ERIC LUHRSDIGITAL INITIATIVES LIBRARIAN

LAFAYETTE COLLEGE

MID-ATLANTIC DIGITAL LIBRARY CONFERENCE

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY, JULY 9, 2008

FRAMING THIS TALK

HOW BEST TO OVERCOME OUR STAFFING ISSUES?

BY USING TECHNOLOGY TO HARNESS OUR STRENGTHS

DECENTRALIZE THE PROCESS

Big digitization programs are centralized

Our commercial workflow tools reflected this organization

Works fine for well-staffed departments

We wanted something more flexible and easier to use

AN IDEA IS BORN

Needed an abstraction layer

Based on Dublin Core, but not tied to it

metadata exportable to common CSV and TSV formats

Build with standard Open Source technologies: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, YUI JavaScript framework

Digital Initiatives Librarian defines project requirements

Students record basic technical details while scanning

Librarians, Archivists, and Faculty subject specialists provide administrative and descriptive metadata

Digital Initiatives Librarian exports completed metadata records to asset management system

METADB WORKFLOW

LDAP AND LOCAL

PASSWORD SUPPORT

SECUREHTTPS

CONNECTION

NEATLOGO

“ADMIN” USERS HAVE ACCESS

TO PROJECT AND USER

MANAGEMENT TABS

PRECISE CONTROLOF PROJECT AND USER ACCESS

READ ONLY ACCESS

PROJECT SETTINGS AND

DEFAULTS

CUSTOM FIELDS

ADD/REMOVE FIELDS AS

NEEDED

CONFIGURE USER INPUT SETTINGS

DEFAULT TECHNICAL SETTINGS

AUTO GENERATED

FILENAME

NAVIGATE BETWEEN RECORDS

CREATE MULTIPLE RECORDS QUICKLY

MOSTLY STATIC FIELDS

UNICODE SUPPORT

DEFAULT USER INPUT SETTINGS

LINK TO LARGER IMAGE

JUMP TO EDIT PAGE

UNICODE SEARCHING

CAN ALSO IMPORT

EXISTING METADATA

DETERMINE UNICODE OUTPUT

CHOOSE EXPORT

SETTINGS

UNICODE OUTPUT

HTML ENTITY OUTPUT

COMPLETED METADB

COLLECTIONTSV

CONTENTDM’SACQUISITION

WORKFLOW ADVANTAGES

Can farm metadata tasks to experts on and off-campus

Multiple users work concurrently and at their own pace

Can automate where possible to simplify data entry

Provides single interface for storing and editing metadata

No client-side software to install and easy to train users

MEANINGFUL COLLABORATION

Warner example

Constant development

Faculty and librarians learn from each other

Equal partners

Better than either could have done alone

Campus interest

FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF METADB

Currently wrapping up next version

Plan to make it open source

C.S. class project will re-write in Java

Better project management, use statistics, transformations from CSV/TSV to DSpace, CONTENTdm collections

ERIC LUHRSLUHRSE@LAFAYETTE.EDU