Exploring archives online Joanne Fitton and Jonathan Ainsworth
EMu Users Conference 23 April 2015
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Our collections online and how we got there New Special
Collections website Developed single-search of all Special
Collections Scale of task and project management EMu functionality
and our constraints
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Where we were Complex web of online finding aids 11 different
interfaces Manuscripts in the Library catalogue as PDF attachments
Complex web of other finding aids remained! Printed lists
Spreadsheets for staff
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First steps EMu purchased 2012 Basic configuration and made
live for limited staff use March 2013 contained less than 10% of
our data Major programme of data migration began
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Data migration: EAD
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Data migration: Project content
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Data migration: Indexes
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Data migration: Handlists
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Challenges What data do we have? Data quality and variability
Thinking ahead structuring data for resource discovery fields
required for resource discovery Compromise
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Integration with other Library systems Library Management
System for rare books Librarys Digital Asset Management System for
digital surrogates and born-digital archives Librarys web content
management system for web pages and applications
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Developing our own interface Looked at the IMu interface, but
Decided to develop our own using the IMu API: Deal with our
different data types Integration with our web CMS and our DAMS We
wanted to do more Ongoing new requirements, more development
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November 2014 - new search and browse A single search
Archives-relevant information Records enriched with digital media
Supporting contextual information
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Zoom
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More content We wanted more: Supporting information: collection
guides, subject strengths Interactive learning resources
Sustainable project websites Online exhibitions Avoid orphaned and
hard-to-maintain content Interlink as much as possible to improve
resource discovery
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Zoom
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Challenges Archival records have unusual features (the
hierarchy for one) Wide range of users (students, researchers,
public) Management pressure to get stuff out there ASAP Importance
of digital content versus its relative rarity
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Solutions Benchmarking with range of other websites Repeated
user testing: at design stage, pre-release stage, and live stage
(and ongoing) Compromise on data quality and coverage Commitment to
ongoing review and development driven by user requirements
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EMu what it did for us Catalogue gathered all our data into one
place (basis of the single search) Narratives allowed proper
curation of supporting information (guides, learning resources,
exhibitions, project websites) Interlinking captured, and curated,
business knowledge on relationships, and auto-generated links on
the website
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EMu what it couldnt do Return search results fast enough
(sometimes) Order search results by relevance Provide faceting
(without a lot of work) So we used another tool for initial
searching
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Summary All our data in one place far easier to access and
reuse EMu is starting to contain business knowledge, not just data
(e.g. the links between records and modules) IMu API allows full
exploitation of information in EMu Successfully integrated with
other major Library systems
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What next Developing collection management: Reader services
Events and exhibitions Data quality?