NHSL Digital Library

NH STATE PUBLICATIONS DIGITAL LIBRARY
October 2009
Janet Eklund
Administrator of Library Operations, NHSL
Charles Shipman
Reference Librarian, NHSL

NH State Publications Digital Library

The Challenge of Digital Preservation
What is digital preservation?
"Digital preservation combines policies, strategies and actions that ensure access to digital content over time."
American Library Association, 2008

New Hampshire State Library Circumstances

Statutory mandate & depository program
The question: To print or not to print?
Acquisition challenge
Access
Collection Development Policy

Getting StartedSeptember 2007 – January 2009

Organizational & financial commitment
A pilot project
Identification of roles & responsibilities
Training & education
Fugitive documents?

The Solution
A Web Portal
Content management system
Digital Archiving
Files type agnostic
Full-text vs. controlled searching?
PTFS (Progressive Technologies Federal Systems)

The Cost
# of records (2,500 records or 10 GB)
ASP hosting solution
Technical support
Training
The Spider!
First year grand total?
$44,000 – first year grand total

The Learning Curve Going Live

Go live date: January 20, 2009
Training: 3 days September 2009
3 months of trial and error
3 months of manual manipulation
System administration decisions

From Agency Website to Digital Library
Agency Website
PTFS Server
Spider pulls
new documents
“scheduler” program adds documents
to database
Archivalware
(Staff Only)
NH Digital Database
(Public)
staff prepare docs
for public access
Link added to NHSL catalog
NHSL Catalog

How the Spider works
A separate “spider” is created for each agency
A seed url (the agency’s homepage) is assigned
Filters are added: URL and File Format
Spider software checks to see if files are new or modified since date the software last ran
Could add images from spider software

Preparing documents for the database
Step 1: Is it a “State Publication?”
Use Collection Development Policy for guidance:
www.nh.gov/nhsl/about/documents/CollectionPolicy2008.pdf
What should be kept?
Annual Reports
Newsletters
Brochures
Handbooks, manuals

Step 1: Is it a “State Publication?”
What should be discarded?
Meeting Agendas
Press Releases
Office Email Correspondence
“Gray areas”:
Archive EVERYTHING
vs.

Step 2: Adding Metadata
Goal:
Maximize ease of access while keeping workload manageable
Metadata fields restricted to a few key fields:
Title, Serial Title, Author, Year Published, # Pages
Some data is added automatically:
File type, File size, Original URL

The Metadata Edit Screen

Step 3: Assigning a Folder
Documents can be filed in a folder structure similar to Windows Explorer
Patrons can browse folders for documents in addition to searching text or metadata
Folders make it possible to guide users to a set of docs using PURLs

The Folder Structure
Documents are assigned to folders using the following hierarchy:
Agency
Division
Bureau/Program
Document Type Periodical Title (as needed)

Creating the User Interface

Goal:

Combine ease of use with powerful search options

Provide multiple paths to publications:
Full Text Searching
Field Searching
Browsing

Full-Text Searching
Three forms:

Boolean: Allows typical search options – phrase searches, AND/OR/NOT operators, and wildcards
Concept: Broadens searches by comparing terms to a pre-existing dictionary
Pattern: Searches for patterns of text that best match the patron’s search terms

Field Searching

Field searches allow users to search by year, agency, bureau, author, title, serial title
Field search interface completely customizable
Multiple fields can be combined
Field searches can be combined with full-text searches

Combining full-text and field searching
Massabesic
anywhere in
the text
Limit to docs
published
2007-2009

Browsing Documents
In Browse Mode multiple paths are provided to documents and folders - browse by: