Mal Booth

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Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Digitisation of personal manuscripts and ephemera and certain old published records and histories – that challenge some issue such as orphaned and unpublished works & formatting considerations ECM – integrated management, findability and usability of all our digital content online – implementation will take at least two years and continue to evolve with our needs & technology Collaboration – beyond Picture Australia – NAA? NLA? ADB? Google? Museums Oz? Broadening your potential audience by tapping into larger networks available through links, partnerships, belonging If you put a few websites in here you may get the message: http://touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html Do you have to play by the (old) rules? Did we ever ask the public how they wanted us to catalogue things? Can openness to broader user involvement in things like folksonomies and wikis allow you to provide levels of description and context you’d only ever dreamed of? Is malicious intent really that big a risk and how do we know before we try it? 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 When we looked at our need for a DAMS, we quickly realised that it must facilitate access to its assets to the web and it therefore would need to talk to a web content management system (WCM) that will also facilitate distributed publishing for the web. As far as our museum is concerned, preserving things digitally and putting them into a management system is not the end of the story. In addition, people use web content, digital assets and other resources in many different forms of communication, publication and presentation. These outputs and other corporate records need to be managed by a central electronic document and records management system (EDRMS - which we do not have currently). Implementing those three integrated systems (DAMS, WCM & EDRMS ) meant that we were now looking at an ECM. Any DAMS must be easily able to service and operate with a number of other major corporate systems. We knew from the outset that in addition to the above basic system needs, we needed an automated Workflow, so that also became part of the ECM. And for many years here we have sought one central or ’federated’ search application that would be able to allow users of our website to search for digitised content and catalogue records across our entire website. We currently provide our users with online access to a lot of content, but it is via several different repositories: tens of thousands of static pages; a museum content management system; a library management system; our National Archives catalogue (’RecordSearch’); and sundry digitised databases that provide biographical data as well as access to digitised unit diaries and (Australian) official histories from the major 20th century conflicts. Our federated search application will assist users to discover, browse and use what they want across our entire collection and all catalogues. Given all the work we’ve put into this and the challenges that we have identified but are still to confront I am now convinced we have done the right thing in terms of our future. It does seem that no one system was fully able to account comprehensively for our digital preservation needs in terms of off-the-shelf systems or software, but we have outlined what we need (in terms of a ’Trusted Digital Repository’) and our implementation partners are now scoping a system accordingly. Dealing with preservation metadata will also prove to be a major challenge, but at least we will make a start in the right direction. Of course, the ECM just provides some system tools and I believe that we will still need human intervention from digital curators and conservators to manage these collections just as the more established professions manage our physical assets. Compromise is something we always wanted to limit, but it is going to be an issue we will need to deal with sensibly and practically if we are to make progress. Now, the products we have selected to use for this are as follows: The Interwoven ECM product suite we will use includes: WorkSite NT and Interwoven Records Manager (EDRMS), MediaBin (DAM), TeamSite (WCM), and Autonomy (Federated Search). 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 A couple of years ago, my colleagues in the National Collections branch were advocates for just getting a new DAMS up and running as we were almost frustrated by the lack of workflow and a permanent functioning DAMS that could store and manage what to us at least are large digital preservation programs in which we’ve invested relatively large amounts of time and resources. If you look through our website you’ll probably find about 1.5 million pages of digitised records available through various databases as well as around 230,000 digital images of various collection objects from planes to photos and art images. Another complicating factor for us is that we must deal with three different management systems as we are a museum, a library and an archive and for various reasons there is no existing single system that can manage all of those collections. We were convinced by some wise IT colleagues here of the worth of looking at these challenges in a more strategic and holistic perspective. Consequently, we have opted to be a little more patient and head towards a full ECM. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Use of blogs & why (decreasing institutional voice & revealing the people who work here; providing readable context; revealing hidden collection treasures; revealing and promoting our exhibitions and other activities)‏ Trusting staff and our curators to author, manage and administer blogs – is it THAT radical? Distributed authoring/generation of content as opposed to centralised control – those responsible writing the context! 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 RefTracker (ReQuest) ask-a-librarian and knowledge base application 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Learning from what we use regularly or enjoy on the web Shopping – Amazon, CD Universe, LastMinute.com, dendy.com.au News – Google, abc.net.au, Nine MSN, blogs Free stuff – open source software – Quicktime, Firefox, OpenOffice, webmail (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.)‏ Search – Google, All Homes, drive.com.au, IMDB Services – banking, BPay, White Pages, Pay Pal Web 2.0 – Wikipedia, wikis, blogs, SlideShare, del.icio.us, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube Hobby sites & Family history Work-related journals – DLib, OCLC/RLG Digi News, Ariadne, First Monday Broaden your potential audience by tapping into larger networks available through links, partnerships, belonging & Collaboration I agree with Lynne Brindley that debating the definition and utility of various Web 2.0 technologies isn’t at all useful. Just find something you think you can use and start. I am very sceptical of the need for risk assessment with this cheap, friendly and easy to use technology. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 We don’t advertise this, but our copying service used to only provide paper copies. We phased out the old photocopiers and replaced them with ‘multi-function devices’ that can scan and copy and set out to provide digital copies where convenient to both the client and ourselves. Now 90% of on demand copying from our archives is digital and therefore requires no re-scanning. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Ready to go context Provided in its original visual form – why re-invent the wheel or force someone to look at ugly HTML pages? Original indexes have proved adequate User tagging of content being considered Good example of a cheap project that delivered an ongoing popular service without being even 95% accurate from an OCR perspective 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Digitisation of personal manuscripts and ephemera and certain old published records and histories – that present challenges such as orphaned and unpublished works & special format considerations (eg. bound documents). Shown here a 48th Battalion Patrol Book from WW1. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Shown here a 10th Light Horse Regiment diary page from 1 October 1918 recording the entry of this unit into Damascus. These were very enthusiastically greeted when they went online earlier in 2007. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 TIFF or JPEG; 300 or 600 dpi; metadata (nobody is perfect)‏ In-house or outsource – experiment & learn The preservation principle (use-neutral scanning) – there are always exceptions/compromises (eg. captured Japanese documents)‏ 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Delivering! (leading by example)‏ Users just want the stuff, so give it to them and make sure they can find it and use it. Participating in new solutions (ECM, wikis, blogs, podcasts)‏ Avoiding missed opportunities Learning to compromise – adjust targets and use good enough when appropriate (the 80:20 principle)‏ Not everything can happen at once, so prioritise and be patient The rest of the world won’t wait and it isn’t appropriate for us to make them wait for our content (nobody is really that unique)‏ Positioning yourself to be able to take advantage of advances in IT – getting over the initial sea-sickness and becoming used to the dynamism of info technology and the opportunities in economies of scale and ‘commoditisation’ Embracing Openness Searchability & findability Sharing & cooperating with others (nobody has everything)‏ Creative Commons? Free content Innovate or die! Experiment & make a few mistakes – learn from them Don’t just be restricted to what others have done with new technologies – digitised content, podcasts, blogs, wikis, search, SlideShare, Del.icio.us, Google, etc. Surprise your users! Anticipate their needs and give them something they don’t even know they want yet. Don’t ask users what they want – it is like driving in the rear view mirror. Keep in touch with them and understand their needs. People never do what they say they will do, so don’t ask them, prototype solutions as early as possible. Don’t be a slave to all the old rules – some are now irrelevant or obsolescent. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Info Services Conference Presentation 2007 Links used in this presentation: AWM home page http://www.awm.gov.au/ Units diaries online http://www.awm.gov.au/diaries/ Private records currently online (eg) http://www.awm.gov.au/findingaids/process.asp?collection=... Official Histories online http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/index.asp ReQuest http://www.altarama.com.au/awm/reft000.aspx Blogs: http://blog.awm.gov.au/1917/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lambert/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/focus/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lawrence/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lawrence/ Encyclopedia http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/index.htm War Memorials Australia http://www.skp.com.au/memorials2/default.htm Podcasts feed (RSS) http://www.awm.gov.au/podcast/index.asp 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres When we looked at our need for a DAMS, we quickly realised that it must facilitate access to its assets to the web and it therefore would need to talk to a web content management system (WCM) that will also facilitate distributed publishing for the web. As far as our museum is concerned, preserving things digitally and putting them into a management system is not the end of the story. In addition, people use web content, digital assets and other resources in many different forms of communication, publication and presentation. These outputs and other corporate records need to be managed by a central electronic document and records management system (EDRMS - which we do not have currently). Implementing those three integrated systems (DAMS, WCM & EDRMS ) meant that we were now looking at an ECM. Any DAMS must be easily able to service and operate with a number of other major corporate systems. We knew from the outset that in addition to the above basic system needs, we needed an automated Workflow, so that also became part of the ECM. And for many years here we have sought one central or ’federated’ search application that would be able to allow users of our website to search for digitised content and catalogue records across our entire website. We currently provide our users with online access to a lot of content, but it is via several different repositories: tens of thousands of static pages; a museum content management system; a library management system; our National Archives catalogue (’RecordSearch’); and sundry digitised databases that provide biographical data as well as access to digitised unit diaries and (Australian) official histories from the major 20th century conflicts. Our federated search application will assist users to discover, browse and use what they want across our entire collection and all catalogues. Given all the work we’ve put into this and the challenges that we have identified but are still to confront I am now convinced we have done the right thing in terms of our future. It does seem that no one system was fully able to account comprehensively for our digital preservation needs in terms of off-the-shelf systems or software, but we have outlined what we need (in terms of a ’Trusted Digital Repository’) and our implementation partners are now scoping a system accordingly. Dealing with preservation metadata will also prove to be a major challenge, but at least we will make a start in the right direction. Of course, the ECM just provides some system tools and I believe that we will still need human intervention from digital curators and conservators to manage these collections just as the more established professions manage our physical assets. Compromise is something we always wanted to limit, but it is going to be an issue we will need to deal with sensibly and practically if we are to make progress. Now, the products we have selected to use for this are as follows: The Interwoven ECM product suite we will use includes: WorkSite NT and Interwoven Records Manager (EDRMS), MediaBin (DAM), TeamSite (WCM), and Autonomy (Federated Search). 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres A couple of years ago, my colleagues in the National Collections branch were advocates for just getting a new DAMS up and running as we were almost frustrated by the lack of workflow and a permanent functioning DAMS that could store and manage what to us at least are large digital preservation programs in which we’ve invested relatively large amounts of time and resources. If you look through our website you’ll probably find about 1.5 million pages of digitised records available through various databases as well as around 230,000 digital images of various collection objects from planes to photos and art images. Another complicating factor for us is that we must deal with three different management systems as we are a museum, a library and an archive and for various reasons there is no existing single system that can manage all of those collections. We were convinced by some wise IT colleagues here of the worth of looking at these challenges in a more strategic and holistic perspective. Consequently, we have opted to be a little more patient and head towards a full ECM. 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres Links used in this presentation: AWM home page http://www.awm.gov.au/ Units diaries online http://www.awm.gov.au/diaries/ Private records currently online (eg) http://www.awm.gov.au/findingaids/process.asp?collection=private&item=100days Official Histories online http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/index.asp ReQuest http://www.altarama.com.au/awm/reft000.aspx Blogs http://blog.awm.gov.au/1917/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lambert/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/focus/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lawrence/ http://blog.awm.gov.au/lawrence/ Encyclopedia http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/index.htm War Memorials Australia http://www.skp.com.au/memorials2/default.htm Podcasts feed (RSS) http://www.awm.gov.au/podcast/index.asp 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres Avoiding missed opportunities •Learning to compromise – adjust targets and use good enough when appropriate (the 80:20 principle) •The rest of the world won’t wait and it isn’t appropriate for us to make them wait for our content (nobody is really that unique) •Positioning yourself to be able to take advantage of advances in IT – getting over the initial sea-sickness and becoming used to the dynamism of info technology and the opportunities in economies of scale and ‘commoditisation’ •Mapping out a thousand issues or reasons not to digitise, eg. the scale of the problem, lack of standards, storage needs, broadband speeds, inequality of access, expense, technological challenges isn’t helpful at all. It just delays the inevitable and prevents you from learning and gaining useful experience with this technology. Is IT your weakest link? •Do they say yes before no? •Do they always have at least six great reasons not to do anything? •Will they respond with ‘What a great idea! How can we help?’ •Are they partners/allies in your quest or running interference? •How can you help turn them around? •Remember: Technologists care about technology — users care about content 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres Ready to go context Provided in its original visual form – why re-invent the wheel or force someone to look at ugly HTML pages? Original indexes have proved adequate User tagging of content being considered Good example of a cheap project that delivered an ongoing popular service without being even 95% accurate from an OCR perspective 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres Can openness to broader user involvement in things like folksonomies and wikis allow you to provide levels of description and context you’d only ever dreamed of? Is malicious intent really that big a risk and how do we know before we try it? 3 years ago
Mal Booth commented on Apla Conference Pres Our use of blogs & reasons why (promoting activities and informing people about exhibitions; decreasing institutional voice & revealing the people who work here; providing readable context; revealing hidden collection treasures; revealing and promoting our exhibitions and other activities) Trusting staff and our curators to author, manage and administer blogs – is it THAT radical? Distributed authoring/generation of content as opposed to centralised control – those responsible writing the context! 3 years ago

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