Sharing Our Special Collections with the World— Lessons Learned / Geoffrey Skinner and Jon Haupt, Sonoma County Library
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Sonoma County Library is unusual among public libraries in managing extensive special collections of photographs, rare books, wine-related materials, and local historic items. These materials are housed in several locations and represent only some of the library’s many hidden collections. We began digitizing and making photographs available online from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s with minimal metadata; today we leverage outsourcing and partnerships to bring over 40,000 digitized items with extensive metadata to the Web. Encouraging statistics show worldwide viewing and great local interest, yet many challenges remain: prioritizing collections, choosing platforms, developing standards-based workflows, preserving the digital and physical objects, developing and maintaining partnerships, and many more. In addition to describing the ways we are addressing these challenges, we will also illustrate a particular case—an ongoing project of the Sonoma County Wine Library. Beginning as a clippings file decades ago, the current manifestation of the International Wine Research Database (IWRDB) resides at iwrdb.org. A recent grant awarded to the Wine Library offered the chance to upgrade the raw data and the search interface, and the project remains an exciting opportunity for potentially bringing together staff and researchers from wine libraries in the US and abroad.
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Sharing Our Special Collections with the World— Lessons Learned / Geoffrey Skinner and Jon Haupt, Sonoma County Library
- 1. Sharing Our Special Collections with the World… Geoffrey Skinner Cataloging and Metadata Librarian Jon Haupt Branch Manager, Healdsburg Regional Library and Sonoma County Wine Library Sonoma County Library May 5, 2016 (A few) Lessons Learned
- 2. Sonoma County Special Collections Sonoma County Wine Library Local History & Genealogy Library Sonoma County Archives Petaluma History Room
- 3. Community (Local Authors) Sonoma County Local History Index Guide to the Archives International Wine Research Database (IWRDB) Find HistoryPin Flickr Commons Calisphere OAC Sonoma Heritage Collections SCL Digital Projects Internet Archive YouTube
- 4. • Hosted CONTENTdm site launched 2012 • 38,000+ objects in 17 collections • 5 Partnerships • Digitization mostly outsourced • Includes photos, video, audio, texts, maps and plans • Modeled after Minnesota Reflections http://heritage.sonomalibrary.org Sonoma Heritage Collections
- 5. Entrance to the Santa Rosa Free Public Library on 4th Street, 1959 (SCL photo 3826)
- 6. De Diversorum Vini Generum (1559)
- 7. Charles Scalione Oral History
- 8. Bill Jacobs and His Trick Horse, Tops
- 10. Photos in SHC 63%Photos in Find Only 14% Photos in Find Still to be Converted 6% Photos in Process 5% Rejected 12% 6,500 3,000 2,500 6,000 Conversion Progress (SCL photos only) 31,000
- 11. Community (Local Authors) Sonoma County Local History Index Guide to the Archives International Wine Research Database (IWRDB) Find HistoryPin Flickr Commons Calisphere OAC Sonoma Heritage Collections SCL Digital Projects Internet Archive YouTube
- 12. A Few Lessons… Classroom at Village Elementary School, Santa Rosa, California, 1957 (source: SCL photo 27963)
- 15. You Really Want Everything With That?? Source: http://en.rocketnews24.com/ Lesson 3
- 16. It’s not bragging if you can back it up Source: SCL Photo 37461 Lesson 4
- 17. Use the Right Tool(s) for the Job Source: WSCHS Item 11-358 Lesson 5
- 18. The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Metadata Wranglers Often Source: SCL Photo 33246 Lesson 6
- 19. Flexibility is a Good Thing Source: http://wikipedia.org Lesson 7
- 20. Dancing is More Fun with the Right Partner(s) Source: SCL photo 22514 Lesson 8
- 22. • The International Wine Research Database (IWRDB) strives to be the most comprehensive bibliography of wine literature in the world. • 1970s–1999: Clippings file • 1999: LSTA Grant—Winefiles.org • 2013: Another LSTA grant—IWRDB What is IWRDB?
- 23. What was Winefiles? Local History + Index to Wine Archive Periodicals • Staffing: Part time librarian + volunteers – Wine Librarian -> select articles – Volunteers -> photocopy – Volunteers -> enter data – PT Assistant Librarian -> Clean up + authority control
- 25. Winefiles Data SQL data: INSERT INTO `article` (`a_id`,`author`,`title`,`language`,`publication_month`,`publication_day`,`publication_yea r`,`publisher`,`publication`,`volume`,`number`,`pages`,`item_type`,`fulltext_path`,`url`,`a bstract`,`keywords`,`subject_folder`,`history_folder`,`company_folder`,`subject`,`busines s`,`business_contact`,`business_org`,`region`,`varietal`,`appellation`,`comments`,`userna me`,`entry_date`,`update_date`,`dbname`) VALUES (720,':Howie, Millie:','WineWords:The Carneros difference','Eng','October','2','1992','','HealdsburgTribune','','','','Article: Newspaper','','','The author describes the Carneros Quality Alliance and its efforts to promote the distinctive character of wines from the Carneros at an event held in the Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco.The alliance was formed in 1985 and by the time of the article included 27 wineries and 60 growers in its membership.The event included panel discussions and a tasting of older vintages from the Carneros district. Details of speakers, topics, and wines tasted are included in the article.','lp wine words: the carneros . . . . [yada yada]
- 26. What Were Our Hopes and Dreams? • Collaborative indexing – Not enough staff – Est. annual cost of indexing trade publications: $80,000 – Our answer: Distributed indexing • Four institutions providing $20K/year • Eight institutions providing $10K/year • Sixteen institutions providing $5K/year • Build a global network of wine libraries, archives, and information centers: IAWL
- 27. What Were Our Hopes and Dreams? • Data harvesting – Freely available data (citations + abstracts) – Publishers – provide streamlined access to free data? – “Worst case scenario”: harvest directly from web sites – Hope to provide links directly to content if your institution has a subscription • We see possible pool of new customers for publishers
- 31. What Dreams Were Dashed? • Data harvesting – Publishers are mostly unresponsive – They do not see $$ reasons for helping our project – Some trade publications do not have indexing at all! – They do appreciate we are not directly competing – Long-term cultivation approach – Snowballing: Success may breed success – Perhaps publishers will want to participate in IAWL
- 32. What Dreams Were Dashed? • Collaborative Indexing – Supportive institutions, but noncommittal – No bandwagon yet – No clear organization yet to rely on for dissemination of information (IAWL is too new) – We’d hoped the harvesting would serve as a springboard – Now it looks like we need collaborative indexing first – We may need to seek out independent consultants
- 33. What’s Next? • Another New Wine Librarian at SCWL… • Tag-teaming to build IAWL and establish workgroup • Continue to develop other organizations’ roles • Continue review of our role in the project and how it aligns (or not) with our organization’s Strategic Plan
- 34. Thank you … …and stay on track Source: WSCHS Item 01-093
- 35. Resource List: SCL Digital Projects • Sonoma Heritage Collections: http://sclib.us/shc • International Wine Research Database: http://iwrdb.org • Community – Sonoma Co. Authors: http://sclib.us/community • Sonoma Co. Local History Index: http://sclib.us/lhi • Guide to the Archives: http://sclib.us/archives • Beyond the Library – Flickr Commons: http://bit.ly/flickr-scl – YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/yt-scl – Internet Archive: http://bit.ly/ia-scl – Calisphere: http://bit.ly/cali-scl – OAC: http://bit.ly/oac-scl – Twitter: @scldigital
Editor's Notes
- Introduction Thank you to Justine Withers for suggesting us Outline of talk Brief tour of SCL Special Collections and Digital Projects (6 minutes) Lessons learned (14 minutes) Case study: IWRDB (10 minutes)
- Although the SCL is a public library, we have extensive special collections – roughly 70,000 cataloged books, photographs and archival collections (and approximately 10-15 uncataloged items)/ These are spread across four main locations: we have a wine library, a Sonoma Co. local history and genealogy library, a collection devoted to Petaluma history and we manage the County’s archives. We also have materials of special interest elsewhere, such as local author books and local music recordings. Like most special collections, public access to most of these materials is limited. Our goal is to share as many of these collections with the world via our digital projects.
- We have created a digital universe to meet this goal Efforts begun in mid 2000s Most projects launched in 2011 and 2012 Brief tour: Guide to the Archives Community – website for local authors with links from catalog SC Local History Index (indexing project stretching back to the 1960s) SHC IWRDB (newest project) – see links at end and in slides on SlideShare
- Hosted CONTENTdm site launched in 2012 SHC currently includes nearly 38,000 items in 17 collections – mostly from SCL’s own holdings -- but we have also partnered with other organizations to share their materials as well (SCBA and WSHCS) SHC includes a variety of different media and all are assigned one of 22 special topics ranging from Agriculture, Rural Life and Fisheries to Wine and Winemaking Primary funding: Sonoma County Tourism Board (initial funding through the State Library’s Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP) and a large Tourism Board grant)
- SHC primarily photos Digitized by Luna Imaging, Backstage Library works or locally Hosted by OCLC/CONTENTdm Local archived copy
- Digitized texts, including this 1559 book on wine digitized for us by Internet Archive as part of a project to digitize all out-of -copyright books in the Wine Library. Our digitized texts – like all media except images -- are: Hosted by Internet Archive Embedded in CONTENTdm Archival digital copy in SCL On the diverse types of wine (De Diversorum Vini Generum) by Jacobus Praefectus (active 1536) – published in Venice in 1559.
- Also Audio – in this case an oral history interview paired with the interview transcript Audio digitized locally
- Small number of videos– this one part of the Sonoma County Fair Collection Digitized locally
- Initial project: Brief MARC records originally in library catalog, some with links Upgraded to full level and retrospectively all digitize photos Mass export of all photo MARC records Converted MARC to tabular data (closely matching CONTENTdm fields) with in-house developed RubyGem Corrected and enhanced metadata, enhanced using Libre Office Calc Uploaded metadata and images to CONTENTdm Ongoing: Create spreadsheets Uploaded metadata and images to CONTENTdm
- Conversion and upload of existing SCL photos still in process: (SCL only, no partners) Total SCL Photo Collection – 43,000 images Percentage Photos in SHC: 63% (31,000) Photos in Find Only 14% (6,500) Photos in Find Still to be Converted 6% (3,000) Photos in Process 5% (2,500) Rejected: 12% (6,0000) (more on this later) And more photos added to our collection all the time.
- SCL Digital Projects universe Extended: We also send our materials out to the world through: Flickr Commons Calisphere OAC HistoryPin And we get out the word on social media: Blog Twitter Facebook Also Find – the SCL catalog
- It’s been a learning process. I’ll admit I’ve learned some lessons numerous times and will probably learn them again in the future. While some lessons have been specific to our projects, here are a few that I think may be of broader interest
- Mattel Barbie Cam, introduced in 1998, capable of stunning 160 x 120 pixel images My first experience with a digital camera, circa 1999, for a website – limitations quickly apparent Applies to: Record quality (brief records in catalog) Records iteratively built prior to conversion, but many opportunities for interpolation errors, etc. Image quality Volunteer scanned images (pre 2004) at low resolution – a policy decision to protect our IP Photocopies in collection – likely a cost-saving decision to photocopy rather than reprint The photocopies and early photos are like the Barbie Cam photos – either not enough info captured or too much now lost – no amount of technical wizardry will really improve them
- Illustrated here by Borges’ Library of Babel – taken here from Jonathan Basile’s library of Babel. Project –we’ve had no shortage of possible digitization projects. What is doable? Does it fit with mission and have local/regional/national value? If the answer is yes, do we have the resources to pull it off? In our case , we’ve looked at: Photocopies in image collection digitized, but not in SHC (mostly) 8x 10 reproductions of postcards (in SHC, but now rethinking) Posters, maps: very cool, high local interest, but unclear rights (on hold) Copyrighted material such as out –of-print, but post 1922 wine books (how much work to get permissions?)
- Like this “Burger with Everything” from Japanese fast-food chain Lotteria, tempting to make use of every bit of metadata How much metadata is truly useful? Find the sweet spot between the minimum (a title may be the only required field) and everything (126+ fields plus system-generated admin fields in Cdm) Our choices driven by what was in the MARC records and what we could fit in CONTENTdm – we couldn’t translate everything, but I made the choice to translate as much as possible – we currently use 99 fields across all our collections (admittedly several have little or no metadata) – just because I didn’t want to lose the MARC record richness Cost: time-consuming data entry and management. No analytics on what visitors actually find useful Choices probably would have been different if we hadn’t started with MARC. My spreadsheets have been close to overwhelming “Japanese fast-food firm Lotteria’s Burger with Everything: The Burger with Everything on It (zenbunose burger in Japanese) is both a dietician’s and linguist’s nightmare, as it manages to somehow be simultaneously enticing and intimidating. It’s also a fever dream come to life, though, for big or indecisive eaters” (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/04/29/truth-in-advertising-lotterias-monstrous-burger-with-everything-on-it-is-exactly-that/)
- To paraphrase Muhammad Ali…It’s not hopeless if you can back it up I’ve had images corrupted, images not transferred; metadata corrupted. Mostly recoverable, but not always. Recently I scrambled a spreadsheet with over 4000 lines and thought that I had a backup, but discovered way too late that my backup was also corrupted. I’m still cleaning up the resulting problems Jack Schofield, blogger for ZDNet: “Schofield's Second Law of Computing” states that data doesn't really exist unless you have at least two copies of it. Ideally, you should have at least three copies of everything, preferably on different media. It is a good idea to store one copy in the cloud, as then you have data "off premise" -- buildings have been known to flood or burn down -- as long as it's not your only copy. Having three copies means you can do file comparisons and therefore check if one of them has been corrupted. (http://www.zdnet.com/article/follow-schofields-three-laws-of-computing-and-avoid-disasters/) So… Back up working copies of digital objects, spreadsheets, whatever – and make sure you can identify versions Use Windows backup if applicable For digital objects, Archival backup – we have images and other files backed up on a local archival server (that will soon be moving to the cloud) and older images also on CD-ROM off -site Many platforms offer an archival backup option during the ingest process
- Best tools for a particular job depend on that job Needs change, Tools change. Sometimes custom tools are called for (RubyGem for MARC conversion) I have a lot of favorite free or low cost tools:, including my workhorse programs: Libre Office Calc – works better than Excel for BIG spreadsheets and has RegEx support Notepad ++ Notetab Pro MarcEdit Also use: GIMP Paint.NET Etc. If you can’t do a task with the tools at hand, someone has probably posted just the right tool to GitHub or elsewhere on the Web. Don’t be afraid to explore and play.
- SHC launched with a custom JavaScript to present a corresponding StreetView (or map) for all photos with geocoordinates – that we spent a long time gathering and entering. Very cool for “then and now “displays! But…in the meantime, Google changed their API – and displayed locations were suddenly 70 miles to the southeast Another example – we planned to update metadata in only one place – SHC -- but I couldn’t make create a workflow to make that actually happen, so we update in both CONTENTdm and in our Horizon catalog and records aren’t necessarily in sync Architectural plan for remodeling the house of Mrs. G. W. Connors of 742 Orchard Street, Santa Rosa prepared by J. C. Lindsay, ca. 1920 (SCL photo 33246)
- Pretty much applies to everything Google StreetView was a cool part of SHC, but since I didn’t have time to rewrite and test the script to use the new API, I turned it off for the time being. I made quite a few decisions based on the current state of current platforms. Perhaps somewhat unavoidable, but my aim is to make metadata frameworks and content as reusable as possible. Metadata is currently based on the original AACR2 MARC records and structured for CONTENTdm, but now we’re on to RDA and we’re going to be moving to Islandora. Staying current demands flexibility – no way around it!
- By partners, I really mean everyone involved in our efforts – staff, funders, partner organizations, vendors. Even if we haven’t yet achieved everything we originally envisioned, without our partners, we wouldn’t be here today. I’ve been the sole person slogging through our projects much of the time – juggling them with my regular cataloging work -- but without my staff and colleagues who’ve helped at various times, we would have accomplished so much less. At least one former staff member is here in the audience – thank you, Justine! – and a talented former colleague who is now with Lyrasis, Mark Cooper, did essential programming for most of the projects. We just got some very good news: our budget for the next FY was approved this week with money for a new professional cataloging position and we also will get part of a new library specialist position. I think we’ll be dancing up a storm very soon! Mr. Palmieri and dance partner, Santa Rosa, California, 1961 (SCL photo 22514)
- Turning to project developed and managed by Jon Haupt, Branch Manager
- Strictly a SCWL project One of many small-scale indexing projects underway among wine libraries and collections Not comprehensive, but still the MOST comprehensive
- Basically, this data served its purpose OK, but was difficult to transfer into another system — not very clearly-structured. As a result, the limitations of the interface (circa 1999) became more and more troublesome.
- Thank you for allowing us to share a our challenges and lessons learned in bringing our special collections to the world Stan Strout and two conductors in front of Petaluma & Santa Rosa RR car No. 55 at the Forestville Station, circa 1904 (WSCHS Collection)