Hey, What About Access

1
Hey, What About Access?
A Practical Guide to Decision-Making

• Roy Tennant
• The California Digital Library, University of
  California
• http//escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentatio
  ns/2002sfs/

2
Outline

• What are your access goals?
• What are your constraints?
• What opportunities do you have?
• Capturing
• Describing
• Providing Access

3
What are Your Access Goals?

• On-screen viewing
• Thumbnail preview
• Screen-size
• Detail study (and how much?)
• Printing
• Artifactual Fidelity or Intellectual Content

4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
Printing

• On-screen resolutions are typically inadequate
  for printing
• For non-transparency material (prints, books,
  objects, etc.), 300dpi is a good resolution for
  printable versions

10
Artifactual Fidelity or Intellectual Content?

• Artifactual fidelity
• Must preserve the appearance of the actual object
  
• Can provide an enhanced sense of experiencing the
  real object
• But in some cases, preserving the look and feel
  of the artifact obstructs the content
• Doug Greenbergs compulsive authenticity
  disorder (http//www.nedcc.org/owol/dgabs.htm)
• Intellectual content
• Optimized to provide the best presentation of the
  content itself, not the artifact
• The sense of interacting with the actual object
  may be diminished or destroyed
• Both strategies may be required

11
(No Transcript)
12
What are Your Constraints?

• Hardware
• RAM
• CPU speed
• Disk space
• Storage
• Software
• Staff
• Time
• Skill and experience
• Money

13
What Opportunities Do You Have?

• Grants may be available to finance your project
• Grants often expect a certain level of quality
  if so, what capture quality is specified?
• Do you have access to student help? Interns?
  Volunteers?
• Can you cut a deal with a vendor like Octavo?

14
Capturing

• Monitor resolutions are improving
• 640 x 480 --gt 800 x 600 --gt 1280 x 768
• What is a good resolution for onscreen viewing
  today, may not be tomorrow
• How many times do you want to scan your material?
• Scan at the best quality you can justify given
  your goals, constraints, and opportunities

15
Capture Recommendations for Access (not
preservation)

• Photos, illustrations, maps, etc.
• 300dpi
• 24 bit color
• B/W Text document
• 300dpi
• 8 bit grayscale
• Negatives and Slides
• 2200 pixels in longest dimension
• 24 bit color or 8 bit grayscale

16
Describing

• Good metadata is essential to your success
• Three types
• Descriptive
• Administrative
• Structural

17
Describing Appropriate Level

• Collection-level access
• Discovery metadata describes the collection
• Example Archival finding aid see
  http//www.oac.cdlib.org/
• Item-level access
• Discovery metadata describes the item
• Example MARC or Dublin Core records for each
  item see http//jarda.cdlib.org/search.html
• Both types of access may be appropriate
• Doing both often takes very little extra effort

18
Collection Level Access
Images
Collection Description
SearchInterface
Collection Description
19
Item Level Access
Images
Collection Descriptions
SearchInterface
20
http//oac.cdlib.org/
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
http//jarda.cdlib.org/
25
jarda.cdlib.org/search.html
26
Describing Metadata Granularity

• ltnamegtWilliam Randolph Hearstlt/namegt
• ltnamegt ltfirstgtWilliamlt/firstgt ltmiddlegtRandolphlt/
  middlegt ltlastgtHearstlt/lastgtlt/namegt
• Consider all uses for the metadata
• Design for the most granular use
• Store it in a machine-parseable format

27
Describing Machine Parseability

• The ability to pull apart and reconstruct
  information via software
• For example, thisltnamegt ltfirstgtWilliamlt/first
  gt ltmiddlegtRandolphlt/middlegt ltlastgtHearstlt/lastgt
  lt/namegt
• Can easily become thisltDC.creatorgtHearst,
  William Randolphlt/DC.creatorgt

28
Describing Metadata Qualification

• ltname rolecreatorgtWilliam Randolph
  Hearstlt/namegt
• ltsubject schemeLCSHgtBuilder -- Castles --
  Southern Californialt/subjectgt

29
Describing Formats Syntax
Which ones?
Dublin Core
MARC
XML
EAD
TEI
30
Describing Metadata Storage Formats

• It doesnt matter so long as
• You captured the quantity required for your
  purposes
• You captured it at the granularity required for
  your purposes
• You qualify the metadata where required
• You store it in a machine-parseable format
• You can output it in any format to which you wish
  to comply
• Given that, you can do anything!

31
Describing Standards

• Decide to which industry standards you will
  comply
• Use an internal metadata infrastructure that
  supports compliance with those standards, as well
  as your specific requirements
• Consider the issues of item v. collection level,
  granularity, qualification, and machine
  parseability
• Understand that your internal formats may be more
  complex than what is required for standards
  compliance

32
DescribingMaking Your Metadata Searchable

• Sample Indexing Systems/Databases
• Sprite (Perl module)
• Microsoft Access, Filemaker Pro
• SWISH-E, swish-e.org
• MySQL, mysql.com
• Oracle or Sybase

Oracle, Sybase
Sprite
SWISH-E
MySQL
Access/Filemaker
The power complexity continuum
More
Less
33
Providing Access

• Exhibit
• Browse
• Search

34
Providing Access Exhibit

• Goals
• Inviting
• Easy to navigate
• Highlight selected parts of a collection
• Teach
• Requirements
• Great graphic design
• Informative and succinct commentary
• Interesting subject matter

35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
http//www.kb.nl/kb/galerie/trivulzio/index-en.htm
l
39
http//www.bl.uk/
40
Providing Access Browse

• Goals
• Provide intriguing and interesting paths into and
  throughout a collection
• Give a broad sense of a collection, but not show
  everything necessarily
• Requirements
• Logical browse paths
• May have multiple paths to the same items (e.g.,
  time, geography, subject)

41
http//www.kb.nl/kb/manuscripts/browser/
42
Providing Access Search

• Goals
• To provide post-coordinate access to all items in
  a collection relevant to a particular query
• To provide good methods to create a search as
  well as refine or alter the display as required
• Requirements
• Good search software (database or indexing
  software)
• Good metadata (minimum is probably a title or
  caption for each item)
• Good interface (options for navigation, search
  refinement, etc.)

43
http//www.scran.ac.uk/
44
(No Transcript)
45
Recap

• Determine what you want your users to be able to
  do (your access goals)
• Consider your constraints, opportunities, and
  long-term goals
• Capture images at the best quality you can stand
• Collect metadata in an amount and form that
  supports your access goals as well as
  interoperability with relevant standards
• Never underestimate the power of a committed
  individual and a cheap scanner!

46
Final Advice

• Dont scrimp on tools staff time is the most
  expensive part of any project
• For any given project, there are several ways it
  can succeed and countless ways it can fail
• Do it right, or dont do it at all?
• NO! From the access perspective, its much
  better to do it as well as you can than to not do
  it at all.