Oliver%20Spits%20Out%20a%20Finding%20Aid

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• Oliver Spits Out a Finding Aid
• Using CONTENTdm with a Database
• Susan Hamburger, Ph.D.
• Penn State University Libraries
• Society of American Archivists, August 30, 2007

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Background

• Oliver homegrown Oracle platform database
• Filemaker Pro ? MS Access
• Rudimentary export of container list
• No biog/hist, scope and content narratives
• ? SQL ? Oracle
• Merging of five databases into one
• Working on exporting EAD-tagged data
• Finding aids created individually with XMetaL
• From scratch
• Stitch together database export of container info
  plus MS Word for narrative

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Questions for Discussion

• How can we automate generating EADs from Oliver?
• How can we provide a federated search tool for
  finding aids?
• What software is out there to use?

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Considerations

• Special Collections staff doesnt know EAD
• New Processing Coordinator knows EAD
• Manuscripts Cataloger creates EAD finding aids
• Librarys Information Technology (I-Tech) staff
  doesnt know EAD, barely literate with XML and
  XSLT
• Library Dean doesnt want I-Tech to do
  development ? find out-of-the-box solution

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Ease of input of finding aid Deal breaker,
Priority 1 (when we go online), Priority 2
(within two years)
Search multiple or single EAD fields including ALL of the following Unittitle, persname, corpname, formgenre, famname, subject, scopecontent, bioghist, unit within Special Collections Deal breaker
Search results will display the EAD fields unittitle, unitdate, extent, biography, abstract Deal breaker
link to an outline view Deal breaker
link to full/print view Deal breaker
highlight the keyword in context in that display Deal breaker
Display finding aids using XSLT in outline and full text view with keyword highlights Deal breaker
Single and batch input Priority 1a
Search, results display, and finding aid display should be customized/customizable to suit Special Collections Priority 1a
Moderate to high performance in speed, usability and site navigation equal to The CAT Priority 1b
Full text searching Priority 1b
Mark results list for bookbag Priority 1c
Mark results list for email Priority 1c
Mark results list for print Priority 1c
User can sort results by frequency, author, title, date of collections Priority 1c
Refine searchmeans performing an additional search on the current set of records Priority 2a
Paraprofessional input Priority 2a
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Ease of input of finding aid Deal breaker,
Priority 1 (when we go online), Priority 2
(within two years)
Search results will
highlight all keywords in context on a separate frame Priority 2b
Display large result sets by alphabetical chunks Priority 2b
display the finding aids file size Priority 2c
Search the date field separately Priority 2c
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Task Force

• Finding Aid Platform working group formed
• 3 from I-Tech, 2 from Special Collections,
  Manuscripts Cataloger, 1 from Digital Libraries
  Technology (DLT)
• Charge To find and evaluate existing products
  that meet our criteria and make recommendation
  for implementation

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Methodology

• Survey marketplace
• Informal queries
• Society of American Archivists annual meeting
• RLG conference
• Posting the question on the archives listserv
• Searched academic libraries websites
• The survey results consisted of five potential
  products
• Archeon
• Archivists Toolkit
• CONTENTdm v. 4.2
• DLXS v. 12
• XTF

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Methodology

• Assess and evaluate the products and determine
  costs
• Create a comprehensive set of prioritized
  criteria for search and display and compatibility
  with the Library computing environment
• Two-member groups evaluated products against the
  criteria
• Populate evaluation matrix

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Prioritized Criteria List

• Graduated criteria 1 Required to 6 Desired
• Back End
• 2 Supports Unicode
• 2 Ability to load full and minimal finding aids
• 2 Easily customizable end user output/display
• Specifications
• 5 Back end user tools for data load, maintenance
• 1 Product support
• Licensing issues?

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Prioritized Criteria List

• Graduated criteria 1 Required to 6 Desired
• Rights Management
• 3 Authorization at collection level and field
  level
• Search Functionality
• 3 Full text searchable across finding aids as a
  whole
• 3 Keyword searchable across multiple, selected
  fields
• 3 Search across all collections in system or
  across pre-determined subsets of collections
• 2 Browse collections
• 3 Search format and index terms
• 6 Search by date
• 3 Persistent navigation (prefer static outline
  view while scrolling through finding aid)
• 4 PURLs to individual finding aids

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Prioritized Criteria List

• Graduated criteria 1 Required to 6 Desired
• End User Output
• Export output/download METS/MODS/Dublin Core
• 1 Output includes both outline view and full view
• 1 Search term highlighted in results list (brief)
  and full finding aid view
• 1 Search results display 4 EAD fields Unittitle,
  unitdate, extent, abstract
• 6 Large result set, represented in alpha list as
  intermediate navigation rather than number ranges
  (e.g., ABC ) vs. (1-300, 301-500, etc.)
• 4 Results sorted by relevance, and author, title
• 6 Results sorted by date
• 4 Save marked list from result set
• 4 Print, review, email, etc. from marked list
• 3 Refine search from results list
• 6 Display finding aid file size
• 6 ADA Compliant (AD54)

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Prioritized Criteria List

• Other desirables, not prioritized
• Discovery/Sharing
• OAI Harvesting
• Findable/crawlable by RLG spiders, etc.
• Findable by Google, etc.
• Compatible within Course Management tools
• Supports inter-institutional sharing of
  collections/items, etc.
• Individual contributions of material to library
  collections (p2p-like)
• Federated search support
• Ability to add link to CAT record from Finding
  Aid metadata

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Evaluation of Software

• Archeon and Archivists Toolkit did not meet
  critical search and display criteria
• XTF did not meet criteria for technical support
• DLXS met all criteria established for a search
  and display, but would require significant local
  development to meet criteria for back-end
  dispersed processing of finding aids (e.g.,
  non-technical staff at any location can process
  material)
• The current version of CONTENTdm v.4.2 would
  require significant local development to
  accommodate the large Special Collections finding
  aids
• Discussion with the developer at CONTENTdm
  revealed that an improved version CONTENTdm which
  fully supports XML ingest, indexing, output and
  large field sizes is in development and will be
  announced this summer

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Recommendations

• Continue to develop the export function to
  generate valid EAD finding aids from Oliver
• Participate in the development of CONTENTdm v.n
  ßeta
• Evaluate CONTENTdm v.n ßeta at its production
  release against defined criteria
• If the production release meets our criteria
• Implement CONTENTdm as our production system by
  January 2008
• If the production release does not meet our
  criteria
• Recommend a revised investigation of existing/new
  products

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Projected Plan

• Work with CONTENTdm in the ßeta trial of
  CONTENTdm v.n and launch digital finding aids in
  January 2008 at the latest
• Timeline February July 2007
• Create Best Practices Guidelines
• Clean up data in Oliver
• Develop export tools to generate EAD finding aids
• Develop XSLT stylesheets
• July November 2007
• Work with CONTENTdm on development and ßeta
  testing of new release
• Submit our list of criteria to CONTENTdm as they
  initiate their development
• January 2008
• Launch next release of CONTENTdm and put finding
  aids into production or revert to backup plan
• If ßeta version fails to meet expected timeline
  or criteria, especially for ingest, XML mapping,
  and large field size, platform project evaluation
  team will confirm these circumstances with OCLC
  and reevaluate available platform products
  against existing criteria and recommend to IT
  Priorities

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Ongoing Development

• Usability testing
• Continued modification of output style sheets in
  response to usability testing recommendations
• Regular scan of marketplace to monitor new
  products

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Resources Needed

• Staffing
• Implementation team with representatives from
  I-Tech and Special Collections to move this plan
  forward
• Digital Library Technologies support will be
  required if the ßeta release is available to be
  installed locally on a development server

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Resources Needed

• Training
• Oracle 10g XML Fundamentals training to support
  the work involved in extracting EAD2002 XML
  finding aids out of the Oliver database
• XSLT refresher training may be needed for I-Tech
  personnel

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Conclusion

• Because of infrastructure and policies, we had to
  select product with least amount of customization
  and programming
• DLXS is hard to ingest, but looks good and
  functions well
• CONTENTdm is easy to ingest, but doesnt have
  functionality required for finding aids
• Open source software requires dedicated staff
  with expertise we dont have

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Recommendations

• Determine your needs
• Systematically evaluate products
• Have a timeline goal for decision making
• Know your technical limitations
• Include key personnel in planning

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Contact

• Susan Hamburger, Ph.D.
• The Pennsylvania State University
• Paterno Library
• Cataloging and Metadata Services
• University Park, PA 16802
• sxh36_at_psulias.psu.edu
• 814-865-1756
• FAX [phone]
• http//www.personal.psu.edu/sxh36/

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Here are Oliver and some documents

• Oliver database
• Special Collections finding aids Web pages
• http//www.lias.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/fin
  daids.htm
• http//www.lias.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/sub
  jectlist.html
• http//www.lias.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/ame
  rican.html
• http//www.lias.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/oha
  ra.frame.html
• Finding Aids Platform Product Details MS Word ?
  HTML document

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Finding Aids Platform Product Details

• lta hrefhttp//www.personal.psu.edu/sxh36/appendix
  a.htmgtAppendix Alt/agt