While the first round of articles I read last week were definitely a bit over my head, I feel I am starting to understand better the whole concept of EAD and how it works. I generally need to try something out in order to really grasp it, so the time I spent yesterday actually working with an EAD document was pretty helpful. Jen had Joanna and I copy an EAD template online from a finding aid for a collection at the UC Irvine libraries, and replace the content with elements from Iowa Women's Archives finding aids. It was good practice, and helped me see how an EAD document is structured and how it relates to an HTML finding aid. I could only get so far with the document because the UC and UI finding aids were structured differently enough that they appeared to be only partially translatable. I also didn't understand what all the tags meant. There's still a steep learning curve to overcome, but it has gotten a little less intimidating.
On Thursday, Joanna, Jen and I had a meeting with Greg Prickman from Special Collections. The purpose was to assess the scope and format of finding aids currently being used in that department, to give us a clearer idea of what we'll be dealing with in planning the EAD migration. Joanna and I prepared a set of questions about the collections and how they are described. We learned that there are approximately 2,000 finding aids, and that they are all in HTML created from a standard template. This is good news, as it should make the creation of EAD records easier.
We will also schedule meetings with representatives from University Archives and the Iowa Women's Archive to learn about their collections. Next week, we will revisit the EAD templates we started; meet with Sue Julich to get an introduction to Archon, an archival information system; and continue doing research.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Week 1 (2.0): New Semester, New Project
After finishing up the recipe pamphlet digital collection over winter break, and taking a much-needed breather from school, I'm gearing up to start a brand new project this semester. And I have a partner! Joanna Lee and I are going to be working together on the Encoded Archival Description (EAD) pilot collection. I will again be working in Digital Library Services, with Jen Wolfe and Sue Julich as project mentors.
For any non-library types in the audience, EAD is an XML markup language that enables encoding of archival finding aids into records that are platform-independent, machine-readable, and fully searchable. In other words, it will allow users to search across various online indexes of archival collections, which are currently not standardized.
This project should prove to be fairly different from the previous one, as it will involve figuring out how to implement a new process that isn't yet in place. This will require researching how other institutions have used EAD and determining the best way to begin using it at the U of I Libraries. As I understand it, the end goal is to produce a prototype EAD collection on which to base future migration of HTML finding aids.
Our first assignment from Jen has been to research EAD and find case studies discussing its integration into other institutions' collections. We are looking at online resources and reading articles from LIS journals. On Monday, we'll be meeting with her to discuss what we've learned. The next step will be to start analyzing other EAD sites on the Web.
For any non-library types in the audience, EAD is an XML markup language that enables encoding of archival finding aids into records that are platform-independent, machine-readable, and fully searchable. In other words, it will allow users to search across various online indexes of archival collections, which are currently not standardized.
This project should prove to be fairly different from the previous one, as it will involve figuring out how to implement a new process that isn't yet in place. This will require researching how other institutions have used EAD and determining the best way to begin using it at the U of I Libraries. As I understand it, the end goal is to produce a prototype EAD collection on which to base future migration of HTML finding aids.
Our first assignment from Jen has been to research EAD and find case studies discussing its integration into other institutions' collections. We are looking at online resources and reading articles from LIS journals. On Monday, we'll be meeting with her to discuss what we've learned. The next step will be to start analyzing other EAD sites on the Web.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Week 15: Wrapping Up
This week I wrapped up the web interface design, except for one feature on the home page allowing users to search pamphlets by category. That probably won't be active until all the pamphlets have been added. But other than that, everything is basically done. I got feedback from Sid in Special Collections, and made some adjustments based on his suggestions. I've gotten positive responses from everyone I've shown the design to, and I am very happy with the end product. I was lucky to have a good web designer to work with, as I couldn't have made it look nearly as good on my own. Thanks Linda!
I also began receiving some assistance from Bobby, the DLS library assistant, who has started scanning and cropping pamphlets for me to upload and catalog. This saves a lot of time on my end and will enable me to expand the collection size considerably. The help is greatly appreciated. Bobby will continue where I left off when I finish my stint on the project, so I went over with him my criteria for selecting pamphlets and showed him where they are located in Special Collections. Since I've only had time to look through maybe half the boxes containing pamphlets, I will leave him a list so he knows which ones to focus on after I'm gone.
I didn't get around to working on my presentation for finals week, so I'll start that next week in addition to continuing with production.
I also began receiving some assistance from Bobby, the DLS library assistant, who has started scanning and cropping pamphlets for me to upload and catalog. This saves a lot of time on my end and will enable me to expand the collection size considerably. The help is greatly appreciated. Bobby will continue where I left off when I finish my stint on the project, so I went over with him my criteria for selecting pamphlets and showed him where they are located in Special Collections. Since I've only had time to look through maybe half the boxes containing pamphlets, I will leave him a list so he knows which ones to focus on after I'm gone.
I didn't get around to working on my presentation for finals week, so I'll start that next week in addition to continuing with production.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Week 14: Lots of Editing
I didn't post last week because of Thanksgiving break. I did, however, go into DLS Monday through Wednesday afternoons and work on production. This week, I focused mainly on editing both web page text and metadata. I re-tooled my essay to include links to pamphlets in the digital collection, to illustrate the main points of the text. I think it helps strengthen the historical analysis and make the essay more relevant and interesting to read.
I also went over the metadata for all the pamphlets I've digitized so far, and made some adjustments. Looking at the metadata I created at the beginning of the project with fresh eyes, hit home for me how subjective the process can be. There's a lot of wiggle room for making judgments about how to catalog things, and it's still somewhat elusive to me. But I've definitely learned a lot from being forced to do it on the fly. I'm looking forward to taking a cataloging class to get a firmer grasp on it.
Linda and I continued to work on the web interface. It's really coming along, and I'm happy with how it looks. I plan to show it to the content providers (Sid and David in Special Collections) next week, and see if there are any changes they'd like to make.
I also heard from Nicki that there is a possibility DLS may be able to provide some extra scanning resources for the project. This would be great, as there are many pamphlets I would love to add but wouldn't have time to scan myself. I am already planning to do production work over winter break to increase the size of the collection, so hopefully this means I will end up with at least 50 pamphlets (I'm currently at 41).
Next week, I plan to wrap up the main aspects of the web interface design, start preparing for the public presentation of fellowship projects on the 19th, and do as much production work as possible.
I also went over the metadata for all the pamphlets I've digitized so far, and made some adjustments. Looking at the metadata I created at the beginning of the project with fresh eyes, hit home for me how subjective the process can be. There's a lot of wiggle room for making judgments about how to catalog things, and it's still somewhat elusive to me. But I've definitely learned a lot from being forced to do it on the fly. I'm looking forward to taking a cataloging class to get a firmer grasp on it.
Linda and I continued to work on the web interface. It's really coming along, and I'm happy with how it looks. I plan to show it to the content providers (Sid and David in Special Collections) next week, and see if there are any changes they'd like to make.
I also heard from Nicki that there is a possibility DLS may be able to provide some extra scanning resources for the project. This would be great, as there are many pamphlets I would love to add but wouldn't have time to scan myself. I am already planning to do production work over winter break to increase the size of the collection, so hopefully this means I will end up with at least 50 pamphlets (I'm currently at 41).
Next week, I plan to wrap up the main aspects of the web interface design, start preparing for the public presentation of fellowship projects on the 19th, and do as much production work as possible.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Week 12: Lots of Writing
My major task this week was composing the webpage text. I started out with a 2-paragraph introduction for the homepage, briefly explaining who Louis Szathmary was, what the recipe pamphlet collection entails, and the scope of the digital collection. This was the easy part. For the "value-added" aspect of the collection, I culled what I considered to be the most relevant information from my research into food history and composed an 8-paragraph essay, which will be on a linked page. It touches on the major factors that influenced the shift in the American diet between 1880 - 1930: advances in agriculture and technology; the emergence of "Food Science" and food purity laws; advertising; and social trends.
There is so much information surrounding this topic, that it's difficult to know where to draw the line. The text needs to give complete and accurate information, while not being so long and detailed that the reader loses interest. Writing the essay is also a challenge because I am by no means an expert on the subject, so I can only hope I'm doing it justice based on the limited amount of research I've had time for. Since I'm doing a fairly broad overview, I think I'll be able to avoid making any obvious errors -- at least, nothing anyone other than a food historian would notice!
Linda gave me a look at the webpage with the first draft of text inserted, and it seemed like it might be a bit too long. I'm working on editing it for brevity and will continue to do revisions in the coming weeks. I will also start drafting a project continuation plan to present to DLS at the end of the semester, outlining steps to be taken to complete the project after I've finished my part. And of course, I will continue with production work.
There is so much information surrounding this topic, that it's difficult to know where to draw the line. The text needs to give complete and accurate information, while not being so long and detailed that the reader loses interest. Writing the essay is also a challenge because I am by no means an expert on the subject, so I can only hope I'm doing it justice based on the limited amount of research I've had time for. Since I'm doing a fairly broad overview, I think I'll be able to avoid making any obvious errors -- at least, nothing anyone other than a food historian would notice!
Linda gave me a look at the webpage with the first draft of text inserted, and it seemed like it might be a bit too long. I'm working on editing it for brevity and will continue to do revisions in the coming weeks. I will also start drafting a project continuation plan to present to DLS at the end of the semester, outlining steps to be taken to complete the project after I've finished my part. And of course, I will continue with production work.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Week 11: More Of The Same
This week, Linda sent me a link to a preliminary design for the collection homepage. I thought it looked great and was happy to see my ideas manifested on the screen. I won't reveal it until the unveiling of the collection though. I'm sure there will be changes made in the meantime.
One change I'm already considering is to replace the historical timeline with an essay. When I started working on the first draft of the text, it began to seem like an essay would be a better format as it would allow me to better integrate factual information with analysis. I plan to get that to Linda this week so she can incorporate it into the web design. I'm sure I will continue to revise and edit it over the next month, but it will be helpful for this process to be able see how the text fits in with the graphical interface.
Other than that, I did more production work. I think I've uploaded 32 documents now. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll meet my target of 50 after all.
I also spent some time reading about XML and learning how to use the Oxygen editor, since I missed our last seminar and hadn't gotten the in-class tutorial. Knowing basic HTML certainly helps to make sense of XML. I don't claim to have a terribly strong grasp of it yet, but it seems to be a useful tool for data description. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to incorporate it in a future fellowship project, since it is something that I may well need to use someday on the job.
One change I'm already considering is to replace the historical timeline with an essay. When I started working on the first draft of the text, it began to seem like an essay would be a better format as it would allow me to better integrate factual information with analysis. I plan to get that to Linda this week so she can incorporate it into the web design. I'm sure I will continue to revise and edit it over the next month, but it will be helpful for this process to be able see how the text fits in with the graphical interface.
Other than that, I did more production work. I think I've uploaded 32 documents now. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll meet my target of 50 after all.
I also spent some time reading about XML and learning how to use the Oxygen editor, since I missed our last seminar and hadn't gotten the in-class tutorial. Knowing basic HTML certainly helps to make sense of XML. I don't claim to have a terribly strong grasp of it yet, but it seems to be a useful tool for data description. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to incorporate it in a future fellowship project, since it is something that I may well need to use someday on the job.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Week 10: Web Design
This week, I split my time between production and web design. As mentioned in my previous post, I had a meeting scheduled with Nicki and the DLS web designer, Linda Roth, for Friday. Up to this point I've only had vague ideas about how I wanted the collection's home page to look, so I browsed other digital libraries to get ideas for finalizing my own design. Some that incorporated especially creative design elements were the New York Public Library, Cornell University, The University of Washington, and The University of California - Berkeley.
Feeling inspired, I sat down to sketch out some possible designs. I made a couple of schematics for pages featuring introductory text, a link to another page with a timeline of food production/marketing from 1880-1930, and "canned" search links for the categories of food, kitchen appliances, and medicines. The main differences are in layout and graphics. One idea I had was to have the collection title display as if it were printed on an actual pamphlet, with an accompanying image from one of the pamphlet covers. Another is to cut an image out of one of the pamphlets to use as the main graphic -- specifically, the Domino Sugar girl. I'm leaning toward the latter. The search links will likely have thumbnail images of pamphlet covers, and each decade on the time line would have an accompanying thumbnail. An alternate idea is to have an image faded-in beneath the text on the time line page.
I was trying to be a little conservative, because while I am a novice at both HTML and Dreamweaver, I don't know much about creating more sophisticated web pages and wasn't sure what sorts of features would actually be feasible for Linda to incorporate. But after showing her my ideas, she said she thought they were all doable. She took my sketches so she could play around with them and come up with some examples before we finalize things. Getting the home page fleshed out feels like a big step in realizing the digital collection, and it's exciting to envision the final product. It's hard to believe I've gotten to this point in just a couple of months.
Next week, I will continue to do production part of the time while working on first drafts for the home page introductory and time line texts. I will also continue to refine my web design ideas in terms of details such as font type, color scheme, and layout.
Feeling inspired, I sat down to sketch out some possible designs. I made a couple of schematics for pages featuring introductory text, a link to another page with a timeline of food production/marketing from 1880-1930, and "canned" search links for the categories of food, kitchen appliances, and medicines. The main differences are in layout and graphics. One idea I had was to have the collection title display as if it were printed on an actual pamphlet, with an accompanying image from one of the pamphlet covers. Another is to cut an image out of one of the pamphlets to use as the main graphic -- specifically, the Domino Sugar girl. I'm leaning toward the latter. The search links will likely have thumbnail images of pamphlet covers, and each decade on the time line would have an accompanying thumbnail. An alternate idea is to have an image faded-in beneath the text on the time line page.
I was trying to be a little conservative, because while I am a novice at both HTML and Dreamweaver, I don't know much about creating more sophisticated web pages and wasn't sure what sorts of features would actually be feasible for Linda to incorporate. But after showing her my ideas, she said she thought they were all doable. She took my sketches so she could play around with them and come up with some examples before we finalize things. Getting the home page fleshed out feels like a big step in realizing the digital collection, and it's exciting to envision the final product. It's hard to believe I've gotten to this point in just a couple of months.
Next week, I will continue to do production part of the time while working on first drafts for the home page introductory and time line texts. I will also continue to refine my web design ideas in terms of details such as font type, color scheme, and layout.
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