ATTENDANCE: Susan Catlett (VCU), Bradley Daigle (UVA), Tonia Graves (ODU), Jay Gaidmore (LOV), Gail Greve (CWF), Jennifer Gunter (VT), Jim Gwin (UR), John Jaffe (SBC), Jodi Koste, (VCU), Gail McMillan (VT), Eileen Parris (VHS), Susan Riggs, (W&M), Ute Schechter (W&M) Gary Worley (VT)
Membership Review
All present introduced themselves and the group reviewed membership in response to VIVA's request to update the membership to reflect currently active members of the Task Force. The composition of the group was reviewed and contact information verified to forward to Kathy Perry for posting on the VIVA web site. Jennifer Gunter announced her departure. She is moving to Boston and getting married. Gail McMillan will serve as the Virginia Tech representative on the Task Force. All expressed their gratitude for Jennifer's excellent contributions and wished her the best in her future activities. (membership posted at: http://www.gmu.edu/library/fen/viva/vivacomm.html#VHP)
Brown vs. Board of Education Celebration
John Jaffe reviewed the request and background information on the celebration of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision anniversary. He circulated the materials submitted to date from members with items relating to the Brown vs. Board of Education and asked others who had material to submit it.
Jamestown Bibliography Project
Susan Riggs and Jodi Koste presented the Jamestown Bibliography materials and asked for updates to the listing before the next meeting. Susan noted the damage to Jamestown by Hurricane Isabel and the report of flooding from the Richmond Times Dispatch on 28 September. Once all additions are in, VHP will confirm permission from the Park Service to do the bibliography as XML as part of the VHP resources. Markup will be divided among Jay, Jodi, Susan, Ute and Wayne and Bradley will massage the information into XML. The Jamestown Foundation eventually hopes to release a CD or other format of all archaeological assessment reports and will include the bibliography there as well. All additions to the bibliography should be submitted to Susan by mid December.
Website Heuristics and Review
The committee reviewed the process for examining the website and will distribute questions for testers to use in examining the site. Libraries reviewing include Virginia Tech, Sweet Briar, Virginia State, Library of Virginia, and Old Dominion. All responses to the heuristics testing should be returned for examination at the next meeting. They will be used to improve the usability of the site. Jodi reviewed a variety of navigability issues regarding the search website with Bradley. Gail McMillan maintains the VIVA Special Collections web page and VHP administration and context pages at Virginia Tech while the search interface and all EAD management and operations are maintained at the University of Virginia. Members were requested to submit any changes to the pages at Virginia Tech to Gail. The Committee will review structure and perhaps establishment of a hierarchical design.
Grant Process Discussion -- Technical Parameters and considerations
The committee then had a working lunch and discussed technical issues regarding a digitization grant. As UVA was the lead institution for the EAD grant, Tech will be the lead institution for the digitization grant application. The committee welcomed Bradley Daigle from UVA, Gary Worley from VA Tech Digital Imaging Services, Gail McMillan, VA Tech Digital Library and Archives, and Wayne Graham, William & Mary Digital Imaging Center Director for a discussion of the technical landscape. Infrastructure practices and standards were reviewed in an effort to determine both needs and parameters for quality. Issues included:
Storage capacity is critical need. Must capture high quality TIFF 24 bit 300 DPI images at 1-1 so you can do high quality prints in meeting printing industry standards. Space can be 25 megabytes for a slide and 19 megabytes for an 8 x 10 print image.
UVA has a dozen digital areas and they capture all images at 600 DPI because it is necessary to have a high quality digital surrogate if the materials are to be treated artifactualy as well as intellectually. The example of a researcher studying Jefferson's drawings by examining the pinpricks of his compass to determine how he drew and thought of his designs. For this level work, the highest quality is necessary.
William & Mary captures at 24 bit 400 DPI.
Asset management is crucial -- who is tracking the asset -- cataloging, establishing retrieval points, etc. How available is the resource -- online or offline. Ideal would be to create all object information at capture/creation time.
Will images be served dynamically or archived and made available for service when needed.
Description standards -- metadata must examine the quality of description - need to develop considered approach to establishing metadata and a controlled vocabulary
UVA does open source development and makes results and resources freely available. This should be done in an VHP process as well.
A great deal will be needed beyond flatbed scanning. Need to address the great majority of material that cannot be handled by flatbed.
- 3D Scanner (Cyberware) costs $70k
- Studio Scan Large format cameras
- Film and slide scanners
- Digiback scanner costs $90k
- Phase I Scanbook costs $30-$40k
Mellon may fund some investigation of centralization as part of a grant that tries to determine cost benefits of digitization among diverse institutions. IMLS requires match funds for all grants.
Who will do item level descriptions when collections are only described at the collection level.
Need a way to automate the metadata process
Last grant had both a disseminated and distributed model.
Copyright and rights management must be included (permissions and fees) Outcome of project should be continuing funding stream to continue to digitize resources.
Discussed whether it was feasible to have central space with hardware, software and personnel. Gail discussed the model we have that deals with diverse institutions who have storage and access decentralized. She noted a need for a move towards a contributed model.
The question was raise on how would the project be sustained and maintained. Would VIVA be there for it or include it in funding requests.
The first grant provided for out of the box direct to EAD for collections. The next should provide a way for out of box to description to digitized which would at the same time generate EAD and metadata.
It was reported that Don Waters from Mellon just spoke at UVA about not doing "just build it and people will come" models but that Mellon was looking at projects to generate scholarly support. This one should as scholars are demanding digital access to resources. Mellon seeks "scholarly driven digitization project with buy in from faculty and guarantee of stewardship. Want it to be research driven." Currently VHP institutions are mostly patron driven with not just scholars seeking digital access -- magazines, genealogists, railroad buffs, etc. PR for collections is lacking in many cases to bring scholars in. Need testimonials to make a case statement of how to reach people. How to write case statement?
Project should test value of doing piecemeal vs collection as a whole from scratch. Doing in entirety often yields better research feedback. Need to survey researchers on what works best for them.
Maybe part of outreach and digitization is advertising what is held and to get peple both aware and to come in and realize the vast extent of archival materials held.
Mechanism for long term preservation access - mirroring
Desire for some start up funding from VIVA for standardization training. Bradley Daigle will provide the UVA specifications manual as base to develop standards.
Staffing - need base of 1 training person. Need minimum specifications and minimum metadata specifications. Some metadata comes with material but most items in archives need to be described by archivists/special collections personnel. VA Tech has homegrown image database based on Dublin Core. What other personnel - students? Regular staff? How to sustain digitization staff.
"Metadata should happen at moment of inception" -- how to do that if outsourcing digitization?
Need for standardized processes and procedures.
NEXT MEETING
The next VHPTF meeting will be held at 10:30 on December 12, 2003 at the University of Virginia in Newcomb Hall Conference Room 389.
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/viva/VHP/minutes/20030930.html
Created 12/29/03 by Mark B. Gerus