Category Archives: Member Projects

Lyon (no tigers!), but METADATA? – Oh My!

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First Parish in Brookline (FPB) Archives Project to bring 300 years of history out of the woods…

by Elizabeth Cousins, Archivist, First Parish in Brookline

 

Chapter One: First Steps on the “road of yellow bricks.”

Lyon Chapel at FPB, named after William Henry Lyon, Sixth Minister, is a lovely space where spirits are moved, ideas are exchanged and plans put into action. This is where ‘archives talk’ evolved into the Archives Project, driven by several factors: In 2012 the basement flooded. The rescued records were moved to premium space that administration could put to other use since our parish is growing; I, a trained Archivist, finally had time to commit to volunteering; and, FPB is anticipating its’ Tercentennial in 2017. During coffee hour over several Sundays, parishioners, the Minister and committee members expressed interest in access to historical records for a variety of reasons. These reasons in turn became the driver for joining Digital Commonwealth. Certain record series have high informational value for ongoing planning, strategic initiatives and reference purposes. We want to digitize these series so multiple committee members can access them remotely, so that Dr. Rev. Sherblom can search sermons by keyword, and to enable parishioners and the community at large to discover and explore our 300 years of evolution as a community of worship and social action.

During the Digital Commonwealth Conference (2014), I spoke with BPL Digitization Services staff. I described where the records were on the continuum of arrangement and description. In preparation for developing work plans for our processing priorities, I wanted to obtain their spreadsheet to capture required metadata before processing is begun. As it turns out, the spreadsheet is being revised, and the actual first step is submitting the online application for digitization services – DONE!

The next step is a Team site visit, scheduled for early July. I’ll report on my second step down the “road of yellow bricks” next month!

Public Librarian Partnership Program: First Meeting

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A group of 14 public librarians gathered at the Boston Public Library on April 16, 2014 for the Public Librarian Partnership Program (PLPP). This is the first of three workshops offered by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to work directly with public librarians across the state to produce an exhibit of national interest from the wealth of material in the various archives . The goal is to have a total of 45 librarians attend these one day workshops by August 2014.

World War I Poster - Victory Girls
World War I Poster – Victory Girls, Springfield College Archives and Special Collections

 

 

Presenters from the Boston Public Library for the April workshop were Anna Fahey-Flynn (Collaborative Library Services Manager), Danny Pucci (Lead Digital Projects Librarian)  and Nichole (Metadata Mob member). Representing the Digital Public Library of  America (DPLA)  were Amy Ruddersdorf (Assistant Director for Content) and Franky Abbott (Project Manager). Information was provided in a well  organized, empowering and collaborative way and throughout the workshop we were reminded of the network and assistance  available through BPL and the network that is being created.

Davis & Furber Textile Machinery
Davis & Furber Textile Machinery, Lawrence Public Library Collection

 

 

 

Initially, there was an overview of the PLPP and how the various agencies – DPLA, BPL and Digital Commonwealth — work together cooperatively. Material was presented on evaluating an institution’s collection for material that has local significance but will interest a national and international audience. Issues such as raising awareness on copyright and urging the use of Creative Commons were discussed along with creating metadata and making use of help available through the Metadata Mob at the BPL. Some interesting themes emerged as possible exhibit topics: fires, floods, or other disasters; Civil War and World War I; shoe, textile, and  optical industries – many, many possibilities! The participants were excited with the seemingly endless number of possibilities and discussed the various aspects of potential collaborations.

 

The tour of the BPL Digital Imaging Lab, the Internet Archive, and the Metadata Mob office was excellent as it was an opportunity to finally meet all these great folks that have made the digitization of so many new collections by Digital Commonwealth members possible and who have guided all these collaborative projects through the various processes. And at the end there was an opportunity to visit the Dear Boston exhibit! Kudos to the curators!

For a schedule of the workshops and registration information visit this blog post: http://blog.digitalcommonwealth.org/?p=264.

More details about the PLPP is available in this DPLA blog by Franky Abbott: http://dp.la/info/2014/02/14/partnering-with-public-libraries/

Submitted by Margaret Morrissey
Library Director
Jacob Edwards Library

Metadata Work Party Report, By Carol A. Kelly

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Editor’s note: members of Digital Commonwealth’s Outreach Committee organized a metadata work party for Digital Commonwealth members.  Digital Commonwealth would like to thank

  1. the Jacob Edwards Library, Southbridge, Mass., for hosting the event
  2. the staff from the Boston Public Library (Digital Commonwealth’s technology partner) for providing excellent metadata instruction in a friendly manner
  3. the participants, including Carol Kelly, who kindly offered to summarize the event in this blog post.

Additional metadata work parties will be scheduled in the future. Please email nheywood@masshist.org for more information.

If the term “metadata work party” doesn’t excite you then you’d want to skip this workshop.  But if you’re like me and already elbow-deep in digitization, sort of learning new skills as you go and hoping you’re getting it right – this was the place for you.  We understood that the Digital Commonwealth folks were piloting this program with us and planning on offering more of this sort of thing so it’s worth a short critique….it was great.  Does that seem a little too non-evaluative?  Let me add details.

The introduction helped me get a clearer grasp of what the Digital Commonwealth (DC) is doing and how they’ll harvest the metadata we develop in our individual projects. I was especially interested in understanding that the DC can host the metadata for a collection that our home libraries may keep on their server or host the actual collection. We also were reminded that the DC will assist in digitization but that we need to provide the metadata.  Then they got right to the very complete set of links they’d organized for us.

If you’re a librarian, you’ll be familiar with the concept of  “authority” files.  If not, the concept is simple – an authority file lets

Metadata mob
Metadata mobsters

you standardize how you refer to people/places/things so they can be sorted and organized easily.  The workshop offered us links to authority files on, among other things, geographic names, images and the lovely MODS file from the Library of Congress.( Go and look at it http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/)  So rule one in developing metadata – use the authority files!  These links alone were worth the drive to Southbridge.

Then we moved right to the “work” part of the meeting.  Tom Blake, Digital Projects Manager, and Danny Pucci, Lead Digital Projects Librarian, had brought additional BPL staff along, laughingly named the metadata mob.*  As we began creating the metadata for the images we’d brought with us, each group got one of these highly skilled people to sit with us, looking over our shoulders, answering all our particular questions and guiding us to figure out how to bounce between the authority files and the form from the Digital Commonwealth.  There’s nothing like doing something with an expert to coach.  I think we all felt we got it and can easily move from this little workshop to creating good metadata files that will easily translate to the Digital Commonwealth website and provide access to everyone. As I said before – it was a great workshop.

 

By Carol A. Kelly, Member of the Board of the Friends, Sawyer Free Library, Gloucester

 

*Monica Shin, Nichole Shea, and Sarah Hayes