ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Flora and Fauna of the Great Lakes Region: A Multimedia Digital Collection

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Collaborators University Library - –Major investment in digital library content, infrastructure and architecture Museum of Zoology and Herbarium –Strong collections; increasing pressure to serve a wider audience especially via the Web Exhibits Museum of Natural History

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Project Goals To develop increased access to the Great Lakes region portions of the Museums collections To develop an extensible infrastructure for putting natural history collections online To explore, prototype and test tools for using the online resources for a variety of scholarly and educational purposes

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Museum Goals Additional support for digitizing collections Opening their collections to new audiences Opportunity to explore partnership with the Library –Support for maintenance and long-term access to their data

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library (screen shot)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library (screen shot)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Library Goals Extend digital library support from the humanities to the natural sciences Test the ability of the existing architecture to support new subjects and methods of inquiry Extend digital library architecture to include cross-class searching - text, image, collection database records

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Digital Library Holdings at the University of Michigan Holdings as of March 2001 –Full electronic text 31,558 –Pages/images 6,684,342 –Bibliographic Records 57,081,109 –Words 2,536,312,477 –Bytes190,629,303,672

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Digital Library Architecture at the University of Michigan Image class –Federation of diverse collection databases –Support for image retrieval Text class Other classes such as bibliographic data and archival finding aids Retrieval software available for licensing Middleware is Open Source (DLXS)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library New Challenge - Cross-Class Searching To facilitate searching across text, image, and collection database records To return results to users in ways that will be useful to them, rather than simply reflecting the characteristics of the underlying systems

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library New Content Supplementing the museum collection databases with: –Field notes Surrogate records and page images –Images New photography and digitization of existing slides and negatives –Major monographs Full text searching

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library New Audiences Non-specialist users –Lifelong learners –Undergraduate students –K-12 users Specialist users working in areas such as biodiversity research - working outside the confines of a single discipline

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Metadata Challenges Federate data from multiple existing databases Augment data to serve new audience and uses Create metadata for new materials Provide basis for coherent shared displays of search results

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Collections Databases—Federation Fish Catalog Mammals Databases Fungus Catalog Field Notes (New Content) Digital Library Metadata Image Metadata

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Mammals Example Primary ID LastMod Catalog Alcohol Skeleton Clear Stain Genus Species Subspecies Field[#] Determiner Cataloger Type Status Size Remarks Location ID LOCAcronym LOCDATE Latitude D Latitude M Latitude S Longitude D Longitude M Longitude S Latitude NS Longitude EW Map Data Map Code LocField OceanCont Country State County Gear Collectors LocTime Drainage Temp. Depth Locality LocRemarks (incl. Orig Field #) UMMZ Zoology Database Fields Table 1 Table 2 Museum no. Sex Skin Skull Skeleton Fluid Baculum Glans Karyotype Field no. Day Month Year Country Locality Collector LN Initials 2nd collector Initials Order Family Genus Species Subspecies Batch no. Comments # individuals State County Rodents database fields

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Augmenting Existing Content Common Names Geospatial Referencing Dates

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Collections Databases—Federation Fish Catalog Mammals Databases Fungus Catalog Field Notes (New Content) Digital Library Metadata Image Metadata Species Name Lookups Geospatial Lookups ISO Date Lookups

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Collections Databases—Augmentation Fish Catalog Mammals Databases Fungus Catalog Digital Library Metadata Species Name Lookups Geospatial Lookups ISO Date Lookups

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library New Databases Field Notes Image Metadata

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Field Notes Structure—Collection Event Collection Event Species Account Field Catalog (projected) Collector Data Species Table Volume Data Page Image Table Location Data Join File

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Field Notes Structure—Species Account Collection Event Species Account Field Catalog (projected) Collector Data Species Table Volume Data Page Image Table Location Data Join File

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library New Processes Matching field content to authoritative forms for lookup construction (A miracle happens here) Lookup export to originating databases (if time and funds permit)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Mapping Image Collections into the Image Services Metadata Structure (what do art and fungi have in common?)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Dual Model of Image Representation VRA Representation Model Work=physical entity that exists, has existed at some time in the past, or that could exist in the future (fish, field notes page, painting, etc) Image=a visual representation of a work

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Work/Image Relationships One work may have multiple image representations (picture of whole frog, frog parts, x-rays, etc.) Images may have sequential derivations (photo is digitized, digital file has thumbnail, etc.)

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Separating Work Data from Image Data Frog=Work Photo of Frog=Image Digitized Photo of Frog (derived image) Frog=Work Photographer Photograph Date Collector Collection Date Digitizer Digitization Date Data is inherited

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Why? Work only needs to be described once Image history is documented Each image is associated with data (like creation dates) that are specific to its existence

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Storing data in the Digital Library Image database relates work and image metadata Metadata exported as records with 1:1 correspondence with image file names Digital Library stores metadata and image files using standard image class model core categories User search calls up metadata and linked images

ASC Annual Meeting June 9, 2001University of Michigan - University Library Desired result Users can search across classes and collections using core fields (species, common name, location, date) or keywords Users can search within collections using fields chosen from originating database Displays can be customized to show common or custom field labels.