NEW WAYS OF EXPOSING DIGITAL LIBRARY CONTENT: “WOLFWALK” AND “NORTH CAROLINA ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS” Jason Casden, Joseph Ryan and Markus Wust North Carolina State University Libraries NCLA Conference 2009 October 9, 2009

About the Project  NCSU Libraries’ first digital publishing project  Biographical dictionary of architects, builders, and other artisans who had been active in North Carolina  Basic information on their buildings  Innovative information discovery tools  Currently over 200 individuals, families, and firms and 1,600 buildings  Eventually between 500 and 600 individuals, families, and firms

Project History  Work on biographical dictionary of architects and builders in North Carolina began in late 1970s  Split into two volumes, first volume on history of building practice published by Catherine W. Bishir, Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III in 1990 as “Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building”  Hiatus

Collaboration  Multiple departments at NCSU Libraries  Currently almost 40 authors, many more contributors  Preservation North Carolina  State institutions, libraries, other cultural institutions, and private contributors who provided images and research support  Users who provide corrections and additional information

Project History  Project was reactivated in 2004  Switch to a digital publishing model in 2006  Project launched on June 24, 2009

Content Creation  Content created by Editor-in-Chief and external authors  In-house editing and data entry  Content stored as XML (data for bibliographies in MySQL database)  Each person and building has a separate XML file  Commercial XML editor, other tools custom-built  Repeated content review during editing/data entry  Incorporating user feedback after publishing -> advantage of digital publication

Demonstration

Technology Components 1. XML record creation 1. Ephox EditLive! + some homegrown tools 2. Data processing 1. Custom python scripting + python templates 3. Data indexing for search and browse 1. solr via solrpy 4. User Interface 1. solr/XSLT + jQuery + custom Javascript

Thank you! Joseph Ryan Markus Wust