Waypoints A Digital Archive of U.S. Coast Guard History Final Project Presentation Ken Langford

U.S. Coast Guard Historical Archive  Maintained by U.S. Coast Guard historians office in Washington, D.C.  Donated materials from donors/donor groups; materials collected by USCG historians  Size of collection ~200K artifacts (depends on who you ask)

Diverse Collection of Artifacts  Physical artifacts (e.g., lighthouse lenses, artistic works)  Historical files (e.g., case documents of the Titanic sinking)  Photographic images

Current Storage Solution

Current Access Method (paper)

Current Access Method (digital)

Flow Model

The Solution: Waypoints  Administrative interface Capture information on artifacts in a structured, consistent way Add U.S. Coast Guard-specific metadata to enrich collection  Public interface Access entire collection online Promote exploration of underutilized (public) materials

Conceptual Design: Usage Info  Administrative interface Users:historians, record keepers Needs: uncomplicated, fast input Tasks: record input, metadata creation, retrieve data  Public interface Users: USCG retirees, historians, public Needs:support content retrieval Tasks:subject browse, keyword search

Conceptual Design: Data  Entities Artifact  Photograph, historic document, physical artifact, video, oral history, artwork Creator Donor Collection Historian Historian Review

Conceptual Design: Metadata  Year  Person  Thing  Event  Mission  Unit  Organization  Location

Faceted (hierarchal) Metadata

ArtifactID Artifact User UserID Donor Creator Collection Historian Review Historian OralHistory Physical Artifact Video Historic Document Artwork CreatorID DonorID CollectionID HistorianReveiwID HistorianID ArtworkID HistoricDocumentID PhysicalArtifactID OralHistoryID VideoID CreatorID DonorID CollectionID Photograph PhotographID ArtifactID HistorianReviewID ArtifactID Logical Design ArtifactID HistorianID DonorID

ArtifactID Artifact CreatorID DonorID CollectionID HistorianReviewID Year OrganizationAssociation MissionAssociation UnitAssociation ThingAssociation LocationAssociation PersonAssociation EventAssociation associationID artifactID personFacetID thingFacetID eventFacetID missionFacetID unitFacetID organizationFacetID locationFacetID associationID artifactID associationID artifactID associationID artifactID associationID artifactID associationID artifactID associationID artifactID Person Thing Event Mission Unit Organization Location Logical Design (continued)

ER Diagram

Logical Design Design Challenges Artifact sub-classing  Deciding which types of artifacts to represent  Handling photos Metadata structure and associations  Conveying many to many relationship  Designing a UI for a faceted metadata hierarchy

Physical Design  PHP and MySQL Implemented logical design in MySQL 4.1 and MySQL 3.23 Access Waypoints DB using PHP via Web DB management done primarily with phpMyAdmin & PHP scripts

UI Design  Users  Tasks  Competitive evaluations  Heuristic evaluation  Testing, retesting

Users  System administrator  Subject matter expert  Casual browser

Tasks  Data entry System log in Add, update, & delete records Review records  Content review Search (including save, recall, & sort) Browse View images & descriptive content Submit feedback Link to other resources

Task Analysis

Scenarios  A new find Sorting through new materials & adding data to database  Searching for a friend Helping a friend locate materials about their time in the service  A history lesson Researching a topic for a paper

Competitive Evaluation  The Flamenco Search Interface Project (University of California)  The Charles W. Cushman Photography Collection (University of Indiana)  The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive  MuseoSuomi (MuseumFinland)  The San Francisco Public Library  The International Children’s Digital Library

Competitive Eval (cont’d)

Paper Prototype

Main (intro) Page

Initial Browse

Mid-Level Browse

End Browse

Paper Prototype (cont’d)

Record Entry

Metadata Association

Hi-fi Prototyping  Web interface Photo input (record entry) Photo input Photo detail (end browse) Photo detail

First Interactive Prototype

Browsing

Administration

Demo  Let’s take a look Let’s take a look

Executive Summary A digital archive meets organizational goals DB design supports information needs Both browsing & search are used to locate content System received positive feedback from users Continued development is necessary

Lessons Learned  Faceted (hierarchal) metadata can be challenging for users to understand  It’s all about iterative design, testing, & development  Need a more comprehensive “controlled vocabulary” to help develop facets/categorization

Future Development Plans  Develop administrative interface Allow administrators to add artifacts Add capability to add metadata and assign it to artifacts  Continue adding data  Evolve the public UI based on user feedback  Develop social component to allow community input

What’s Next  Continue efforts to have system incorporated into CG enterprise architecture  Work with Foundation for CG History (non-profit) to host system during interim  Develop new ideas & continue to champion a CG digital library

Waypoints Questions?