1. Oliver Spits Out a Finding Aid
Using CONTENTdm with a Database
Susan Hamburger, Ph.D.
Penn State University Libraries
Society of American Archivists, August 30, 2007

2. Background “Oliver” homegrown Oracle platform database
Filemaker Pro → MS Access
Rudimentary export of container list
No biog/hist, scope and content narratives
→ SQL → Oracle
Merging of five databases into one
Working on exporting EAD-tagged data
Finding aids created individually with XMetaL
From scratch
Stitch together database export of container info plus MS Word for narrative

3. Questions for Discussion
How can we automate generating EADs from Oliver?
How can we provide a federated search tool for finding aids?
What software is out there to use?

4. Considerations Special Collections staff doesn’t know EAD
New Processing Coordinator knows EAD
Manuscripts Cataloger creates EAD finding aids
Library’s Information Technology (I-Tech) staff doesn’t know EAD, barely literate with XML and XSLT
Library Dean doesn’t want I-Tech to do development → find out-of-the-box solution

5. Ease of input of finding aid:
Deal breaker, Priority 1 (when we go online), Priority 2 (within two years)
Search multiple or single EAD fields including ALL of the following Unittitle, persname, corpname, formgenre, famname, subject, scopecontent, bioghist, unit within Special Collections
Deal breaker
Search results will display the EAD fields: unittitle, unitdate, extent, biography, abstract
link to an outline view
link to full/print view
highlight the keyword in context in that display
Display finding aids using XSLT in outline and full text view with keyword highlights
Single and batch input
Priority 1a
Search, results display, and finding aid display should be customized/customizable to suit Special Collections
Moderate to high performance in speed, usability and site navigation equal to The CAT
Priority 1b
Full text searching
Mark results list for bookbag
Priority 1c
Mark results list for
Mark results list for print
User can sort results by: frequency, author, title, date of collections
Refine search—means performing an additional search on the current set of records
Priority 2a
Paraprofessional input

6. Ease of input of finding aid: Deal breaker, Priority 1 (when we go online), Priority 2 (within two years)
Search results will:
highlight all keywords in context on a separate frame
Priority 2b
Display large result sets by alphabetical chunks
display the finding aid’s file size
Priority 2c
Search the date field separately

7. Task Force Finding Aid Platform working group formed
3 from I-Tech, 2 from Special Collections, Manuscripts Cataloger, 1 from Digital Libraries Technology (DLT)
Charge: To find and evaluate existing products that meet our criteria and make recommendation for implementation

8. Methodology Survey marketplace Informal queries
Society of American Archivists annual meeting
RLG conference
Posting the question on the archives listserv
Searched academic libraries’ websites
The survey results consisted of five potential products:
Archeon
Archivists Toolkit
CONTENTdm v. 4.2
DLXS v. 12
XTF

9. Methodology Assess and evaluate the products and determine costs
Create a comprehensive set of prioritized criteria for search and display and compatibility with the Library computing environment
Two-member groups evaluated products against the criteria
Populate evaluation matrix

10. Prioritized Criteria List
Graduated criteria: 1 = Required to 6 = Desired
Back End
2 Supports Unicode
2 Ability to load full and minimal finding aids
2 Easily customizable end user output/display
Specifications
5 Back end user tools for data load, maintenance
1 Product support
Licensing issues?

11. Prioritized Criteria List
Graduated criteria: 1 = Required to 6 = Desired
Rights Management
3 Authorization at collection level and field level
Search Functionality
3 Full text searchable across finding aids as a whole
3 Keyword searchable across multiple, selected fields
3 Search across all collections in system or across pre-determined subsets of collections
2 Browse collections
3 Search format and index terms
6 Search by date
3 Persistent navigation (prefer static outline view while scrolling through finding aid)
4 PURLs to individual finding aids

12. Prioritized Criteria List
Graduated criteria: 1 = Required to 6 = Desired
End User Output
Export output/download METS/MODS/Dublin Core
1 Output includes both outline view and full view
1 Search term highlighted in results list (brief) and full finding aid view
1 Search results display 4 EAD fields: Unittitle, unitdate, extent, abstract
6 Large result set, represented in alpha list as intermediate navigation rather than number ranges (e.g., A|B|C …) vs. (1-300, , etc.)
4 Results sorted by relevance, and author, title
6 Results sorted by date
4 Save marked list from result set
4 Print, review, , etc. from marked list
3 Refine search from results list
6 Display finding aid file size
6 ADA Compliant (AD54)

13. Prioritized Criteria List
Other desirables, not prioritized
Discovery/Sharing
OAI Harvesting
Findable/crawlable by RLG spiders, etc.
Findable by Google, etc.
Compatible within Course Management tools
Supports inter-institutional sharing of collections/items, etc.
Individual contributions of material to library collections (p2p-like)
Federated search support
Ability to add link to CAT record from Finding Aid metadata

15. Evaluation of Software
Archeon and Archivists’ Toolkit did not meet critical search and display criteria
XTF did not meet criteria for technical support
DLXS met all criteria established for a search and display, but would require significant local development to meet criteria for back-end dispersed processing of finding aids (e.g., non-technical staff at any location can process material)
The current version of CONTENTdm v.4.2 would require significant local development to accommodate the large Special Collections finding aids
Discussion with the developer at CONTENTdm revealed that an improved version CONTENTdm which fully supports XML ingest, indexing, output and large field sizes is in development and will be announced this summer

16. Recommendations
Continue to develop the export function to generate valid EAD finding aids from Oliver
Participate in the development of CONTENTdm v.n βeta
Evaluate CONTENTdm v.n βeta at its production release against defined criteria
If the production release meets our criteria
Implement CONTENTdm as our production system by January 2008
If the production release does not meet our criteria
Recommend a revised investigation of existing/new products

17. Projected Plan
Work with CONTENTdm in the βeta trial of CONTENTdm v.n and launch digital finding aids in January 2008 at the latest
Timeline: February – July 2007
Create Best Practices Guidelines
Clean up data in Oliver
Develop export tools to generate EAD finding aids
Develop XSLT stylesheets
July – November 2007
Work with CONTENTdm on development and βeta testing of new release
Submit our list of criteria to CONTENTdm as they initiate their development
January 2008
Launch next release of CONTENTdm and put finding aids into production or revert to backup plan
If βeta version fails to meet expected timeline or criteria, especially for ingest, XML mapping, and large field size, platform project evaluation team will confirm these circumstances with OCLC and reevaluate available platform products against existing criteria and recommend to IT Priorities

18. Ongoing Development Usability testing
Continued modification of output style sheets in response to usability testing recommendations
Regular scan of marketplace to monitor new products

19. Resources Needed Staffing
Implementation team with representatives from I-Tech and Special Collections to move this plan forward
Digital Library Technologies support will be required if the βeta release is available to be installed locally on a development server

20. Resources Needed Training
Oracle 10g: XML Fundamentals training to support the work involved in extracting EAD2002 XML finding aids out of the Oliver database
XSLT refresher training may be needed for I-Tech personnel

21. Conclusion
Because of infrastructure and policies, we had to select product with least amount of customization and programming
DLXS is hard to ingest, but looks good and functions well
CONTENTdm is easy to ingest, but doesn’t have functionality required for finding aids
Open source software requires dedicated staff with expertise we don’t have

22. Recommendations Determine your needs Systematically evaluate products
Have a timeline goal for decision making
Know your technical limitations
Include key personnel in planning

23. Contact Susan Hamburger, Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University
Paterno Library
Cataloging and Metadata Services
University Park, PA 16802
FAX

24. Here are Oliver and some documents
Oliver database
Special Collections finding aids Web pages
Finding Aids Platform Product Details [MS Word → HTML document]

30. Finding Aids Platform Product Details
Appendix A.htm