1. Organized Organized Digital Library Development Digital Library Development … from the Bottom Up … from the Bottom Up University of Alabama Libraries Jody L. DeRidder jlderidder@ua.edu Image courtesy of Life Magazine

2. Libraries organize information… primarily books. Trinity College Library, Dublin, as captured by Candida H ö fer in her book Libraries (Thames and Hudson,UK: 2005).

3. Photo credit: Flickr user "Libby", used with permission (creative commons) If libraries organize books… Why not digital files?? It’s all information!

4. A digital object may belong in MANY potential virtual collections… … but it originated from ONE SINGLE ANALOG collection. Provenance trumps all!  Slavery  African Americans  Sheet Music  Tombigbee River  Southern History  … and more “Gum Tree Canoe,” Published by G.P. Reed (Boston: 1847). Wade Hall collection of Southern History and Culture, Hoole Special Collections, University of Alabama Libraries.

5. Bringing Order to Chaos University of Alabama Libraries Holder ID: u0003 Collection ID: 0000023 Item ID: 0000007 Sequence ID: 0005 Archival File: u0003_0000023_0000007_0005.tif 1) Clarity 2) Low cost 3) Simple 4) Extensible

6. u0003_0001980_0000001 is the first digitized item in the MSS 1980 collection HOLDER ID COLLECTION ID

7. The Digitization Working Area… Collection folders are named for the collection identifier. Allowed subfolders include:  Admin  Metadata  Scans  Transcripts Compound objects have their own subfolders for pages, named for the item. And a Collection Folder in the Working Area

8. Bringing Content Up to the Level Of the WEB!!! Greater Usability and Access == Longer Life Images … ImageMagick: http://www.imagemagick.org (it’s free!) Protected archive area u0003 0000023 0000007 0005 u0003_0000023_0000007_0005.tif 0000007 0005 Thumb and large-size derivatives Web accessible area Audio … LAME: http://lame.sourceforge.net OCR … TESSERACT: http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/

9. u0003 slide Identification, Organization and Consistency Each segment of numbers:  Holder ID  Collection ID  Item ID  Sequence ID is used in the directory structure. The directory for u0003_0000003_0002_001.tif Is simply: u0003/ 0000003/ 0002/ 001/

10. Dropping the Technical Metadata in… where it belongs Makes METS creation a Piece of Cake! (and redundant!)‏ Using FITS, the File Information Tool Set developed by Harvard which encapsulates JHOVE, DROID, ExifTool and other tools: http://code.google.com/p/fits/

11. An Example of the Lowest- Cost Model: The Alabama Digital Preservation Network http://www.adpn.org/ http://www.lockss.org/ Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe!!

12. storage area Simple, Clear Hierarchical Organization:  Holder ID  Collection ID  Item ID  Sequence ID

13. http://acumen.lib.ua.edu ACCESS! Via Acumen (also free!)  XML agnostic  No ingest  No metadata modifications  All content easily accessible  Open to search engines

14. Now it’s organized. But can users find what they need? Trinity College Library, Dublin, as captured by Candida H ö fer in her book Libraries (Thames and Hudson,UK: 2005).

15. Usability Testing * U=Undergraduate, G=Graduate Student, PG=Post graduate volunteer, S=University staff Participant Number 1234567891112131415161718192021 Educational Status* GGUGGGSGUGUUUUUU PGPG GGG Educational Background in History X X X X X Previous Special Collections Experience XX XXXX X X XXX X Previous Digital Collections Experience XX XXXXXXXXXXXXX X X English as a Second Language X XX X X

16. http://transcribe.lib.ua.edu

17. http://tagit.lib.ua.edu

20. S. R. Ranganthan (1931), paraphrased: Information is for use. Every user his / her information. Every information its user. Save the time of the user. The library is a growing organism. Remember why we’re here… Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net