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

2. 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)

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

4. Current Storage Solution

5. Current Access Method (paper)

6. Current Access Method (digital)

7. Flow Model

8. 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

9. 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

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

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

12. Faceted (hierarchal) Metadata

13. 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

14. 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)

15. ER Diagram

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. Users  System administrator  Subject matter expert  Casual browser

20. 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

21. Task Analysis

22. 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

23. 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

24. Competitive Eval (cont’d)

26. Paper Prototype

27. Main (intro) Page

28. Initial Browse

29. Mid-Level Browse

30. End Browse

31. Paper Prototype (cont’d)

32. Record Entry

33. Metadata Association

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

35. First Interactive Prototype

36. Browsing

39. Administration

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

41. 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

42. 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

43. 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

44. 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

45. Waypoints Questions?