PUBLICATION OF ARCHIVAL, LIBRARY AND MUSEUM MATERIALS
A Three-Year Plan for Development and Coordination
VISION
The Digitization Services Planning Committee (DSPC) was created as a
task force of the Technical Services Planning Committee and became the
planning committee of the State-funded Florida Heritage Project.
The DSPC also shared an interest in two additional externally funded projects:
Linking Florida’s Natural Heritage and Reclaiming the Everglades,
with Committee members sitting on the governing panels of these projects.
With two years of the Florida Heritage Project behind it, the Committee
continues to monitor these three projects, but envisions itself in a coordinating
role in the development of new projects, funded largely by external sources.
This three-year plan calls for continued and coordinated digital collections
development. It returns to the founding precepts of the Millennium Project
plan that preceded the development and growth of the more narrowly defined
Florida Heritage Project. This plan is divided into tactical, collections,
and technical goals. Tactical goals follow the model established by the
University of Florida’s Digital Library Center for Digital Planning Projects
documentation. Collection goals will be clarified when the DSPC meets with
the Curators of Special Collections Task Force (currently being appointed.)
Collection goals are restricted to projects specifically conceived of as
PALMM initiatives.
TACTICAL GOALS
Project Development and Granting
In the short term, the DSPC and the Institutions of the State University
System (SUS) need to move beyond self-funding digitization projects. Funds
allocated by the SUS for digitization projects should be used as cost-share
in granting. Every institution, individually or partnered, should seek
grant funding to showcase materials of particular research merit and proven
use within the State of Florida. In collaboration with other Planning Committees
and with the guidance of the SUS Library Directors, the DSPC should educate
its members in grant preparation in support of digital projects.
However, a grant orientation has two disadvantages. First, it encourages
an approach to digitization that is more opportunistic than programmatic.
Projects are skewed towards attracting funding rather than supporting the
instructional and research goals of the institution. Second, it postpones
the prioritization and integration of digitization services in the normal
operating budget of the institution. Therefore the longer-term goal should
be to leverage the experience gained and infrastructure developed through
grant-funded initiatives in developing a rational, sustainable program
of local digitization internally funded according to the priorities of
the SUS and the individual institutions within it.
Partnerships among SUS institutions should be encouraged. Digital resources
created by one institution undoubtedly will become a resource for the other
SUS institutions. Partnerships beyond the SUS should also be encouraged
insofar as they drive projects toward content critical and qualitative
mass and improve access to funding. Partnerships should include agreements
with the State’s private institutions of higher learning if not also those
out of state. They should include agreements with teaching faculty, using
the State’s uniform higher education course numbering system, and K-12
teachers, using the Sunshine State Standards. Partnerships should reach
out toward governmental, non-profit, and corporate agencies not only as
a source of funds but also as a source of technology.
Both locally and grant funded projects need clear and measurable project
outcomes, findings and products. Project evaluations must provide reliable
information on which to judge the impact of the project. Because of the
difficulty in judging the worth of digital projects, evaluative methodologies
including "outcome-based evaluation" proposed by the Institute for Museum
and Library Services should be assessed in the future and incorporated,
as appropriate, into project design.
Except as each institution is required to meet local cost recovery targets,
the DSPC should encourage the contribution to PALMM of locally created
digital resources, wherever they are created or reside within the SUS.
The DSPC must seek guidance from the SUS Library Directors to deal with
issues related to measuring Special Collections and the imprimatur of a
particular institution. Institutions, and their Special Collections departments
in particular, derive recognition from their holdings. These collections
must be shared through digitization, as a means of opening access, without
diluting the value an institution’s association with particular collections.
Description
Within Special Collections, digitization of primary sources from archival
collections will present challenges with regard to arrangement and description.
In published works, the order of pages and, subsequently, page-image files
follows an implicit "binding order". Page-images need little more
description than file names corresponding to source document page numbers.
In archival collections, order is applied rather than implicit,
and applied in multiple layers: collection, collection part, box, folder,
and folder contents at the very least. Already within the Florida Heritage
Collection, items from the Eartha White Papers illustrate the need
not only to digitize collection’s contents but to digitize the collection’s
finding guide, even when only selected items have been chosen for digitization.
Encoded Archival Description (EAD [http://lcweb.loc.gov/ead/])
is the generally accepted method of digitizing finding guides for archival
collections. Working with the DSPC, a Task Force of Special Collections
Curators should not only profile collections for digitization but should
also explore the viability of EAD’s implementation.
COLLECTION GOALS
The DSPC calls for the assistance of collection managers and curators
of special collections to define development issues in relation to building
digital collections. Issues to be addressed might include distance learning,
shared collections building, Florida Library Research Consortium (FLRC)
programs, and opened access to Special Collections, as well as research
value. The collections and projects listed here represent collections and
projects active and in development. Most are collections of resources related
to Florida. Others, however, are grant products or the products of grant
preparations, targeting resources important to and contributed by at least
one of the SUS institutions. The list of projected projects is incomplete,
representing a sample of interests shared by more than one SUS institution.
FLORIDA HERITAGE COLLECTION
FLORIDA ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE DESIGN
- Current project status: In development (Internet address not currently
available)
- Description in Brief:
- A collection of core published resources pertaining to architecture
and landscape design in the state of Florida. The collection is expected
to expand, with funding, to represent an archive of plans and drawings.
It was conceived as an adjunct project of the Florida Heritage Collection.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- American Institute of Architects. Florida Association of Architects.
(Representing the value of Internet distribution agreements.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public and private (architectural) funding
sources.
- Goals:
-
Following implementation of new MXF, resolve backlogged materials (i.e.,
titles awaiting FTP to the DL).
- Target date: contingent upon MXF, @ 2001 June 28
-
Establish a project web interface.
- Target date: by 2001 January 28
-
Renew invitation for contributions to all SUS institutions.
- Target date: by 2001 February 13
-
Define a project team and build project plan beyond the three core serial
titles already scanned.
- Target date: by 2001 June 28
-
Draft a grant proposal for implementation of plans and continuation of
the demonstration project.
- NEH submission date: by 2002 June 01 at latest
THEOLOGY
- Current project status: In development (Internet address not currently
available)
- Description in Brief:
- A collection of materials intended broadly for the study of theology,
this collection was built around an initial core of theology tracts, tracing
the birth of Protestant faith in the American south from Scottish and English
Wesleyan and Presbyterian roots. The collection is also used for the study
of oratory and literature. The initial core represents a collection intended
for use in support of a grant proposal not yet completed.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public and private (religious) funding
sources.
- Goals:
-
Resolve backlogged materials (i.e., titles awaiting FTP to the DL).
- Note: The backlog is comprised of a small collection of titles prepared
for demonstration in support of grant application not yet completed
- Target date: 2001 July 01.
- Establish a project web interface.
- Target date: by 2001 January 28
- Renew invitation for contributions to all SUS institutions.
- Target date: by 2001 February 13
-
Establish a study team to determine if active collection building should
proceed beyond the retrospective collection and voluntary contributions,
and write a plan if it is determined to proceed.
- Target date: by 2001 June 28
- Secondary timetable will be established if determination to proceed
is made.
FRENCH REVOLUTION FRANÇAISE
- Current project status: In development (Internet address not currently
available)
- Description in Brief:
- A collection of French revolutionary tracts including popular (gray)
literature, government documents, and street drama that captures the spirit
of France during the revolution as it was occurring. This collection was
built around an initial core of materials intended for use in support of
a grant proposal not yet completed.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public and private funding sources, including
the Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris, France).
- Goals:
-
Resolve backlogged materials (i.e., titles awaiting FTP to the DL).
- Note: The backlog is comprised of a small collection of titles prepared
for demonstration in support of grant application not yet completed.
- Target date: 2001 July 01
-
Establish a project web interface.
- Target date: by 2001 January 28
-
Renew invitation for contributions to all SUS institutions.
- Target date: by 2001 February 13
-
Establish a study team to determine if active collection building should
proceed beyond the retrospective collection and voluntary contributions,
and write a plan if it is determined to proceed.
- Target date: by 2001 June 28
- Secondary timetable will be established if determination to proceed
is made.
CENSUS FLORIDA
- Current project status: Proposed
-
Description in Brief:
- A collection of "ancient records" of the State of Florida, being primarily
records of the national census. This project operates under the design
and direction of the Clerk of Courts for Alachua County in collaboration
with the University of Florida as part of a state historic records project.
Conceived as an adjunct project of the current state directed modern records
digitization initiative and of the Florida Heritage (?and the State
Library and Archives’ Florida Memory?) Projects.
-
Funding Sources:
- Alachua County, Florida. . (Cost share valued in the resources of
the participating institutions.)
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Lorien Technologies, Inc. (Sunrise, FL. : microfilm conversion services)
- Targeted toward a variety of public (LSTA) and private funding sources.
- Goals:
- nnn
- Target date:
THEATRE COLLECTIONS OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF FLORIDA
- Current project status: Projected
- Description in Brief:
- A proposed collection intended to support the Florida Library Research
Consortium (FLRC) program in Drama, providing primary research resources.
This collection is built upon two cores. It is built, in part, upon the
University of South Florida’s recent proposal to the Institute for Museum
and Library Services’ Leadership Program in support of the University’s
specialized archival collections. It is also built, in part, on the University
of Florida’s early digitization demonstration project, funded by IBM in
the late 1980s, and on the University’s revival of this project which,
to date, includes more than 7,000 images of costumes, stage-craft, and
gray literature.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public and private funding sources.
- Goals:
- [Only recently proposed and with limited discussion, this project
requires wider vetting prior to the establishment of goals.]
- nnn
- Target date:
FLORIDA NEWSPAPERS AND NATIONAL NEWS REPORTS OF FLORIDA
- Current project status: Projected
- Description in Brief:
- Conceived as an adjunct project of the Florida Heritage Project,
a collection of Florida newspapers and early national news reports of Florida.
The collection includes both image and full-text files. The core of the
collection is proposed to come from within the Florida Heritage Collection
and from specialized collections. From within the Florida Heritage Collection,
issues of the Florida Dispatch have been contributed by the University
of North Florida and the University of South Florida. From specialized
collections, the Goza and Mickler collections at the University of Florida
have been offered. Additional collections are likely from the University
of West Florida.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public (LSTA and NEH) and private funding
sources.
- Goals:
-
Define a planning committee of specialists in journalism librarianship,
journalism, etc. together with technology specialists in high-resolution
digital imaging and newspaper indexing; most likely an extension of the
U.S. Newspaper Project (USNP) advisory committee and implementation
teams.
- Draft plan completion date: 2002 January 28.
-
Identify core collections of Florida newspapers and early national news
reports of Florida, most likely an extension of the USNP list, the Goza
and Mickler indices, and the inventory compiled by the Florida Historical
Society (FHS).
- Draft inventory of collections: 2002 December 28.
- Note: The FHS inventory is slated for digitization as part of the Florida
Heritage Collection with fiscal year 2000-2001 funds.
- Image a subset of the core collections as a demonstration library for use
in granting.
- Imaging completion date: 2003 February 28.
- Image volume: 1 small run/1 title; minimum 100 indexed articles in full-text,
subject to search by XPAT
- Note: Florida Dispatch satisfies the need for 1 small run.
-
Draft a grant proposal for implementation of plans and continuation of
the demonstration project.
- LSTA and NEH grant submission deadlines: 2003 March 01.
FLORIDA MAPS, AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, AND REMOTE IMAGERY
- Current project status: Projected
- Description in Brief:
- Conceived as an adjunct project of the Florida Heritage Project,
an illustrated Florida as conceived by mapmakers and as recorded by aerial
photographers and satellites. The collection, as proposed, is strong especially
in antique maps and county-by-county, plot-by-plot aerial photographs.
- Funding Sources:
- State of Florida. (Cost share valued in the resources of the participating
institutions.)
- Targeted toward a variety of public (LSTA and NEH) and private (agricultural)
funding sources.
- Goals:
-
Define a planning committee of specialists in maps librarianship, government
documents, and Florida geography, together with technology specialists
in high-resolution digital imaging and geographic information systems.
- Draft plan completion date: 2003 January 28.
- Identify core collections of maps, aerial photographs and remote images.
- Draft inventory of collections: 2003 December 28.
- Image a subset of the core collections as a demonstration library for use
in granting.
- Imaging completion date: 2004 February 28.
- Image volume: 20 large maps, aerial photographs of 1 locale (likely
the Florida Everglades.
-
Develop a plan for integration of traditional GIS information (i.e., supporting
queries against GIS and core library, archive and map collections) to bring
together multi-source maps on demand of given regions, locales, etc.
- Draft plan completion date: 2004 March 28.
-
Draft a grant proposal for implementation of plans and continuation of
the demonstration project.
- NEH grant submission deadline: 2004 June 01.
The following collections are little more than prospects for development
based upon limited discussions conducted around the state during the "Digital
Library Services Presentation" [dog & pony show], presented by
Priscilla Caplan, FCLA’s Digital Library Services, and Erich Kesse, UF’s
Digital Library Center/current chair, DSPC.
VOICES OF FLORIDA: ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
- Current project status: Projected
- Description in Brief:
- Conceived as an adjunct project of the Florida Heritage Project
and built from the core of collections at the University of Florida and
the University of South Florida, a collection of recorded interviews, transcripts
and illustrative supplements documenting the lives of both great and ordinary
Floridians together with the life and development of Florida itself.
- Funding Sources:
- Targeted toward a variety of public (LSTA and NEH) and private (political)
funding sources. A funding proposal from UF is currently out for NEH review.
USF has already digitized selected sets.
CUBAN DEMOCRACY COLLECTION
- Current project status: Undetermined
- Description in Brief:
- A collection of materials supplementing the University of Miami’s
Institute for Museum and Library Services’ Leadership Project. The University
of Miami project concentrates on expatriate materials and Cuban culture
in the United States of America with some Cuban materials from Cuba. The
Cuban Democracy Collection is intended to be a collection of materials
originating from pre-Castro Cuba. Joining the core of the collection might
be the Diario de la Marina from the University of Florida’s, Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation project, the Caribbean Newspaper Project, and a complete
run of legislative documents and constitutions from Independence through
the Revolution.
JUDAICA COLLECTION
- Current project status: Undetermined
-
Description in Brief:
- A core collection of Judaica, religious and secular, European and
Palestine Mandate materials, including text and audio sources in a variety
of languages. Religious materials would also join the Theology Collection.
Currently, the following collections are little more than planning objectives.
These objectives have been lifted from teams roster of Digital Planning
Projects coordinated at the University of Florida by the Digital Library
Center. The University of Florida has declared that all of its digital
projects, except where defined as the core of a cost-recovery project,
will be offered to PALMM. Examples of projects it has or will soon have
in planning include:
- Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
- Conceived as contributing to the Florida Architecture and Landscape
Design, Florida Heritage, and Literature for Children
collections. The collection documents Rawlings’ homesteads, life in rural
North-Eastern Florida, and her writings.
- Roving Florida Naturalists
- Conceived as contributing to the Florida Heritage and Linking
Florida’s Natural Heritage collections. The collection includes plant
specimens imaged from the State of Florida Herbarium as well as monographs
and maps of Florida from library collections. It documents the natural
state of Florida, its "pastoral" life and native populations.
- Great Floridians
- Conceived as a distinct collection, adjunct to the Florida Heritage
Collection, this project is funded by a gift from Governor C. Farris
Bryant to digitize political papers and holdings of other "Great Floridians".
"Great Floridians" is a official designation granted by the State of Florida
under the direction of the Division of Historical Resources, cf, http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/bhp/floridians/. The collection will join similar collections of other, albeit not PALMM,
digitized resources including those mounted by the State Library and Archives
(cf, Florida Memory at http://www.floridamemory.com/)
and the Florida State University (cf, POLARIS at http://pepper.cpb.fsu.edu/library/p-about.htm).
- Latin Americana
- Conceived as a distinct collection supporting the Center for Latin
American Studies.
- Africana
- Conceived as a distinct collection supporting the Center for African
Studies.
TECHNICAL GOALS
Technical goals pertain to individual institutions as well as to central
support from FCLA. Depending on the institution, local goals may include
establishing an effective relationship with vendors of conversion services,
developing and/or expanding in-house scanning capability, implementing
specialized retrieval or display systems, and developing internal expertise
to perform and/or evaluate any of these functions. This report focuses
on goals for central FCLA support for PALMM activities.
2000/2001
Goal 1: Provide full suite of basic text and image handling capabilities.
FCLA currently runs locally developed "digital library" software to
display and navigate compound documents such as books and serials in image
formats. Commercial software for full text search (XPAT) has been licensed.
Development is required to implement XPAT, to implement open source "DLXS
Text Class" for display of XPAT search results, and to integrate this with
existing digital library software. Software must also be selected or developed
and implemented to handle collections of simple (non-compound) images.
1.1 Implement and integrate XPAT full text search for "text behind" images.
1.2 Implement and integrate DLXS Text Class SGML display for "text in front".
1.3 Select, implement and integrate software for image collections (e.g. DLXS
Image Class, Content, Luna Insight)
Goal 2: Replace "dataset.toc" with MXF (Metadata Exchange Format)
for metadata contribution.
When digital files for compound documents are sent to FCLA for loading
and/or serving, they must be accompanied by metadata describing the structure
of the document and the files that comprise it. Currently the data structure
used is called "dataset.toc" and is based upon the format used by Elsevier
to transmit electronic journal articles for local loading. A local, XML-based
Metadata Exchange Format (MXF) has been defined to replace the somewhat
limited dataset.toc. The MXF carries more information and supports a richer
hierarchical description, but as a consequence is more complex. PC client
software to aid in data entry is being written, and all existing programs
to load and serve digital documents must be rewritten to accommodate the
new format.
2.1 Write PC client software to support creation of MXF data.
2.2 Modify loader and server software to handle data submission via MXF.
2.3 Distribute client software and train sites contributing digital documents
to FCLA in its use.
2.4 Target discontinuation of dataset.toc use by 7/1/01.
Goal 3: Improve infrastructure services.
Infrastructure services apply not only to PALMM initiatives but also
to other digital library activities (see "Other activities" below). One
priority for FY2000/2001 is to design and implement meaningful statistics
on use of PALMM collections. Currently use statistics are inferred from
analyzing logs written by the Apache web server so only the most rudimentary
information is available, such as the URL of the requested item, and the
network address of the requester. Statistics are being redesigned so that
the image server software writes a log record when an image or a table
or contents is accessed. The log record can include information unknown
to Apache, such as which institution contributed the requested item or
the "parent" collection of the item. Log records will be processed and
summarized as the basis of collection-level statistics.
3.1 Implement naming services using a local PURL server.
3.2 Automate receipt and processing of MXF data.
3.3 Develop meaningful collection-level statistics.
2001/2002
Goal 4: Improve support for text, image and multimedia.
Work in the current year is geared towards improving basic text- and
image-handling capabilities. We anticipate that the focus will shift in
FY2001/2002 to other formats, particularly audio and synchronized text
and audio.
4.1 Find or write programs to automate TEI markup of text converted from images.
4.2 Consider replacement of locally written image server with OpenSource or
commercially available software.
4.3 Implement support for oral history (mixed text and audio) and other multimedia collections; monitor development of the SMIL standard for markup and synchronization of audio, video and text.
Goal 5: Augment support for metadata creation and maintenance.
There has been little demand so far for non-MARC metadata formats.
However, we anticipate that interest in other metadata will increase, and
that at a minimum support for Dublin Core and Encoded Archival Description
(EAD) finding aids will be requested. At the same time, the migration to
the new library management system will require replacing WebLUIS with the
new LMS or some other MARC-management system as the access mechanism for
digital collections.
5.1 Implement OCLC's SiteSearch RecordBuilder capability for Dublin Core and
MARC-like data.
5.2 Develop a plan for serving QF and QC data during and after the migration
to a new LMS.
5.3 Select and implement software to support Encoded Archival Descriptions
(EAD), including programs to automate markup of textual finding aids.
Other activities
While most of these apply to PALMM, some planned digital library services
are broader than PALMM services in that they are intended to provide support
to all digital materials, both "born digital" and retrospectively digitized.
Priorities for the period covered by this report include infrastructure
services such as naming, the development of digital archiving facilities
for the SUS libraries, and providing electronic publishing services for
non-commercial academic and research journals.
Goal 6: Provide robust naming services.
6.1 Implement local PURL server and policies for distributed PURL creation
and maintenance.
6.2 Enhance (or replace) PURL software to provide additional features including enforcement of naming conventions, individual user authorization, and multiple
resolution capability.
6.3 Install resolution services in a high-availability, rapid-response configuration.
Goal 7: Provide central archiving services.
7.1 Draft a multi-year plan acceptable to the Directors.
7.2 Develop a database system to record locations and characteristics of physical images.
7.3 Develop a multi-tiered storage management system.
7.4 Develop a repertoire of utilities for conversion to canonical formats and
for forward migration of formats.
Goal 8: Provide electronic publishing services.
8.1 Migrate currently supported e-journals to the PALMM platform.
8.2 Develop SGML/XML text search and display capability for journal articles.
8.3 Bring system into full conformance with Bio-One standards.