Hey, What About Access?Hey, What About Access?

Roy TennantThe California Digital Library, University of California

http://escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentations/2002sfs/

A Practical Guide to Decision-Making

Outline

What are your access goals?What are your constraints?What opportunities do you have?CapturingDescribingProviding Access

What are Your Access Goals?

On-screen viewing Thumbnail preview Screen-size Detail study (and how much?)

PrintingArtifactual Fidelity or Intellectual

Content

PrintingOn-screen resolutions are typically

inadequate for printingFor non-transparency material (prints,

books, objects, etc.), 300dpi is a good resolution for printable versions

Artifactual Fidelity or Intellectual Content? Artifactual fidelity

Must preserve the appearance of the actual object Can provide an enhanced sense of experiencing

the real object But in some cases, preserving the look and feel of

the artifact obstructs the content Doug Greenberg’s “compulsive authenticity

disorder” (http://www.nedcc.org/owol/dgabs.htm) Intellectual content

Optimized to provide the best presentation of the content itself, not the artifact

The sense of interacting with the actual object may be diminished or destroyed

Both strategies may be required

What are Your Constraints? Hardware

RAM CPU speed Disk space Storage

Software Staff

Time Skill and experience

Money

What Opportunities Do You Have?Grants may be available to finance your

project Grants often expect a certain level of

quality; if so, what capture quality is specified?

Do you have access to student help? Interns? Volunteers?

Can you cut a deal with a vendor like Octavo?

CapturingMonitor resolutions are improving

640 x 480 --> 800 x 600 --> 1280 x 768What is a good resolution for onscreen

viewing today, may not be tomorrowHow many times do you want to scan

your material?Scan at the best quality you can justify

given your goals, constraints, and opportunities

Capture Recommendations for Access (not preservation) Photos, illustrations, maps, etc.:

300dpi 24 bit color

B/W Text document: 300dpi 8 bit grayscale

Negatives and Slides: 2200 pixels in longest dimension 24 bit color or 8 bit grayscale

DescribingGood metadata is essential to your

successThree types:

Descriptive Administrative Structural

Describing: Appropriate LevelDescribing: Appropriate Level

Collection-level access: Discovery metadata describes the collection Example: Archival finding aid; see

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ Item-level access:

Discovery metadata describes the item Example: MARC or Dublin Core records for each item;

see http://jarda.cdlib.org/search.html Both types of access may be appropriate Doing both often takes very little extra effort

SearchInterface

CollectionDescription

Images

Collection Level AccessCollection Level Access

CollectionDescription

SearchInterface

Images

Item Level AccessItem Level Access

CollectionDescriptions

http://oac.cdlib.org/

http://jarda.cdlib.org/

jarda.cdlib.org/search.html

Describing: Metadata Granularity

<name>William Randolph Hearst</name> <name>

<first>William</first><middle>Randolph</middle><last>Hearst</last>

</name> Consider all uses for the metadata Design for the most granular use Store it in a machine-parseable format

Describing: Machine Parseability

The ability to pull apart and reconstruct information via software

For example, this:

<name><first>William</first><middle>Randolph</middle><last>Hearst</last>

</name>

Can easily become this:

<DC.creator>Hearst, William Randolph</DC.creator>

Describing: Metadata Qualification

<name role=“creator”>William Randolph Hearst</name>

<subject scheme=“LCSH”>Builder -- Castles -- Southern California</subject>

Describing: Formats & Syntax

Dublin Core

EAD

MARC

TEI

XML

Which ones?

Describing: Metadata Storage Formats

It doesn’t matter so long as: You captured the quantity required for your

purposes You captured it at the granularity required for

your purposes You qualify the metadata where required You store it in a machine-parseable format You can output it in any format to which you

wish to complyGiven that, you can do anything!

Describing: Standards Decide to which industry standards you will

comply Use an internal metadata infrastructure that

supports compliance with those standards, as well as your specific requirements

Consider the issues of item v. collection level, granularity, qualification, and machine parseability

Understand that your internal formats may be more complex than what is required for standards compliance

Describing:Making Your Metadata Searchable

Sample Indexing Systems/Databases: Sprite (Perl module) Microsoft Access, Filemaker Pro SWISH-E, swish-e.org MySQL, mysql.com Oracle or Sybase

Less MoreThe power & complexity continuum

Sprite SWISH-E MySQLAccess/FilemakerOracle,Sybase

Providing AccessExhibitBrowseSearch

Providing Access: Exhibit Goals:

Inviting Easy to navigate Highlight selected parts of a collection Teach

Requirements: Great graphic design Informative and succinct commentary Interesting subject matter

http://www.kb.nl/kb/galerie/trivulzio/index-en.html

http://www.bl.uk/

Providing Access: BrowseGoals:

Provide intriguing and interesting paths into and throughout a collection

Give a broad sense of a collection, but not show everything necessarily

Requirements: Logical browse paths May have multiple paths to the same items

(e.g., time, geography, subject)

http://www.kb.nl/kb/manuscripts/browser/

Providing Access: Search Goals

To provide post-coordinate access to all items in a collection relevant to a particular query

To provide good methods to create a search as well as refine or alter the display as required

Requirements: Good search software (database or indexing software) Good metadata (minimum is probably a title or caption

for each item) Good interface (options for navigation, search

refinement, etc.)

http://www.scran.ac.uk/

Recap Determine what you want your users to be able

to do (your access goals) Consider your constraints, opportunities, and

long-term goals Capture images at the best quality you can stand Collect metadata in an amount and form that

supports your access goals as well as interoperability with relevant standards

Never underestimate the power of a committed individual and a cheap scanner!

Final Advice Don’t scrimp on tools — staff time is the most

expensive part of any project For any given project, there are several ways

it can succeed and countless ways it can fail Do it right, or don’t do it at all? NO! From the access perspective, it’s much

better to do it as well as you can than to not do it at all.