LIS 7410: Digital Libraries (Spring 2009, Section 01)

LIS 7410 - Digital Libraries
Spring 2009 -- Section 01
Project (Professional Track)

For the project in the Professional Track, read below.
For the project in the Research Track, click here instead.

The project in the Professional Track has two parts: proposing a digital library, and creating a sample digital library.

Part 1: Digital Library Proposal

Suppose you have got a job as a digital librarian of an information organization, and you are asked to design a digital library for that organization. The first step is to formulate a preliminary proposal of the proposed digital library. In you proposal, you should:

include mission statement and objectives,
identify materials appropriate for presentation via a digital library,
address problems of permissions, copyright and access to originals,
describe your procedure and approach of handling the materials, such as digitizing and describing.
outline the general structure of the digital library, its organization and presentation.

You can work individually, in pairs or groups of three (maximum). A three-person team is expected to formulate a much more thorough plan than an individual does.

The Indiana University Digital Library Program's Project Proposal Form can be a helpful template for this exercise. Here are some very useful guidelines for project planning:

New York State Library's Planning Digital Projects for Historical Collections (very useful documentation, especially for the earlier stages of a project)
Arizona State Library Digital Projects Guidelines (in PDF)
IMLS Sample Applications
IMLS National Leadership Grant application tutorial. "This tutorial is provided to assist you in developing a project plan for a National Leadership Grant application."
Status of Technology and Digitization in the Nation's Museums and Libraries, 2002 Report. IMLS Public Report, May 10, 2002. Link.
Connecticut History Online - IMLS Proposal
Building Digital Collections: Technical Information and Background Papers

This can be an independent assignment; there is no requirement to coordinate the content with that of other assignments. Some students may find it useful to coordinate the project proposal with the Sample Digital Library (see Part 2 below), but this is not a requirement and will not influence grades. It would be best if you could work with a real collection (rather than an imaginery collection) so that you have a lot of real issues to talk about, such as copyright, formats, and why the collection is important to be digitized. You will have a lot of ideas and probably be able to see many real historial materials if you visit a local library. For instance, LSU's Hill Memorial has an on-going newspaper digitization project; the Middleton Library has a department digitizing audio recordings. (Added 3/20/2009.)

Submit either a hard copy or MS-Word processed document (i.e., .doc or .docx) by either posting it on your course Website or sending it as an email attachment. All essays may, where relevant, be accompanied by screen shots or other graphics, and should be clearly organized with liberal use of headings. Approximately 15 pages (spacing 1.5) are sufficient. Longer is not necessarily better. Use the space to present a thorough, clear, and concise proposal. Please use a standard citation format, such as APA, Chicago, MLA, and ACM.

Part 2: Sample Digital Library

Now you are asked to create a small-scale but operational digital mockup of a digital library. This should be a content-oriented digital library which demonstrates your ability to digitize and present materials. Pointer sites or Yahoo!-type systems are not acceptable. Your mockup should represent your digital library as it will appear to users; samples of all parts of the structure should be present, but it is not necessary to scan and incorporate a large number of documents. The presentation should, however, prove familiarity with all significant aspects of digital library creation. Content should be developed especially for this course, but content used for the Digitization Sampler (i.e., H4) can be incorporated if appropriate. You are encouraged to use historical materials of a real entity (such as a library, musuem, association, and corporation) in a real scenario. This will strengthen your digital library skills and help you get a job in digital library services. However, it is not required to work in a real scenario for this course project. (Added 3/20/2009.)

Work individually, in pairs or groups of three (maximum). Present a brief report of the practical activities involved in the preparation of the sample digital library, describing how each participant contributed towards the final result and describing the technical features of the digital library. Submit your brief report (2-5 pages) either as a hard copy or by posting it on your course Web site or sending it as an email attachment. The purpose of the brief report is to supplement your product and/or project presentation so that the instructor can understand compeletely your design of the sample digital library.

SLIS has an arrangement with CONTENTdm, a widely-used digital library software, which offers space on their computers for student sites. As CONTENTdm is currently one of the most significant digital library softwares, and is now part of OCLC, students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to use this system. Detailed notes on CONTENTdm will be provided.

However, the use of CONTENTdm is not a requirement; for instance Mac users may have difficulty installing the CONTENTdm Project Client (or Acquisition Station). Some students may have experience of and access to other digital library software. Greenstone is an alternative which has been used in the past by SLIS students; Greenstone runs on all versions of Windows, Unix, and Mac OS-X. Notes on Greenstone prepared by Dr. McCarthy is available here. Any student who is able to obtain access to a further specialized digital library system, such as Luna Insight, Olive, Hyperion, eXist, DSpace, or DLXS, is welcome to use it for the assignment, but I do not have detailed notes on using these systems, and I may not be able to offer in-depth support in these cases.

Students will also be permitted to test other approaches to the creation of a digital library, working with open source software, Dreamweaver, Adobe Acrobat or even using hand-coded HTML. The server space made available for the Digitization Sampler (i.e., homework H4) can be used to present these locally-developed systems.

It is not a course requirement, but students using CONTENTdm are encouraged to submit their archival-level documents and their .xml files on CD-ROM, which would permit the later reconstruction of their sample digital libraries. This would only be used in an educational context, to publicize the work undertaken on the course.

Students have asked how much work is expected for this assignment. This will vary according to the size of the group, complexity of the project, etc. Six images or pages will often be sufficient to demonstrate a viable sample digital library; twelve images or pages should demonstrate most points; it should not be necessary to go beyond twenty images or pages. It is important to demonstrate understanding of digital library procedures and achieve a quality presentation, with relevant metadata, rather than simply proving that you are capable of processing a large quantity of material.

Students have also asked what type of project they should consider. Numerous digital libraries are presented at the beginning of the course. Viable projects might include:

Small photographic collections. Some earlier individual/group projects:
- a photographic review of the history of SLIS/LSU (photographic collections should reflect places, institutions, or events; collections of purely internal family interest are not suitable for this assignment).
- Native Flora of Louisiana (Water color drawings by Margaret Stones)
- selected Works Progress Administration photographs.
- historical library photographs.
- combining classical texts with photographs of Greek and Roman architecture.
- a small collection of postcards (front and back, with transcriptions of text) relating to women in Iowa.
- historical photographs from a specific U.S. state.
- a series of photographs of gladiatorial equipment, another high-quality reproductions of Louisiana flora.
- Fashion illustration.
Small manuscript collections. Some earlier individual/group projects:
- gaining access to and digitizing some slave narratives.
- combining portraits and extracting from the diaries of Civil War soldiers.
- celebrating the life of a local politician.
- The Mother Jones collection at CUA was originally a student project: Link.
- Early Louisiana French Letters at the Center for French and Francophone Studies, LSU.
Books can be used within copyright restrictions. Some earlier individual/group projects:
- recipes from books and magazines published by a housewife and radio broadcaster from that state: Link.
- illustrated school books from the 1930s - 1940s (a chapter or so of three or four books).
- Historical Library of American Librarianship with sample pages from out-of-copyright books that formed the basis of our profession.
- Louisiana Digital Library for Children, presented on an internal SLIS folder.
- an early LSU student handbook.
Other materials
- John Audubon in Louisiana, Charity Hospital, Vietnam War Documentation.
- Documentation of Louisiana Rock groups.
- Library history.

Students are very welcome to discuss their project idea with the instructor before working on it. Each individual or group will give a short talk on 3/10 about their project idea. The due dates for Part 1 and Part 2 are indicated on the syllabus page. Your project will be graded from the aspects of scale, content digitization, metadata, content organization, and other issues such as copyright.

Acknowledgement to Cavan McCarthy.

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Yejun Wu