Imagining the Northwest

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Imagining the Northwest

• A Digital Library Partnership in Oregon
• Corey Harper, Nathan Georgitis and Carol
  HixsonCatalog Department, University of Oregon
  Libraries
• Presented October 1, 2003 at
• DC-2003 Supporting Communities of Discourse and
  Practice- Metadata Research Applications

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What well be covering

• Introduction to the collection and the project
• Cultural perspectives and descriptive metadata
• Development and application of controlled
  vocabularies
• Managing metadata in CONTENTdm
• CONTENTdm, OAI and Interoperability
• Future work

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The Moorhouse Collection

• Government agent and amateur photographer
• 8,000 glass plate negatives, ca. 1880s 1920s
• Ceremonies, events and landscapes
• Persons and artifacts from many tribes
• Some posed, some not

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The Moorhouse Collection

• Government agent and amateur photographer
• 8,000 glass plate negatives, ca. 1880s 1920s
• Ceremonies, events and landscapes
• Persons and artifacts from many tribes
• Some posed, some not

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The Moorhouse Collection

• Government agent and amateur photographer
• 8,000 glass plate negatives, ca. 1880s 1920s
• Ceremonies, events and landscapes
• Persons and artifacts from many tribes
• Some posed, some not

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The Project Participants

• Within the UO Libraries
• Catalog Department
• University Archives Special Collections
• Image Services
• Metadata Implementation Group
• Project Goal
• Make the images available in a culturally
  sensitive context

• Independent Partners
• WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher
  Education)
• TCI (Tamástslikt Cultural Institute) of the
  Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
• NWACC (Northwest Academic Computing Consortium

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Review of Existing Metadata

• TCI database
• Image descriptions, names, class terms, subject
  terms
• Classification People / Regalia / Interior
  Photograph
• Subjects with subdivisions Moccasins, Beaded
  Floral
• Terms like Wickiup and Capote Coat reveal
  cultural perspective
• UO Libraries database and WPA index
• Titles, brief descriptions, names, dates and
  subject terms
• Terms like Indian village and Indian costume
  reveal cultural perspective

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Descriptive Metadata

• UO Libraries fields
• UO Title
• Names
• Date in Photo
• Place
• Subject
• General Notes
• Type
• Sub Type

• TCI fields
• TCI Terms
• TCI Class
• TCI Notes

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The Results

• TCI Notes An outside photograph of a rock
  formation commonly referred to as Elephant Rock.
  This photograph is taken facing the north side of
  the formation. This rock formation is significant
  in Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
  Reservation (CTUIR) oral history and acts as part
  of the northeast boundary of the Umatilla Indian
  Reservation.

• TCI Terms Elephant Rock
• TCI Classes Outside Photograph Native
  American Folklore

• Subject Rocks Rock formations Landscape
• Place Elephant Rock (Geographic feature),
  Gibbon, Oregon
• General Notes Photograph of Elephant Rock
  near Gibbon, Oregon

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Development of Controlled Vocabulary

• Began with TCI subject and class terms
• Terms searched in TGM, then LCSH
• Equivalent terms, x-references, and sources noted
• If no equivalent found, term retained
• New terms suggested at time of cataloging
• Sources tracked in separate document

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Application of Subject Terms and Description of
Images

• Followed accepted principles and best practices
• Sara Shatford, Analyzing the Subject of a
  Picture
• Generic and Specific Indians of North America
  and Cayuse Indians
• Of and About Indians of North America and
  Employment
• Three levels of meaning description, analysis,
  interpretation
• Meet the needs of the Target Audience

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Technical Metadata
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More Technical Metadata
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Administrative Metadata

• New Subject Terms
• New CrossReferences
• Metadata Creator
• Image Scanner
• Image Editor
• Checksum
• Review Needed
• Cataloger's Notes
• Scanning Pass

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CONTENTdm Overview

• Standards Support
• DC, OAI-PMH, XML
• Customization
• Application Profiles / Data Dictionaries
• Templates
• Search Interfaces (example)

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Metadata Customization

• Field Label
• Dublin Core Mapping
• Qualified or Simple
• Data Types
• Search and Display options
• Controlled Vocabularies for individual fields

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Vocabulary Implementation

• CONTENTdm
• Import list and Add/Delete terms
• Create from contents of a field
• X-refs such as teepees USE tipis

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CONTENTdm Usability

• Global Update
• User-Friendly client
• Default values for fields
• Challenging Java-based Administrative Web
  Interface

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CONTENTdm / DC Challenges

• Dumb Down Principle
• Not available unless searching multiple
  collections
• Element Repeatability
• One field for each, separated by delimiters (i.e.
  semi-colons)
• Optional vs. Mandatory Fields
• Title Element is Mandatory!

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Interoperability

• OAI-PMH
• Generally, support seems limited to oai_dc format
  (unqualified)
• CONTENTdm only exports fields that are mapped to
  some DC element, and only in the unqualified
  format
• Use of XSLT

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Future Work

• Continue collaborating with TCI on this and other
  projects
• Continue with other photograph collections using
  CONTENTdm.
• Interoperability
• XML
• OAI
• Z39.50