Yale Collections Collaborative

1
Yale Collections Collaborative

• Spring symposium May 2007

2
Schedule

• 930 - 1000 Welcome / Overview of Collections
  Collaborative activities
• 1000 - 1045 Keynote address by Kenneth Hamma,
  Executive Director for Digital Policy and
  Initiatives at the J. Paul Getty Trust "At the
  network level everything is just a resource .. at
  first
• 1045 - 1100 Break
• 1100 - 1200 Small group break-out sessions to
  discuss options for improving access to primary
  sources / followed by group discussion
• 1200 - 1245 Lunch provided in Luce Hall Common
  Room
• 1245 - 245 Presentations by Yale librarians
  and curators regarding primary source materials
  on topics related to the Yale Initiative on Race,
  Gender and Globalization
• 245 - 300 Wrap-up

3

• Initiative funded by Mellon Foundation for
  November 2004 to October 2007 (409,000) no-cost
  extension granted until June 2008
• The goal of the Collections Collaborative is to
  enhance access to and use of the museums,
  galleries, and library special collections across
  the university.

4

• The imperative is that primary sources are being
  required in the curriculum in order to engage
  students in substantive research and research
  methodologies. 
• To respond to this pedagogical need, special
  collections, consisting of primary source
  materials, must be made widely available and
  solutions must be found to speed processing,
  integrate materials within and across
  institutions, and provide better accessibility to
  users across systems, making library and
  museum-based material readily accessible in
  learning management systems and vice
  versa. Don Waters, Mellon Foundation

5
Initial goals

• establish clear processing and description
  priorities across the system with research and
  teaching use in mind reengineer these functions
  to promote efficiencies
• conceptualize approaches for improved digital
  access that would address specific pedagogical
  and research needs
• integrate the collections from a user perspective
  across library/museum and learning management
  systems.

6
Partners in this endeavor

• Peabody Museum
• Yale Art Gallery
• Yale Center for British Art
• Yale University libraries
• Faculty administration representatives on
  Steering Committee

7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
LIBRARIES, COLLECTIONS, MUSEUMS
11
Re-grant projects

• 2 rounds (100,000 each)
• 8 projects

12
1. Finding aid authoring tool Purpose of the
project is to develop a shared and centrally
supported tool for the creation of finding aids
that follow the Encoded Archival description
standard, for Yale archival and manuscript
collections. Participants Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library Manuscripts and Archives
Divinity Library Arts Library Yale Center for
British Art Music Library Historical Medical
Library
13
(No Transcript)
14

• 2. Digitization of the O.C. Marsh and G.R.
  Wieland papers
• Marsh and Wieland were paleontologists whose
  work inaugurated some of the Peabody Museums
  most important collections.
• Information related to specimens they collected
  is in their personal papers, most of which are
  stored at Manuscripts and Archives, while the
  specimens themselves are at Peabody.
• The purpose of this project is to bring these
  materials together, using digital imaging and
  text capture through optical character
  recognition (OCR), preservation, archiving and
  electronic publication of approximately 40,000
  pages of correspondence, maps, monographs and
  pictures, which are currently available only
  through painstaking browsing of microfilm and
  generalized finding aids.

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17

• 3. Unlocking digital data collections across the
  sciences
• Purpose of project is to investigate models of
  metadata creation
• Digitization project inspired by the innovative
  leaf morphology classification work of a faculty
  member in the Geology and Geophysics Department
  and the Peabody Museum at Yale University.
• Scanned Flora Fossilis Arctica, a 7-volume fossil
  leaf identification tool covering various
  geological areas, published between 1868 and
  1883.
• Enhancing the raw data with metadata elements,
  placing this material on the web for searching
  and display and linking this material to an
  existing set of preserved leaf plates, a locally
  created index of annotated article clippings, an
  online leaf morphology tutorial, and the
  published online literature.

18

• 4. The World War I Experience Phase One
• Purpose of the project is to create models for
  improving description of and access to
  non-standard published materials that are held in
  repositories across the Yale campus. Focus on
  selecting and digitizing a range of pamphlets,
  broadsides, posters, prints, maps, and sound
  recordings that provide primary source
  documentation of the impact of WWI.
• Materials included in project from
• Art Gallery
• Center for British Art
• Manuscripts Archives
• Historical Sound Recordings / Music Library
• Sterling Mudd stacks
• Map collection
• Etc.

19
WWI project issues

• Metadata standards and workflow
• Scanning standards and workflow
• Interaction of existing delivery systems
• Orbis, TMS, DL, MADID, Finding aids, etc.
• Development of research portal for drawing
  attention to selected materials and providing
  assistance regarding research methodology.

20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
5. The World War I Experience Phase 2 -
Enhancing Discovery, Search and Access to Yale's
Digital Collections Development of pilot
cross-collection search interface to provide
access to digital collections across the Yale
campus, such as from the Library, the Center for
British Art, the University Art Gallery and the
Peabody Museum.
23
Cross-collection searching
24

• 6. Swid Powell Collection
• Swid Powell was a tableware design firm founded
  by Nan Swid and Addie Powell in 1982.  They
  commissioned several architects to design
  tableware within very strict, traditional
  parameters.  The designs were enormously
  successful and made household names out of many
  of the architects involved.
• Materials in this collection will be housed both
  at the Yale University Art Gallery and
  Manuscripts and Archives. Many of the architects
  who designed for Swid Powell are already
  represented in YUAG and MSSA holdings.
• Project will look at ways to adapt the
  controlled vocabulary standard already in use at
  the Yale University Art Gallery (AAT) to the way
  collections, and individual items within them,
  are processed and described at Manuscripts and
  Archives -- seeking to demonstrate a workable
  model of vocabulary-sharing that will be of use
  to scholars wishing to easily access the
  materials in both repositories, possibly with one
  search.
• Also plan to digitize as many of the materials
  as possible in the collection -- scanning the
  archival materials and photographing the objects.
  

25
(No Transcript)
26
7. Archival Collections Management the
Archivists' Toolkit The Archivists' Toolkit is an
open source database application that provides a
tool for managing many of the most common
activities undertaken in the archival enterprise,
such as accessioning, description, donor
tracking, name and subject authority work, and
location management. This project will develop a
model implementation of the Archivists' Toolkit
at four Yale repositories and investigate the
value of system-wide implementation.
27
(No Transcript)
28

• 8. Guides to Collections at Yale
• This project will initiate a series of
  subject-based guides to collections at Yale,
  which will provide an overview of particular
  strengths in a given field across a range of the
  University's special collections and museums.
• Initial subject areas targeted will be
• African American Studies
• British Studies
• Modernism
• Photography

29
Other collaborative things going on at Yale .

• Special Collections Subcommittee of CDC
• Joint exhibits
• Special Collections fairs
• Primary sources for senior essays web site
  handouts
• Special Collections Reference Coffees
• Digital Coffee meetings
• Describing Archives A Content Standard (DACS)
  training
• Archivists reading group
• Etc

30
And in partnership with others

• Teagle Special Collections Project
•  http//www.library.yale.edu/teagle/
• 18 month project, ended last fall
• Brought together interested parties from 9
  Connecticut institutions (Yale as the largest
  other universities colleges community
  colleges) who aim to make better use of special
  collections in teaching.
• Aim is to give special collections and
  repositories a great deal more visibility,
  exposure, usability than they've had until now.

31
(No Transcript)
32
Future goals of the Collections Collaborative

• Engagement with faculty re. use of primary source
  materials in teaching and research
• Forum on Natural Collections Description project.
  
• Development of a sustainable structure through
  which Yale repositories can discuss issues of
  common concern, share information, and develop
  collaborative programs.

33
Todays meeting Mainstreaming Collections
Reference

• A "get acquainted" and educational opportunity
  for Yale librarians and curators
• Exploration of how we can work together to
  improve access to primary source materials for
  teaching and research at Yale
• Raising awareness of the existence of primary
  source resources in many different repositories
  and formats throughout Yale and how they can be
  found.

34
Schedule

• 930 - 1000 Welcome / Overview of Collections
  Collaborative activities
• 1000 - 1045 Keynote address by Kenneth Hamma,
  Executive Director for Digital Policy and
  Initiatives at the J. Paul Getty Trust "At the
  network level everything is just a resource .. at
  first
• 1045 - 1100 Break
• 1100 - 1200 Small group break-out sessions to
  discuss options for improving access to primary
  sources / followed by group discussion
• 1200 - 1245 Lunch provided in Luce Hall Common
  Room
• 1245 - 245 Presentations by Yale librarians
  and curators regarding primary sources materials
  on topics related to the Yale Initiative on Race,
  Gender and Globalization
• 245 - 300 Wrap-up

35
Afternoon presentations

• 1245 -100  MSSA (Bill Massa)
• 100 - 115 YCBA (Stéphane Roy Martha Repp)
• 115 - 135 RSC (Anne Oechtering others)
• 135 - 145 Women's resources (Kelly Barrick)
• 145- 200 Beinecke (Tim Young)
• 200 - 215 Art Gallery (Pamela Franks)
• 215-225 Historical Medical (Toby Appel)
• 225 -235 Law (Mike Widener)
• 235 - 245 Divinity (Martha Smalley)

36
(No Transcript)