Digitization Projects at the State Library of Pennsylvania: Where the Past and Future Meet

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Digitization Projects at the State Library of
Pennsylvania Where the Past and Future Meet

• Bill Nork
• Head of Systems Preservation
• William Fee
• Digital Collections Librarian
• Kurt Bodling
• Digital Resources Cataloger
• Pennsylvania Department of Education,
• State Library of Pennsylvania

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www.statelibrary.state.pa.us/digital_projects

• Or
• Visit the State Library of PA Website
• www.statelibrary.state.pa.us
• Select Digital Projects of the State Library

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Digitization things learned the hard way

• Or why do I drink so much coffee?
• By Bill Fee

• Try to plan things out as much as you can before
  starting a project
• No matter how much you plan, something will blow
  up in your face.
• Its often better to throw people at a problem
  than equipment (if they hit just right, this also
  counts as percussive maintenance)
• Loud, obnoxious and driving punk rock and techno
  really improve the workflow (though that could be
  just a personal preference)

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Hardware Software

• We run a Dell Optiplex GX260 with a 2.26 Ghz
  non-hyperthreaded processor. Alas, were a PC
  shop.
• Scanner-wise, we have a 25,000 Minolta PS 7000
  overhead engine book scanner and an HP ScanJet
  7400C thats up for replacement.

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Hardware Software- again

• Direct scans into Photoshop.   I can save the
  archival TIFF, then edit it and create the access
  JPEG right there.  As a library you should be
  able to get an educational license, which is a
  heck of a lot cheaper.  The program itself  may
  seem more full featured than you need, but things
  like batch process when you're doing a whole
  directory of images with the same edits and
  sizing really save time.  Get them to pay for
  classes, though- about 200 per but well worth it.

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Still More Hardware Software

• We use Omnipage for OCR.  You'll save yourself a
  heck of a lot of correction time by doing a dual
  scan- 1 into Photoshop, one directly into the OCR
  program, whichever you use.  Omnipage has about a
  98 or 99 percent accuracy for anything but
  newspapers, but there are others just as good. 
  Hit up ComputerShopper.com and read reviews.
• If I'm doing a web page, I use the Composer
  feature in Mozilla or Netscape.
• Ive been using these programs and essentially
  the same hardware since the bad old pre-standards
  Dark Ages of 5 years ago, and they seem to work.

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What criteria do you use to have an item
digitized?

• Must be PA related.
• Usually in such poor shape that it cannot
  circulate, or from the Rare Book Room, or ordered
  by the Director or Commissioner.
• Must have less than 5-10 holding libraries in
  FirstSearch (not counting us).
• Usually fits a theme- current is the VLaT
  project- Violence, Labor and Transportation
  riots, train wrecks, mine accidents, etc.

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Other problems you will find

• Bureaucracy
• Shipment
• File and folder nomenclature
• Poor scans and OCR
• Storage
• Personnel
• High-priority projects
• New software, new uses for software, new problem
  with software that only come up because its a
  new project.

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Metadata Considerations

• Kurt A.T. Bodling
• Digital Resources Cataloger
• State Library of Pennsylvania

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The Starting Place

• What is the digital object?
• Something newly created?
• Already cataloged?
• A collection?
• A single item?
• A selection from an item?
• Who is it for?

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Ben Franklin solutions

• Easy call siphon data from OPAC
• Tougher dealing with chapters and single letters

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General solution to obit challenges

• Sampling and testing
• Hunting down exceptions
• Creating a data dictionary
• And, of course, going back later to make changes

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Data Dictionary defined
MARC AACR2 Dublin Core Data Dictionary
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Creating the data dictionary

• Simple issues first
• Steal data from the catalog
• Use boilerplate rights management statement
• Get repeated data into a template

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Creating the data dictionary

• More difficult challenges
• Names of the deceased
• Citation to original source newspapers
• Omissions
• Enhancements
• Difficulties caused by original scrapbooking

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Names of the deceased

• Not authority controlled
• Variations between two obit versions
• Variations within one obit
• Lacking first name

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Name variations
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Anonymous child
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Names of the deceased

• Solutions
• Enter only surname, but
• Enter all spellings that appear

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Citations to original sources

• Visible on microfilm, but NOT in jpeg
• Easily recoverable

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Citations to original sources

• Solution
• Leave this information out of metadata

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Omissions

• Blank pages
• Pages glued together
• Military unit information

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Military unit info
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Omissions

• Solutions
• Record page numbers as they appear
• Note when pages dont appear
• Omit unit information

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Enhancements

• Geographic info
• Occupational info
• Marital status
• And on and on and on.

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Enhancements

• Solutions
• Forego most enrichment
• Include former slave
• Include some terms like suicide and murder

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Scrapbook difficulties

• Running on to second page
• Running on to 3rd, 4th, 5th pages

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Multiple page obit
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Scrapbook difficulties

• Repeated obituaries

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Scrapbook difficulties

• Label at bottom of page, obit on next

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Text and title split
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Scrapbook difficulties

• Year-end cumulative death notice
• Articles that were not obits at all
• Volumes containing two years

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Cumulative notice
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Not an obit
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My Lessons Learned

• Metadata isnt (arent?) scary
• Patience and perseverance win out
• Small crew quick decisions

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What Did we Learn?
More man-hours than we thought More staffing to
complete task Decisions about how deep to go with
metadata
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Questions?
Call or email one of us
Bill Fee 717-783-7014 wfee_at_state.pa.us
Kurt Bodling 717-783-5996 kbodling_at_state.pa.us
Bill Nork 717-787-9128 wnork_at_state.pa.us