BCAD Architecture

1
BCAD Architecture

• 2009 British Cartoon Archive

2
Projects
BCAD

• A project to digitise and catalogue the Carl
  Giles Archive to current international standards
  and to redevelop the BCA website to significantly
  increase its accessibility and usability.

Verdi

• A project to generalise the BCAD infrastructure
  and standards and then demonstrate the
  applicability of the architecture by using it to
  make the enhanced digital content from three
  collections available on the web Tom Webster
  sporting cartoons, Muggeridge windmills and
  watermills and the Renfew Archaeological photos
  of the Orkney Islands.

3
Overview
Feature BCAD VERDI
Everything except hi-res images freely accessible
Hi-res images available after Shibboleth authentication to partner institutions and Kent staff
Automated creation of images for web use and distribution
Images securely stored in central disk array mirrored and backed up (1)
Medium res images can be viewed via zoom technology
Catalogued in system capable of exporting (2) Calm Modes/Calm
Metadata searchable and mapped to Dublin Core 13 fields 7 standard fields (3)
Records with no images can be searched and displayed
Automatic image delivery with facets (thumb, record, zoom)

• Verdi and BCAD have funded large disk arrays
  which can make some space available for other
  collections. This will need to be monitored and,
  where possible, digitisation project funding
  should try to add capacity to the storage array.
• Frequency and manual vs automated will depend on
  the system.
• (3) 6 Mandatory ISAD(g) fields (easily mapped
  to Dublin Core) plus description Unique
  reference number, title, date,
• level, Extent/physical description, name of
  creator(s), description

4
Overview of architecture
Web users
Website
Data handling systems
Image repository
Archive management
Image upload and resize scripts
Staff
5
Image delivery
(3) Record view with metadata
(1) Simple / advanced search
(2) Results with thumbnails
(4) Zoom functionality
Or in a more visual way
6
Website (1) Search form (Advanced search)
7
Website (2) Results with thumbnails
8
Website (3) Record view with metadata
9
Website (4) Zoom functionality
10
Image-related possibilities
The following have been implemented within the
BCAD project and, while outside of the scope of
VERDI, are possible with small amounts of
development.

• Searching across collections and content (e.g.
  flat website content, book catalogues, digital
  repositories)
• Security (images could be restricted to internal
  use, to other HE/FEs etc)
• Exposing the full archival hierarchy
• Grouping and sharing images /creating lists of
  favourites
• Virtual exhibitions
• Data sharing/harvesting
• Additional metadata and related facets

11
Website-related possibilities
Drupal was the CMS selected for the BCAD project
and has now been selected as the University CMS
solution. It is very powerful, extensible, and
well-supported. Possible extensions include

• Inclusion of questionnaires, comments and other
  Web 2.0 functionality
• Single sign-on
• User roles and management
• E-commerce functionality (including buying
  images)
• Searching and displaying additional metadata and
  facets
• Creating facets to static website content
• Multi-site capabilities
• WYSIWYG content editing

12
Data handling systems

• Drupal communicates with data handling systems
  Fedora and Solr.
• Solr - Search engine, stores limited metadata for
  search results.
• Faceted searching a strong feature of Solr.
• Fedora is a digital repository, storing full
  record details.
• Data between two systems originates from the same
  source.

Export from catalogue system
Website
Solr (for searching)
Fedora (for displaying record)
13
Example of a Solr XML object for BCAD
14
Archive management
The cataloguing process
Manual process
administrative metadata
To demonstrate our catalogue system
15
Demonstration of a record in Calm See
accompanying set of video files.
16
Archive management
The image process
Manual process
Automated batch process of images (thumb,
med, zoom)
Archival master enhanced (if required)
Copy both to disk array
Archival master scanned
To demonstrate our image processing system
17
Demonstration of image batch and zoomify batch
process See accompanying set of video files.
18
To conclude

• A demo clip of the website in action.
• Questions.

19
Website demonstration See accompanying set of
video files.