D g tal Drive @ the Jewish General Hospital Arch ves

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D g tal Drive _at_ the Jewish General Hospital
Arch ves

• Linda Lei, Archives Consultant
• for the GLIS 642 Preservation Management
• at the School of Information Studies, McGill
  University
• February 17, 2010

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Before the
digitization

• Sybil Cadloff
• Librarian,
• Volunteer Archivist
• c. 1984 c. 2003
• Nature of the JGH Archives
• 1929 to beginning of the 21st century
• Holdings
• 30 feet of textual materials (A/R, minutes,
  correspondence, news clippings, legal documents,
  etc.)
• Approx. 5 feet of photographs 3 boxes from PAC
• 2.5 inches of negatives
• 5 VHS tapes and 20 research tapes for the history
  book of JGH
• 2 boxes of 35mm slides, donated by PAC
• 2 boxes of hospital brick pledges, donated by
  Foundation
• Original finding tools
• 1 box of catalog cards
• 2-page section list compiled in the 1980s.

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Launch of
Digitization (1/2)

• Preliminary works, 2006
• Inventory hierarchy
• Project proposal
• Back in the business, 2007
• Submission of formal business plan
• Planning and database selection, 2008
• Prioritization images first
• Digitization begins
• Database installation
• Resubmission of business plan
• Major undertakings, 2009
• 75th anniversary traveling exhibit
• Database-driven website in progress

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Launch of
Digitization (2/2) - Timeline
Event 1 Scan of photos and brick cards
Event 8 JGH Legacy Lectures
Event 6 Exhibit Text preparation Display system
design
Event 10 French translation
Event 3 Cataloging starts Watermarking
2008 Apr. Jul. Oct.
2009 Apr. Jul. Oct. 2010
Event 11 Website design ongoing
Event 4 Database Customiza-tion French cataloging
Event 7 Exhibit Graphic design Liaisons
Event 2 Database installation Intropage design
Event 5 Exhibit photo selection
Event 9 Finding aids for smaller collections
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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(1/3) Scanning (1/2)

• Equipment
• Flatbed scanner HP ScanJet 5590 with TMA for
  scanning 35mm negatives and slides
• Pros easy to use, economic, searchable PDF
  output format
• Cons slow when higher resolution is selected,
  limited working area
• Objects photo prints, 35mm negatives, slides,
  and brick cards
• Scanning specifications
• Resolution (Dots per inch (dpi)) 300 dpi
• Default color depth (also called Bit Depth) 24
  bit, millions of colors
• Default image size original size. N.B. 6 X 4
  inch for 35mm negatives and slides
• Common output formats
• Images
• .tiff for archival storage
• .jpeg for web-deliverable images
• Full-size images portrait-oriented 650 px on
  short side with a proportionally scaled long
  side landscape-oriented 1000 px on long side
  with a proportionally scaled short side
• Midsize images (for individual record display)
• Thumbnails (for record group display)
• Documents searchable PDF for documents (Tribute
  book), more research is needed

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(1/3) Scanning (2/2)

• Watermarking Adobe Fireworks
• Storage media
• Hospitals server, DVD-R, DVD-RW and external
  hard drive
• CD-R for delivery
• Collaboration with other departments A/V
  (photographing, VHS tape digital conversion,
  Photoshop retouch, etc. ) and Medical Records
• Useful resources
• Kalfatovic, Martin R., 1961-   Creating a winning
  online exhibition a guide for libraries,
  archives, and museums / Martin R. Kalfatovic.
     Chicago   American Library Association,
    2002.
• Stielow, Frederick J., 1946-   Building digital
  archives, descriptions, and displays a
  how-to-do-it manual for archivists and librarians
  / Frederick Stielow.    New York   London
    Neal-Schuman Publishers,   c2003.

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(2/3) Database (1/4)

• Database Archives Online (AO)
• Add-on application to the existing Inmagic
  CS/Textworks for archival accessions and
  descriptions
• City of Richmond Archives, 1995, further enhanced
  and developed by Andornot
• Customization with more French fields
• Demo of searching in AO
• Special features Inventory (images), Inventory
  (hierarchy)
• Thesauri for cataloging
• In use Getty AAT and MeSH by NLM
• Others LCSH and British Columbia Thesaurus
• Useful resources
• Review of archives management software by Council
  of Nova Scotia Archives
• Archivists Toolkit by AABC

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(2/3) Database (2/4)
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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(2/3) Database (3/4)
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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(2/3) Database (4/4)
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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Digitization
(3/3) Website Online search interface (in
progress)

• Demo the JGH Archives
• Intropage
• Keyword search
• Search by collection
• Finding aids hierarchical display of finding
  aids for 3 collections with series descriptions
• Electronic reference book Your Tribute
  Everlasting
• To integrate intropage, online version of the
  traveling exhibit, links to other archives
• Photograph reproduction
• e-Delivery FTP solution
• Online shopping cart TBD

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves Lessons Learned

• Funding
• Time management
• Delays caused by unforeseen circumstances
• Budget
• Revision, revision and revision, until after the
  deadline of submission.
• Staff recruitment

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch vesAfter launching
the JGH Archives website

• Continuing with larger collections
• Arrangement and preservation
• Digitization of textual materials and artefacts
• Themed displays
• More outreach

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D g tal Drive _at_ the JGH Arch ves

• Contact
• Linda (Da) Lei, MLIS
• Archives Consultant
• Jewish General Hospital
  514-340-8222 Health Sciences Library
  Local 3277 Pavilion A, room 200
  dlei_at_jgh.mcgill.ca
• 5750 Côte-des-Neiges Montréal, Québec H3T 1E2
• www.jgh.ca

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