I am a backer of this project, and you can be too. As of the original writing of this post, they are currently 47% funded twenty-eight days out from their deadline. For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter, people can post creative projects and provide rewards for their funders. The funding only goes through if they reach their goal within the time limit – otherwise nothing happens, a model they call ‘all-or-nothing funding’.

What will the money be spent on?

• 45% for PHP programmers who have been coding the custom web interface
• 35% for interface designers
• 10% for data acquisition & data clean up
• 10% for hosting bills

They aim for a five month time-line to move from their existing functional prototype to something viable to release to the public.

I am also intrigued by ways that the work on this project might be leveraged in the future to support similar text-mining projects that tie in location and date. How about doing the same thing with civil war letters? How about mining the lyrics from Broadway musical songs?

If this all sounds interesting, take a look at the video below and read more on the Hip-Hop Word Count Kickstarter home page. If half the people who follow my RSS feed pitch in $10, this project would be funded. Take a look and consider pitching in. If this project doesn’t speak to you – take a look around Kickstarter for something else you might want to support.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Creative Funding for Text-Mining and Visualization Project

There really is something for everyone here. I picked this striking image of Martha Graham because I love modern dance, but there are also images of war, fashion, sports, landscapes, architecture and tons more. The images currently posted stretch from the 1750s through 2003 and include many that have never before been published.

It is also worth noting that not everything in this collection is a photograph. I found illustrated pages from books like the Queen Summer by Walter Crane. I also found illustrations like this one of the ancient temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Turkey.

From the text in Google’s blog post, it sounds as if Google is doing the digitizing – while LIFE Inc (or their parent company Time Inc) will profit from the sale of prints. The current posted photos represent 20% of all the photos. Ultimately the photo archive is expected to be about 10 million images and stretch to the present day.

TimeInc has partnered with QOOP to sell framed fine art photographs via links directly from each of the LIFE photo pages within Google. Take a look at the page dedicated to selling you a  framed art print of St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1947.

I had not heard of QOOP before, but they seem to have a number of options available for those who want to be their partner. QOOP also wanted me to join their ‘Social Commerce Revolution’. In order to join the revolution I had to create an account (it is free and easy it pointed out). To create my account I had to give them my email address, password and birth date. Not so bad. On the next screen they required that I enter my mailing address and phone number. I don’t really want to give them this information – but I am curious about this revolution I have been promised. And when I was done – a whole lot of nothing happened. I think that I am supposed to use QOOP to create and market products. Is it an affiliate program? Is it an artsier CafePress? Do I need to contribute my own images or can I use those of others? I am still not sure.

I do like their integration with the LIFE images, but I think that there is clearly more work to be done before they are going to foster a ‘Social Commerce Revolution’ anytime soon.

Time Inc’s press release includes the following details:

The LIFE Photo Archive featured on Google will be among the largest professional photography collections on the Web and one of the largest scanning projects ever undertaken. Millions of images have been scanned and made available on Google Image Search today with all 10 million images to be available in the coming months.

“For 70 years, LIFE has been about one thing, and that’s the power of photography to tell a story,” says Andy Blau, LIFE’s President. “LIFE will now reach a broader audience and engage them online with the incredible depth and breadth of the LIFE Photo Archive from serious world events, to Hollywood celebrities to whimsical photographs.” Time Inc. EVP, John Squires adds: “We’re delighted Google recognized the rich value of our photo archive and worked with us to bring it to millions of consumers. Consistent with the launch of the TIME Archive, PEOPLE Archive and the SI Vault, this initiative continues our efforts to build valuable new revenue opportunities from our rich heritage.”

All keywords are translated into 16 different languages. LIFE’s Photo Archive will be scanned and available on Google Image Search free for personal and research purposes. Copyright and ownership of all images will remain with Time Inc.

Google uses a special notation to support search across the LIFE collection – all you do is include source:life as one of your search terms within the Google Image search box. Each photo has a rich set of metadata including a description and the keywords mentioned in the press release above.

When you click on one of the keywords (which are actually called ‘Labels’ in the Google interface) it submits a search within the LIFE collection – but does NOT restrict that search to only the keywords. Rather, it seems to search across all the text associated with each image. For example – the label ‘Feathers’ on assorted images links to this URL: http://images.google.com/images?q=Feathers+source:life. This search returns many images, including one of Debutante Marilyn Lowe wearing a dress made from feathers which is not in fact assigned the label ‘Feathers’, but obviously does include the word feathers in the description.

For those accustomed to hotlinked tag-like terms only retrieving content that also is assigned that term (see all the images in the Flickr Commons tagged with ‘snow’), this might be a bit confusing. Also in contrast with the Flickr Commons, Google does not offer the opportunity for users to assign additional labels/keywords to the images. If you have signed on with a Google account, you can assign images within the LIFE collection a star rating. I don’t see how this is used right now, but I expect that over time they will leverage these ratings to sort the Google hosted image search results.

Since I spend a lot of time these days organizing controlled vocabularies, seeing the keywords assigned to these images makes me wish I could see Time Inc’s full and organized set of terms. My favorite spotted so far? Lines of People – as typified by this photograph of Models wearing checked outfits from 1958.

It will be interesting to see what other partnerships crop up in the next year to digitize other major collections. I am also very curious to know if people actually buy framed fine art prints at the current cost of $79.99 for an 8″x12″ inch print in a 13″x16″ frame. Who knows if Time Inc will be forthcoming with their degree of success on this front – but it will likely be an good test case for other major collections looking to recoup some of the cost of their digitization efforts and find a new revenue stream.

Image Credit: The copyright of both of the images shown above belong to Time Inc. Please click through to view details about each image, including the photographer’s name and the option to purchase your own print of the image.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

LIFE Photo Archive Digitized and Put Online by Google

Dutch photographer Maarten Dors met the limits of free speech at Yahoo Inc.’s photo-sharing service, Flickr, when he posted an image of an early-adolescent boy with disheveled hair and a ragged T-shirt, staring blankly with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

Without prior notice, Yahoo deleted the photo on grounds it violated an unwritten ban on depicting children smoking. Dors eventually convinced a Yahoo manager that – far from promoting smoking – the photo had value as a statement on poverty and street life in Romania. Yet another employee deleted it again a few months later.

This image on Flickr gives more details about the photo being removed – and this is the reinstated photo in question. The article points out “Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.” It makes me wonder if the ‘unwritten guidelines’ are applied evenly across Flickr. With the creation of The Commons area, it would be easy to create two standards – one for the general public and another for ‘blessed’ institutions. Images that are acceptable from the Brooklyn Museum (consider this set of Behind The Scenes photos of the Ron Mueck exhibition) might not be accepted from the average person. In my research I discovered a set of Public Domain photos from the National Archives. Some of the photos included in this set are historically valuable images that I would not necessarily want a child to see. Does this mean they shouldn’t be on Flickr? I don’t think so, but that certainly isn’t up to me.

Here are the relevant passages of the Yahoo! Terms of Service:

You agree to not use the Service to:

1. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
2. harm minors in any way;

You acknowledge that Yahoo! may or may not pre-screen Content, but that Yahoo! and its designees shall have the right (but not the obligation) in their sole discretion to pre-screen, refuse, or remove any Content that is available via the Service. Without limiting the foregoing, Yahoo! and its designees shall have the right to remove any Content that violates the TOS or is otherwise objectionable.

That bit about ‘otherwise objectionable’ could be used to cover removal of anything. Being subject to the terms of service of Internet service providers is nothing new, but as archives, libraries and other cultural heritage institutions look for ways to increase their revenue streams and explore innovative ways to bring more eyes to their materials it will become more import to understand these guidelines.

I understand (as the author of the article that inspired this post also points out) that Yahoo! is a business. Their priorities are not always going to be the same as those of the National Archives or the Brooklyn Museum. There are definitely images from history and the world of art that are only appropriate for adults, but isn’t that what Flickr’s content filter feature, named SafeSearch, is all about? These are the three ‘safety levels’ available on Flickr:

• Safe – Content suitable for a global, public audience
• Moderate – If you’re not sure whether your content is suitable for a global, public audience but you think that it doesn’t need to be restricted per se, this category is for you
• Restricted – This is content you probably wouldn’t show to your mum, and definitely shouldn’t be seen by kids

It is interesting that Flickr has it’s own separate list of Community Guidelines, independent of Yahoo!’s terms of service. This is the passage from these guidelines about filtering content:

Take the opportunity to filter your content responsibly. If you would hesitate to show your photos or videos to a child, your mum, or Uncle Bob, that means it needs to be filtered. So, ask yourself that question as you upload your content and moderate accordingly. If you don’t, it’s likely that one of two things will happen. Your account will be reviewed then either moderated or terminated by Flickr staff.

I am still not sure what safety level I would use for a photo showing rows of dead in a concentration camp. I guess given the choices, ‘restricted’ is the best option – but that still doesn’t sit right with me somehow. I did an advanced Flickr search for ‘concentration camp’ with SafeSearch on – and those photos are not currently being marked as restricted. Who is it that we expect to be protecting using SafeSearch? From Flickr’s definition above it is supposed to at least be kids (and maybe your mom and Uncle Bob).

I think the question of the moment is how to know which images are appropriate to upload if some of the guidelines are unwritten. Flickr is a community and understanding the community is essential to success within that community. Once you believe your images are appropriate to include, then you must decide the right ‘safety level’. It is not clear to me how to tell the difference between an image that is not appropriate to be uploaded to Flickr and an image that is okay but needs to be marked with a safety level of ‘restricted’. I am very interested to see how this category of ‘appropriate but restricted’ evolves. For now, I am going to keep a watch on how the Flickr Commons grows and what range of content is included. The final answer for some of these images may be to only provide them via the institutions’ web sites rather than via service providers such as Flickr.

Image credit: Free Click by fikra (Sami Ben Gharbia) via Flickr

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Flickr Terms of Service, Unwritten Guidelines and Safety Levels

The IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf is intended to provide small and medium-sized libraries and museums with essential resources needed to improve the condition of their collections. The Bookshelf includes books, DVDs, and other collections resources, as well as a Guide to Online Resources and a User’s Guide to all of the materials. It addresses such topics as the philosophy and ethics of collecting, collections management and planning, emergency preparedness, and culturally specific conservation issues.

The Heritage Preservation has created both a 48 page Bookshelf User’s Guide, with a page dedicated to each resources selected for the bookshelf, and a Guide to Online Resources to be used as a companion to the bookshelf. The Bookshelf User’s Guide has a brilliant section at the end giving you pointers to specific sections of the various Bookshelf resources to answer special questions – such as ‘Where can we find information on raising funds for collections care?’ and ‘How can I prioritize the needs of our collections?’.

What is interesting is that it took me a while to realize that each of the institutions that is awarded The Bookshelf will actually receive the books. My past experience with O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online made me assume that the books would be only accessed online. The Safari Books Online site requires a paid membership, but then provides access to an ever growing electronic reference library. The total number of resources is listed as currently over 5,000. One level of membership, Safari Library, provides unlimited access to all the resources (currently listed as $42.99 a month or $472.89 per year) while the less expensive membership level, Safari Bookshelf (currently listed as $22.99 a month or $252.99 a year), provides access to up to ten titles at a time.

Seeing those prices got me wondering, what will the receivers of this bookshelf be getting and what it’s total cost would be? I found my way to a list of the books and resources that will be included. Between the Internet and the 48 page guide to the Bookshelf I found the following information about each element of the Bookshelf. IMLS has broken the bookshelf down into three subsections as shown below:

Bookshelf: The Core Collection

• IPI Media Storage Quick Reference – booklet and quick reference wheel ($25, but you can also download the PDF of the booklet for free)
• Framework for preservation of museum collections wall chart – 26 x 36.25” wall chart ($25, laminated version $56.25)
• Preservation Management for Libraries, Archives and Museums, Gorman, G. E., and Sydney J. Shep, eds., 2006 ($125)
• Heritage Preservation: Capitalize on Collections Care ($2)
• Heritage Preservation: Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel ($12.95 for individuals, $7.95 non-profit/government rate)
• Heritage Preservation: Field Guide to Emergency Response, book and DVD ($29.95)
• International Review of African American Art: Collecting, Conservation, and Collaborations – “Strengthening the Three C’s”, 21.4, 2007. This is a special issue funded by a grant from the IMLS. It is not clear to me if it will be available to order as a back issue – but if so, back issues are $8.
• A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections, Malaro, Marie C., 1985. (link to 2nd edition, 1998 – $29.07)
• Museum Handbook Part I: Museum Collections, National Park Service, 2006. (free online version)
• Caring for American Indian Objects: A Practical and Cultural Guide, Ogden, Sherelyn, ed., 2004. ($26.37)
• The Nature of Conservation: A Race Against Time, Ward, Philip., 1986. (out of print and reprinted for the bookshelf, available used for approximately $25)

Bookshelf: Nonliving Collections

• Promoting Preservation Awareness in Libraries, Drewes, Jeanne M. and Julie A. Page, eds, 1997 ($100 new, available under $1 used)
• The Care of Prints and Drawings, Ellis, Margaret Holben., 1995. ($26.31)
• Caring for Your Family Treasures, Long, Jane S. and Richard W. Long., 2000. ($24.95, Heritage Preservation Member Price – $18.00)
• The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping: The Care of Collection in Historic Houses Open to the Public, 2006. ($87.36)
• Photographs: Archival Care and Management, Ritzenthaler, Mary Lynn and Diane L. Vogt O’Connor, 2006. ($84.95, SAA Member price – $59.95)

Bookshelf: Living Collections

• Dr. Burgess’s Mini Atlas of Marine Aquarium Fishes, 2d ed., Burgess, Warren E. 1992. ($28.76 new, as little as $5.55 used)
• Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine, 6th ed. Fowler, Murray E. and R. Eric Miller., 2007. ($139.50)
• The Darwin Technical Manual for Botanic Gardens, Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), 1998. ($26.50, BGCI Member price – $19.00. Note $9.00 shipping to USA)
• Essentials of Conservation Biology, 4th ed., Primack, Richard B., 2006. ($84.95)
• Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (free download in 10 languages)
• Building a Future for Wildlife: The World Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Strategy (free download)

Grand Total

The maximum cost (with no membership discounts) to purchase all the components of The Bookshelf would be $951.87. Add in the cost of shipping and printing your own copies from the free downloads and we can probably talk about the monetary value of the Bookshelf being approximately $1000!

Online Acces

While researching all of this I came across a new option on Amazon.com – something they are calling Amazon Upgrade. For an additional fee above and beyond the price you pay for the physical book – you can have immediate and permanent online access to the content of that book. Take a look at the offering explained on the Amazon page for The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping: The Care of Collection in Historic Houses Open to the Public. I assume that they plan to increase the titles for which this is an option. If so, I can envision building an online reference shelf of one’s own – one title at a time. Rather than deciding that something like O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online has enough books to make it worth while for you – you will create your own custom online reference shelf.

The other half of the online access story is of course the number of resources that are posted online for free download (or as living HTML documents being updated over time). These are all the resources from the list above that can be downloaded for free:

• IPI Media Storage Quick Reference
• Museum Handbook Part I: Museum Collections
• Global Strategy for Plant Conservation
• Building a Future for Wildlife: The World Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Strategy

What if all the resources that those who care for collections need were available via an online bookshelf? Now that would be an amazing resource for which many would be happy to pay an annual fee. Perhaps it could be provided as part of the membership fee for one or more of the appropriate professional organizations. An additional benefit to an online collection is the opportunity to receive automatic updates and new editions. I will also keep an eye on the Amazon Upgrade option to see how easy it is for someone to build their own online reference shelf – but I think a purposeful online collection designed for cultural heritage institutions would be even more compelling.

Getting the Bookshelf

A lot of organizations have already received the Bookshelf, but the press release that got me looking at all this mentioned that the next (final?) application period will be from March 1 through April 30, 2008. Recipients will be announced in July of 2008.

If you are considering applying you can find more details about the application process and review the questions you must answer online. But even for those that don’t qualify (federally operated and for-profit institutions are not eligible) – the Bookshelf User’s Guide, the Guide to Online Resources and those resources that may be downloaded for free provide a powerful combination of materials to support institutions and individuals as they care for collections of all shapes and sizes.

Note: All prices quoted in this post were valid as of January 27th, 2008. Image shown above from IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf page.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Caring for Special Collections: Exploring the Connecting to Collections Bookshelf

In the HealthDay article Having Lots of Kids Helps Dads Live to 100, a recent study was described that examined what increased the chances of a man living past 100.

A young, trim farmer with four or more children: According to a new study, that’s the ideal profile for American men hoping to reach 100 years of age. The research, based largely on data from World War I draft cards, suggests that keeping off excess weight in youth, farming and fathering a large number of offspring all help men live past a century.

The article mentions that this research was “spurred by the fact that a treasure trove of information about 20th-century American males has now been put online”. The study was based out of the University of Chicago’s Center on Aging. The paper, New Findings on Human Longevity Predictors, includes the following reference:

Banks, R. (2000). World War I Civilian Draft Registrations. [database on-line]. Provo, UT, Ancestry.com.

With an account on Ancestry.com, you too could examine the online database of World War I Draft Registration Cards. This Ancestry.com page notes the source of the original data as:

United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls

NARA’s page for the World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, M1509 includes similar background information to what can be found on the Ancestry.com page, but of course – no access to the actual records.

It is frustrating to a study based on archival records that is making the news, but that does not make it clear to the reader that archival records were the source for the research. As I discussed at length in my post Epidemiological Research and Archival Records: Source of Records Used for Research Fails to Make the News, I feel that it is very important to take every opportunity to help the general public understand how archival records are supporting research that impacts our understanding of the world around us. I appreciate that partnering with 3rd parties to get government records digitized is often the only option – but I want people to be clear about why those records still exist in the first place.

Photo Credit: US. National Archives, World War I Photographs, 1918. Army photographs. Battle of St. Mihiel-American Engineers returning from the front; tank going over the top; group photo of the 129th Machine gun Battalion, 35th Division before leaving for the front; views of headquarters of the 89th Division next to destroyed bridge; Company E, 314th Engineers, 89th Division, and making rolling barbed wire entanglements. NAIL Control Number: NRE-75-HAS(PHO)-65

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Using WWI Draft Registration Cards for Research: NARA Records Provide Crucial Data

University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center

Mark Shelstad‘s presentation, “Show Me the Money: Or: How Do We Pay for This?”, detailed the approach taken by the University of Wyoming‘s American Heritage Center (AHC) to find alternate revenue streams. After completing a digitization project in the fall of 2004, the AHC had to figure out how to continue their project after their original grant money ran out.

Since they didn’t have a lot of in-house resources, they chose Zazzle.com for their effort to profit from their existing high resolution images. They can earn up to 17% from the sales through a combination of affiliate sales and profits from the sale of products featuring American Heritage Center images.

They had a lot of good reasons for choosing Zazzle.com. Zazzle.com already had an existing ‘special collections’ area, meaning that their images would have a better chance of being found by those interested in their offerings (for example – take a look at the Library of Congress Vintage Photos store). Zazzle.com also did not require an exclusive license to the images. The American Heritage Center Zazzle on-line store opened in 2005.

Currently they are making about $30 a month in royalties from 200 images. Mark pointed out that everyone needs to keep in mind that the major photo provider, Corbis, has yet to turn a profit in online photo sales. He also mentioned a website called Cogteeth.com that lets you click on any image and use those images on t-shirts, mugs.. etc.

Near the end of his talk, Mark shared an amazing idea to create a non-profit that would be a joint organization for featuring and selling products using archival images. I love it! It is easy to see that many archives are small and don’t have the infrastructure to create and run their own e-commerce websites. At the same time, general sites that let anyone set up a store to sell items with custom images on them threaten to loose the special nature of historical images in the shuffle. Even the special collections section of Zazzle lumps the American Heritage Center and the Library of Congress collections with Disney and Star Wars. I would love to see this idea grow!

Minnesota Historical Society

Kathryn Otto of the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) spoke next. She first gave an overview of traditional services provided by MHS for a fee, such as photocopies, reader-printer copies, microfilm sales, media sales, inter-library loan fees, classes and photograph sales. MHS also earned income via standard use fees and research services.

The first e-commerce initiative at MHS was the sale of Minnesota State Death Certificates from 1904 – 2001. Made available via the Minnesota Death Certificate Index they provide the same data as Ancestry.com, but the MHS index provides a better search interface. They have had users tell them that they couldn’t find something on Ancestry.com – but that they were able to find what they needed on the MHS site.

To their existing Visual Resources Database, MHS also added a buy button for most images. Extra steps were added into the standard buy process to deal with the addition of a use fee depending on how the purchaser claims the image will ultimately be used. One approach that did not work for them was to offer expensively printed pre-selected images. The historical society sells classes online and can handle member vs non-member rates. TheVeterans Graves Registration Index is a tiny database that was created by reusing the interface used for the death certificates.

The Birth Certificate Index provides “single, non-certified copies of individual birth certificates reproduced from the originals” via the website.. while “[o]fficial, certified copies of these birth certificates are available through the Minnesota Department of Health.” The MHS site provides much faster and easier service than the Department of Health as can be seen from this page detailing how to order a non-certified copy of a birth record from the DOH – which requires printing, filling out and either faxing or snail mailing a form.

Features to keep in mind as you branch into in e-commerce:

• Statistics – Consider the types of statistics you want. Their system just gave them info about orders – not how much they made.
• Sales tax – Figure out how is it handled
• Postage/Handling fees – Look at the details! The MHS Library-Archives was stuck with the Museum Store’s postage rates because the e-commerce system could not handle different fees for different types of objects.
• Can’t afford credit card fees? Consider PayPal.
• Advertise what you are selling on your own website.

Godfrey Memorial Library, Middletown, CT

The final panelist was Richard Black, Director of the Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown, Connecticut. The Godfrey is a small, non-profit, genealogical research library with approximately 120,000 genealogical items. They currently have 5 full time staff and 60 volunteers.

Services they provide:

• an online subscription portal for genealogical research (see a list of resources available to subscribers )
• quick search service – 30 minutes of search by a volunteer
• American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI) – currently Ancestry.com has right to use the AGBI for 1 more year
• Access to OCLC WorldCat
• …and more

About 3 years ago they had exhausted all of their endowment money and faced the strong possibility of closing the doors. They were down to one full time librarian and a few volunteers and were dependent mostly on donations and some minor income from other sources/services.

They had only a few options open to them:

• find more money from other sources
• merge with another library
• close the doors
• sell some of the content
• others??

The first approach to raise funds was to create a subscription website. The Godfrey acquired Heritage Quest census records and added other databases as resources allowed. Subscriptions were sold for $35 a year. The board thought they might be lucky to get 100 subscriptions.. but they actually got approximately 14,000!

Now the portal provides access to sites for which a premium has been paid (so that subscribers don’t have to pay), sites that are available free on the Internet (but made easier to find) and sites unique to Godfrey, including digitized material in the library and other material that has been made available to them. They just added 95,000 Jewish grave-sites – brought to them by a local rabbi. Another recent addition was a set of transcriptions of a grave-site made as an Eagle Scout project. They also negotiated to have their books digitized for them for free. The company performing the digitization will pay a royalty to Godfrey as the books are used.

The costs to acquire data for the portal includes $60,000 a year for access to premium sites, the cost to digitize and transcribe unique content (there are opportunities to partner and reduce costs) and the cost to acquire patrons. The efforts of the Godfrey staff and volunteers is ‘free’ – but costs time.

The Godfrey subsequently lost access to the Heritage Quest material. This was like taking the anchor store out of the corner of a mall. It forced them to diversify their revenue streams and watch for new opportunities.

Current revenue source distribution:

• online portal 45%
• annual appeal 10%
• patron requests 5%
• contract services 35% (OCLC analytical cataloging that they do)
• misc 5%

The endowment funds have been restored and the Godfrey’s staff is now growing again.

Questions

Question: Did you meet resistance in your institutions?
Answer: No.. Minnesota said they had such success that the 2 questions they here now are A) What do we put online next? B) How long can they protect their income from the rest of the institution?

Question: (From someone from a NJ archives) Is there a way to do e-commerce with government records and not have the money ‘stolen’ from them?
Answer: Minnesota – The department of health was happy for death and birth certificates business to go away? They do worry about the future when they might try to make a marriage index – because that territory is already ‘owned’ by a group that wants to keep that income.

Question: When you charge for use fees – are there people who don’t pay them?
Answer: Minnesota: Probably – no way to really know.
Mark (American Heritage Center): Our images are public domain – they can do what they like with them.

Question: Do you brand your images?
Answer: Mark: Yes.. a logo and URL goes with the images.

My Thoughts

I was particularly impressed by how much information was conveyed in the course of the 1 hour session. My personal highlights were:

• As I mentioned above, I want Mark’s idea for a non-profit to sell co-located products based on archival images to gain support and momentum.
• I was pleased by the point that the MHS makes money from their Minnesota Death Certificate Index partly due to their improved and powerful search interface. The data is available elsewhere – but they made it easier to find information, so they will become the destination of choice for that information.
• The Godfrey’s story is inspirational. In an age when we hear more and more often about archives and libraries being forced to cut back services due to funding shortfalls, it is great to hear about a small archives that pulled themselves back from the brink of disaster by brave experimentation.

These three case studies gave a great glimpse of some of the ways that archives can get on the e-commerce bandwagon. There is no magic here – just the willingness to dig in, figure out what can be done and try it. That said – there is definitely lots of room to learn from others successes and mistakes. The more real world success and failure stories archives share with the archival community about how to ‘do’ e-commerce, the easier it will be for each subsequent project to be a success.

As is the case with all my session summaries from SAA2007, please accept my apologies in advance for any cases in which I misquote, overly simplify or miss points altogether in the post above. These sessions move fast and my main goal is to capture the core of the ideas presented and exchanged. Feel free to contact me about corrections to my summary either via comments on this post or via my contact form.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

SAA2007: Archives and E-Commerce, Three Case Studies (Session 404)

Who Spoke?

Jessica Lacher-Feldman (session chair) – University of Alabama, PBO project manager

Amy Rudersdorf – now at North Carolina State University, Digital production coordinator, NCSU special Collections, but was at University of Wisconsin, Madison during PBO project

Kristy Dixon – University of Alabama , PBO staff

PBO Project Overview

PBO was made possible by a 3 year Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant. Originally awarded in 2003, the grant was extended once (and I think they mentioned additional funding being applied for). The primary grant funded the digitization of 10,000 images from up to 5000 book bindings. Ultimately 10,570 images were added to PBO and made searchable by metadata. The bindings selected included books from 1815-1930, primarily US titles and mostly in English.

Their guiding vision was of “giving something to the world that is both needed and useful” (and really beautiful). And they succeeded! PBO is a lot more than 10,000+ digitized book bindings. The project strived to make the information available in many different ways, including via:

• a web-based database
• online exhibits & galleries,
• vodcasts and podcasts
• web-based tutorials
• virtual and real exhibits
• presentations & class lectures
• opportunities to adapt the project to other disciplines – history, book arts, librarianship, literature.. K-12 and more

Technology and Processes

The division of labor for PBO was split between the University of Alabama and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Many extensions to the OCLC SiteSearch based database were made by the UWDCC (UW Digital Collections Center) digital production center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison .

They went through an overview of the participants and staff – who did what.. what skills were needed and what was brought by the two institutions to the collaboration. They acknowledged their fabulous advisory group including Sue Allen – “the expert on publisher’s bindings”. Individuals from outside their teams contribute based on their special interest and knowledge about a specific individual (this contribution is still ongoing).

Working in collaboration forced them to wrestle with many challenges including:

• staff in two locations – most of whom had never met
• “long distance relationships are hard”
• they had to work hard to ensure that all were ‘equally-valued participants’
• standards – you need ground rules from the outset

Collaboration & Description

“Every pair of eyes are different”. PBO tapped into the resource of the ‘young fertile minds’ to power the project out of the local MLS programs at both institutions. Even with a detailed description form – there was confusion over subject headings and overlap – especially when those selecting subject headings were grad students who might not know the official terms for things. For example, the list of terms might include Ouroboros – but the students might not know this  it is the term for a snake eating it’s own tail.

Ultimately they had to do quality control at a single location. They spent a LOT of time on this.

Their top tips for cultivating continuity for virtual project teams:

• write into your grants money for travel (they stressed that your grant includes funds to support people meeting each other)
• continuous communication is critical
• ‘shared working group website’ available online
• email, conference calls and instant messaging (IM) for communication
• regular reporting to each other
• being project manager means that you have to be on top of everything – you need to be the glue
• focus on the deliverables – use planning tools and timelines

They discovered that IM was key to developing trust between the two institutions.

Metadata – the core of the project

The key to their metadata approach was to consider a book less as a ‘bibliographic object’ and more as an ‘art object’.

They called books in PBO ‘objects’ but still kept the bibliographic metadata. They used Dublin Core by pulling the MARC data into the Dublin Core structure. As part of this they took all the subjects from the bibliographic info and moved it to the Dublin Core description and labeled it ‘book topic’. Then they used the ‘Subjects’ portion of the Dublin Core record to describe the binding and talk about what the images are OF. This is where the subject terms from the controlled vocabulary were added.

These are the steps of their metadata workflow process:

• selection from collections of note – faculty, consultants and library staff did this step
• description – used a paper form, described the books on paper and joined that description to what was in the MARC record – done by the grad students and library staff
• metadata entry – entry of data through an online form – done by students (overseen by library staff) actually ended up being cheaper to manually enter the MARC data (rather than automated extraction)
• quality control – content, grammar, spelling – done by library staff (took a lot more time than anyone expected)
• no live update between their working Filemaker Pro database and the final SiteSearch database
• record ownership – indicated in the identifier field (with a special code in the identifier) AND in the Submitter field

A lot of description went into this project.

They needed to develop a controlled vocabulary for the project. To do this they first worked with content specialists to develop a list. They used Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) terms where they could, as well as Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus. Then they added some local terms. The controlled vocabulary list evolved with the project and is the foundation of all teaching, search and more.

The speaker showed an example of the controlled vocabulary – the terms really are a window into the past. Users can browse the controlled vocabulary through the front end.

On the description paper form they had a list of ‘binding themes’ for those doing the description to pick from. A lot of work was done to get the huge list of themes onto a single page. Ultimately they had to provide some fill in the blank extension fields. For example, rather than believing they had listed every useful trade or profession, there was a section on the list labeled: Profession/Trade – _______________ with the expectation that those describing a binding might need to fill in the blank.

Digitization and The Database

Generally two scans were taken from each book, but sometimes as many as five. What did they scan? Front cover, spine, back cover and end papers.

There were two different image reformatting standards at the two institutions – 300 DPI vs 600 DPI. Both used a black background when scanning. All books were presented in as in condition – some have front/back covers missing. After the scanning they began with master TIFs and then transformed them to JPGs in three sizes in 72 DPI.

The presentation showed screen shots of:

• simple search
• brief view record in search results — which includes subjects
• full record view – including display of all images associated with the book object record
• gallery view – thumbnail, title and indication if there are one or more images related to the title
• guided search (advanced search)
• clickable subject headings

All the images in PBO are freely available for download.

With an eye to digital preservation, all the original uncompressed TIF images are archived in triplicate to digital archive tape and stored in three different locations. The metadata is stored with images in both text and SGML format (which is what SiteSearch works with). The full process documents are available on the project site.

Future Growth

The PBO team is talking to Louisiana State University (LSU) to figure out how PBO can grow. LSU would need to work and live with the way PBO works and learn their processes. They are talking to other institutions – if you are interested in adding content to PBO, please contact them.

The Richard Minsky Collection has been purchased and is being added to the project. This is a rich collection that was gathered to create a catalog. PBO has the catalog and all of Minsky’s research that goes with the collection. The goal is to feed as much of this rich data into PBO as possible. They are working with individual scholars and collectors to find other avenues for growth.

Value Added Components

One of the focuses of PBO has been to look beyond the digital images themselves to creating value added components for their user community.

A tutorial for users is provided, including information about how to email a record. A comprehensive bibliography has been created and is used by scholars. The page prompts users to submit feedback so the bibliography is a live document.

Over 30 galleries have been created – organizing access to essays and additional info by topic. Types of galleries include:

• Galleries on Bindings and Book binding techniques – these are not really related to individual book objects – but give more information, for example Silver & Gold: The Art of Metal Stamping
• Galleries on Collections – for example the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture
• Galleries on Artistic Styles and Movements – a narrative approach provides information on the historical roots of the movements and show how the bindings fit into the movements
• Galleries on History -  they have 11 of these galleries,including major historical events, literature and culture of the time
• Galleries on Literature

Links to trusted information outside of PBO’s site are shown whenever possible. For example – links to the full text of books are provided via Project Gutenberg. Throughout the site’s text link to sources such as the Library of Congress, .gov sites, PBS and so forth can be found.

Canned searches are provided to make it easy for users to explore content. An example of this is the Silver & Gold: The Art of Metal Stamping search that will find every binding with either silver or gold stamping. This is in contrast with making users figure out the right syntax to submit the search criteria themselves.

The Teaching Tools portion of the site provides sample lesson plans on all sorts of topics. They worked with some high school history teachers via focus groups and got feedback about what they needed and wanted. The Industrial Revolution lesson plan was created based on that feedback.

The research tools that were created as a result of the PBO project and are made available online are:

• glossary – 456 terms defined using ten major authorities
• bibliography of print & web resources
• controlled vocabulary for subject headings
• publishers map – an interactive map that includes 2123 publishers so far
• tutorials on various subjects

Signed or Designer bindings is a new resource to which scholars continue to contribute new information.

Through collaboration with teaching faculty they developed the presentation such as Indians, the Frontier, and the West in American Bookbindings. This presentation will eventually be podcast on the PBO site. It talks about how these books inspired people to move west and inspired kids to read.

Another podcast is on the way addressing the representation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It will discuss how the book was it marketed to different groups – Yiddish, German… etc. There already exists a gallery and essay on Uncle Tom’s Cabin .

Conclusions

The team has been very pleased by the tangible scholarly impact of PBO. They have seen extensive collaboration with the university community, new research, and promotion of the use of special collections materials in the classroom using digital resources. They point to PBO as showing a path to preserve these increasingly fragile books by moving out of the general stacks and into special collections – with a result of increased access to the book and decreased handling.

The presenters avowed that PBO could never have been created by their team alone – working with consultants and advisers was the key to their success. They needed input from experts and others to help PBO grow and keep it sustainable. This interaction makes the project strong – it has it’s own legs and won’t cease to exist when the money disappears.

Publicity and outreach got attention on the PBO project from the very beginning. They made documenting their experiences and making recommendations about how to market digital projects part of the original plan in their grant proposals. These documents were part of their deliverables. They even published a white paper about PBO and outreach.

PBO uses Google Analytics so they can see where their users are coming from. Also it makes cool talking points for your reports and fun things to tell the Dean!

I think the best conclusion to my summary of the presentation portion of this session is the list of points on the final slide titled “Beyond the grant: Room to Grow”:

• Potential future contribution from other repositories in the US and abroad…
• Potential future collaboration with teaching faculty at UA and beyond
• With additional collections, the database and the project will only grow stronger
• Potential as a web portal, clearing house, or consortium
• Additional potential funding opportunities, scholarship, and ways to highlight collections, resources, knowledge, and abilities

Questions and Answers

Keep in mind throughout this section that I am summarizing and paraphrasing the questions and their answers. Please do not take any statements as full and complete quotes. In cases where I missed too much of the question or answer I generally skipped including it in the list below. If you are anxious to know exactly what was said, you would need to buy and listen to the conference recordings for this session.

Question: Who maintains the website and who makes decisions about how things are going to get updated?
Answer: UA maintains the static web pages and UW maintains the database. The project manager has been in charge.. made prototypes of new design and sent it around for feedback. They have standards for colors in their handbooks.

Question: If the grant funding dried up right now would the project be sustainable?
Answer: There is support from the institutions… for example, it is just one project of many at UW.

Question: How did you get such good scans of the book spines?
Answer : At UW they used blocks or boxes to prop up the books and laid black foam core on top on flatbed scanners. At UA – they used black paper covered blocks in combination with overhead scanners.

Question: How did you get the full cover scans?
Answer: They very carefully lay the cover flat – so the pages sticking are sticking up.

Question: Who customized SiteSearch – OCLC or UW?
Answer: UW did the work – they had one and a half dedicated IT staff to do the customizations.

Question : Have you had to negotiate copyright issues for bindings from the late end of the time range of the project
Answer: No.

Question : Are you aware of others doing similar projects? Have you been approached and or are looking for others who want to contribute?
Answer: Yes. Right now they are working with LSU and are not actively seeking out new participants. There are plans to grow the project eventually.

Question: Did you think about the fact that you were creating your own online publication?
Answer: They didn’t realize it ahead of time – they didn’t realize how powerful the database was going to be to fuel their ability to build further on the work.

Question: Can you search for ‘young people’s covers’ – is there metadata for what age groups might enjoy specific books?
Answer: It depends on if it was part of the descriptive information, but you can search on ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ or ‘juvenile’ and gain useful results.

Question: Can you talk about the work behind the MARC to Dublin Core migration?
Answer: In some ways it was easier than they thought it would be – so many of the fields transfer directly from MARC to Dublin Core.. it was the revelation about the book as art object that made them realize the work they needed to do. Building the controlled vocabularies was where the heavy lifting occurred. It involved going through giant spread sheets with subject terms in alphabetical order looking for typos and working toward consistency (ie, use plurals). The spreadsheet didn’t show how many items used each term – it was hard to know how many changes would be needed.

Question: Do you get hits from the standard online catalog into PBO?
Answer: This is not happening now. They would love to build a better connection between the OPAC and PBO in both institutions.

Question: How did you make decisions when there were disagreements?
Answer: “I don’t remember any more.. it was all so beautiful…” <laughter > . There were no big issues about standards. There were more issues about the grant and things like how many images or books they were supposed to scan. In some cases it was easy because they were in charge of very different project areas – each team had “their own little fiefdom”.

Question: Do you think you might sell images to generate revenue?
Answer: They have considered it. The have made a calendar and a poster, but gave them away. They also have used images for making holiday cards. They don’t see selling images as a main goal right now.

Question: Have you considered pursuing online collaborative methods for work with the scholars and collectors?
Answer: No, but they think that would be useful to explore.

My Thoughts

I loved the energy and connection displayed by the presenters. It was fun to see a team of people who clearly were so proud of their work and pleased by its reception. I was personally intrigued by the highlighted challenge of coming up with (and painstakingly validating) their controlled vocabulary for subjects. I firmly believe that the topic of subject terms and their standardization across repositories will only grow in importance. For those interested in some of what is being done on this front – take a look at both the UK based High Level Thesaurus (HILT) and the Simple Knowledge Organisation Systems Core (SKOS) project. I suspect many will be intrigued by the SKOS use case titled An integrated view to medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Even given the mammoth effort required to create a shared controlled vocabulary, it is clear that the benefits they have reaped from this effort are still being discovered. The speakers mentioned on multiple occasions how pleased (and surprised) they were to realize how powerful their database of metadata has proven to be. All the amazing value added features build on this ‘heavy lifting’.

While it will be rare for such item level attention to be given to most archival documents, PBO sets the bar high for what can be done via collaboration across institutions. Their dedication to sharing their lessons learned is a fine example of what all big projects who are forging new frontiers could be doing. Finally – it is the weight of all the value added elements (galleries, tutorials, lesson plans.. and the list goes on) that have raised what could have been just a set of classified images in a database to being an active community with a growing draw for many types of users from around the world.

As is the case with all my session summaries from SAA2007, please accept my apologies in advance for any cases in which I misquote, overly simplify or miss points altogether in the post above. These sessions move fast and my main goal is to capture the core of the ideas presented and exchanged. Feel free to contact me about corrections to my summary either via comments on this post or via my contact form.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

SAA2007: Publishers’ Bindings Online – Digitization, Collaboration, Standardization and Community Building (Session 707)

The Preserving Virtual Worlds project will explore methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction. Major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game. Second Life content participants include Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum. Partners: University of Maryland, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab.

This has gotten a fair amount of coverage from the gaming and humanities sides of the world, but I learned about it via Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum‘s blog post Just Funded: Preserving Virtual Worlds.

The How They Got Game 2 post Library of Congress announces grants for preservation of digital games gives a more in depth summary of the Preserving Virtual Worlds project goals:

The main goal of the project is to help develop generalizable mechanisms and methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction, and to begin to test these mechanism through the archiving of selected test cases. Key deliverables include the development of metadata schema and wrapper recommendations, and the long-term curation of archived cases.

I take this all a bit more personally than most might. I was a frequent denizen of an online virtual world known as TinyMUD (now usually referred to as TinyMUD Classic). TinyMUD was a text based, online, multi-player game that existed for seven months beginning in August of 1989. In practice it was sort of a cross between a chat room and a text based adventure. The players could build new parts of the MUD as they went – in many ways it was an early example of crowdsourcing. There was a passionate core of players who were constantly building new areas for others to explore and experience – not unlike what is currently the case in SecondLife. These types of text based games still exist – see MudMagic for listings.

Apparently August 20, 2007 will be TinyMUD’s 18th Annual Brigadoon Day. It will be celebrated by putting TinyMUD classic online for access. The page includes careful notes about finding and using a MUD Client to access TinyMUD. The existence of an ongoing MUD community of users has kept software like this alive and available almost 20 years later.

With projects like Preserving Virtual Worlds getting grants and gaining momentum it seems more plausible with each passing day that 18 years from now, parts of 2007′s SecondLife will still be available for people to experience. I am thankful to know that a copy of the TinyMUD world I helped build is still out there. I am even more thankful to know that the technology still exists to permit users to access it even if it is only once a year.

Update: 20th Anniversary of TinyMud Brigadoon day is set for Thursday, August 20, 2009

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Preserving Virtual Worlds – TinyMUD to SecondLife

I spotted this in boingboing’s post Liberated public domain government docs surfacing online and I was immediately intrigued. This isn’t really an archiving issue exactly – though you could decide that it takes more of a LOCKSS approach to preservation. I also wonder how this approach could be used to finance the digitization of other public domain materials.

The website explains on their About Us page that they have recently applied for non-profit status with the IRS, so soon the purchase price of these materials could become a tax deduction for those who file US Tax Returns. They feature materials from 54 different US Federal agencies – from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the IRS. There are materials on the Environment, Public Health, Flying and many more.

But that isn’t all they are tackling – back in May they issued a message to The Internet discussing their attitude toward (and frustration with) the Smithsonian Images website. It begins:

We write to you today on the subject of SmithsonianImages.SI.Edu, a government ecommerce site built on a repository of 6,288 images of national significance. The site is breathtaking in scope, with imagery ranging from the historic cyanotypes of Edward Muybridge to historic photos from aviation, natural history, and many other fields. If the Smithsonian Institution is our attic, these photos are our collective scrapbook.

However, the web site imposes draconian limits on the use of this imagery. The site includes a copyright notice that to the layman would certainly discourage any use of the imagery. While personal, non-commercial use is purportedly allowed, it requires a half-dozen clicks before the user is allowed to download a low-resolution, watermarked image. An image without the watermark and at sufficient resolution to be useful requires a hefty fee, manual approval by the Smithsonian staff, and the resulting invoice specifically prohibits any further use without permission.

The letter goes into great detail about why they disagree with how things are being done – take a look if you are curious. Also -they didn’t just create this letter – they also created a free to download book titled Public Domain Prospectus which they declare as a tool for those researching the public domain status of the 6,288 images included (in their low resolution watermarked versions).

I went hunting on the Smithsonian Images site to see for myself. I found a few things. While the prices for prints or digital files do seem expensive to my eyes – there is the following note included in the Product and Pricing Information:

Special Note on Pricing: Smithsonian Photographic Services, as an instrument of the Smithsonian Institution, is a non-profit entity. Fees associated with the delivery of images represent material fees only and go to support the broader mission to create, archive, and preserve images associated with the Institution and it’s holdings.

That page also includes some information about how the images may be used, but for the full story I headed over to the Copyright Policy. That is when I started to get confused. The copyright policy on that page talks about “Use of text, images and other content on this website…”. Does that mean these same rules apply to the images you purchase as well?

Let’s take a closer look at one of the pages about a specific image. Here is a nice one of Fireworks over National Monuments. I click on the tempting ‘Download Image’ button and now I see more about what the Public.Resource.Org folks are talking about. One more click and I finally find what appears to be the official Commercial Use of Smithsonian Images page which concludes with:

Commercial distribution, publication or exploitation of Smithsonian files is specifically prohibited. Anyone wishing to use any of these files or images for commercial use or publication must first request and receive prior permission by contacting [Smithsonian Institution Office of Imaging & Photographic Services]. Permission for such use is granted on a case-by-case basis. A usage fee may be involved depending on the type and nature of the proposed use.

There is a special policy for school, teacher and student use of the watermarked versions of the images for free (with the right citations of course).

If I understand the Public.Resource.Org’s issues, it isn’t predominately with the price of the high resolution digital versions or even the print versions of these photos (though they DO touch on it in their letter and I think I side with Smithsonian Images on that aspect – it does cost money and time to make all that available). Rather it is with the firmness that Smithsonian Images claims that you must request permission to use any of the images you purchase for anything beyond personal or educational use. I think I like what NARA has on their website concerning the publication of their still photos which begins with these two paragraphs:

Generally, photographic records copied and sold by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) may be published without special permission or additional fees. NARA does not grant exclusive or non-exclusive publication privileges. Copies of Federal records, as part of the public domain, are equally available to all.

A portion of the photographs among our holdings are or may be subject to copyright restrictions. The National Archives does not confirm the copyright status of photographs, but will provide any information filed with the photograph. It is important to note that all of the digital images that are available on our website are in the public domain.

I can see how it might seem safer (from a “don’t sue us” point of view) to force a search by hand for each and every image as users request to use them. At the same time I would like to think that the folks over at Smithsonian Images already know which images are in the public domain. Maybe I am oversimplifying this, but I want to believe that the details of copyright are part of the metadata that could be supplied along with the date, photographer’s name and description.

I prefer the National Archives’ approach of stating clearly that they do not confirm the copyright status of photographs. They put it in the hands of the entity who wants to use the materials – though that might be small comfort to the average citizen not well versed in copyright rules.

The Wikipedia page on Copyright status of work by the U.S. government includes sections about digital historical material as well as work produced by government contractors. Reading through this makes me realize how quickly the copyright status of images such as those provided by Smithsonian Images and NARA can get confusing.

I think what Public.Resource.Org is doing with their propagation of public domain materials to locations where the public can actually get at them easily is interesting. I want to check back in a year and see how much they have set loose – and what materials they are asking for help to liberate. As I mentioned above, I think there could be some interesting models of individuals donating money to finance the digitization and of public domain materials. Something like what Fundable does to take pledges toward a specific fund-raising goal – and then only turn those pledges into funds if the goal is reached.

As for their great frustration with Smithsonian Images? Well, I see Public.Resource.Org’s side. In this age of Flickr.com – people are growing used to watching for Creative Commons Licenses. With so much out there with liberal Creative Commons Licenses and in the Public Domain, why struggle with images that are copyright protected unless you really need to?

I would like to think that rights management is one of the first things that would get sorted out before a large image collection is put online – especially if the goal is to produce a revenue stream. That said – I would love to know the real story here. I can imagine that the rights on many of those images are not clear cut. But if the Smithsonian Image people know that some of them are in the public domain – then why would they go through all that extra trouble to force a rights search for every image? Why not distinguish the ones which require research from those that don’t? Couldn’t it only help support the work of the Smithsonian to have their images used by as many projects as possible? Anyone reading this have an answer for us from the inside?

About the image above: Given that I prefer images without watermarks (as provided by Smithsonian Images) and that I know that the images on NARA’s site are in the public domain I went hunting for something pretty – and found the image I feature above. To find it yourself do a search for [Sunrise on Malibu Lake] in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). These are the details included with the image:

Sunrise on Malibu Lake in the Santa Monica mountains near Malibu, California, which is located on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County. The mountains contain the last semi-wilderness in Los Angeles County. This area so far has escaped development pressure. Some 84 percent of the state’s residents live within 30 miles of the coast and this concentration has resulted in increasing land use pressure. Several commissions have been authorized by the legislature to restrict coastal development, 05/1975.

Item from Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 – 2000. NARA NAIL Control Number: NWDNS-412-DA-15109. Photograph by Charles O’Rear.

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Public.Resource.Org: Creative Financing and Public Domain Content

I sent him an email asking about where the data for his research came from. Did the NIH have a set of data from long ago? Here is an excerpt from his kind reply:

Unfortunately, nobody kept track of data like this and you can see the great lengths we went to to track it down. Many of the people we thank in our acknowledgment at the end of the paper tracked down and provided information in local or municipal archives. For Baltimore, I came up and spent an entire day in the library going through old newspapers on microfilm. Some of the information had been gathered by previous historians in works on the epidemic in individual cities (Omaha — an unpublished Master’s thesis — and Newark are examples). Gathering the information was extremely arduous and probably one of the reasons no one had looked at this systematically before. Fortunately, several major newspapers (the NYTimes, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, etc.) now have online archives going back at least until 1918 that facilitated our search.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. We were amateurs and pulling the information together took a lot longer than we would ever have imagined.

He also sent me a document titled “Supporting Information Methods”. This turned out to be 37 pages of detailed references found to support their research. They were hunting for three types of information: first reported flu cases, amplifying events (such as Liberty Loan Parades ) and interventions (such as quarantines, school closings and bands on public gatherings).

Many of the resources cited are newspapers (see The Baltimore Sun’s 1918 flu pandemic timeline for examples of what can be found in newspapers), but I was more intrigued by the wide range of non-newspaper records used to support this research. A few examples:

• Chicago (First reported case): Robertson JD. Report and handbook of the Department of Health of the City of Chicago for the years 1911 to 1918 inclusive. Chicago, 1919.
• Cleveland (School closings): The City Record of the Cleveland City Council, October 21, 1918, File No. 47932, citing promulgation of health regulations by Acting Commissioner of Health H.L. Rockwood.
• New Orleans (Ban on public gatherings): Parish of Orleans and City of New Orleans. Report of the Board of Health, 1919, p. 131.
• Seattle (Emergency Declaration): Ordinance No. 38799 of the Seattle City Council, signed by Mayor Hanson October 9, 1918.

The journal article referenced in the Reuter’s story, Public health interventions and epidemic intensity during the 1918 influenza pandemic, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and is available online.

The good news here is that the acknowledgment that Dr. Hatchett mentions in his email includes this passage:

The analysis presented here would not have been possible without the contributions of a large number of public health and medical professionals, historians, librarians, journalists, and private citizens [...followed by a long list of individuals].

The bad news is that the use of archival records is not mentioned in the news story.

We frequently hear about how little money there is at most archives. Cutbacks in funding are the norm. Every few weeks we hear of archives forced to cut their hours, staff or projects. Public understanding of the important ways that archival records are used can only help to reverse this trend.

Maybe we need a bumper sticker to hand out to new researchers. Something catchy and a little pushy – something that says “Tell the world how valuable our records are!” – only shorter.

• If You Use Archival Records – Go On The Record
• Put Primary Sources in the Spotlight
• Archivists for Footnotes: Keep the paper trail alive
• Archives Remember: Don’t Forget Them

I don’t love any of these – anyone else feeling wittier and willing to share?

(For more images of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, visit the National Museum of Health and Medicine’s Otis Historical Archives’ Images from the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.)

This post is from from: Spellbound Blog.

Epidemiological Research and Archival Records: Source of Records Used for Research Fails to Make the News