Digital Archive of American Popular Music

Project Name, Organization Name and URL

Digital Archive of American Popular Music, University of California at Los Angeles Music Library, http://digital.library.ucla.edu/apam

Overview

This digital library consists primarily of sheet music, or, in the words of the site, "American popular songs in the form in which they were originally published."  Audio recordings make up a smaller portion of the collection.  The archive describes itself this way on a page called "About the Digital Archive":

"The UCLA Music Library's Archive of American Popular Music is a research collection covering the history of popular music in the United States from 1790 through the present.  The collection, fully accessible at the item level . . . is one of the largest in the country, numbering almost 450,000 pieces of sheet music, anthologies, and arrangements for band and orchestra.  The collection also includes 62,500 recordings on disc, cylinder, and tape.

"Particular strengths within UCLA Music Library's twentieth century holdings include music for the theater, motion pictures, radio and television, as well as general popular music, country, rhythm and blues, and rock songs.

"The Digital Archive of American Popular Music is an initiative to provide access to digital versions of the sheet music, and performances of the songs now in the public domain."

The collection sounds quite comprehensive, and perhaps it is, but a quick search through the catalog reveals a much more limited scope.  For example, I was unable to find any "rock songs" in any form.  It is unclear if this will change as the collection is updated and more items are digitized or if the above description is simply inaccurate.

Audience

Students and other researchers are the primary audience for this collection.  In fact, when one chooses to browse the entire digital collection, it becomes obvious that some sub-collections require a password for access.  These are probably reserved for students or specific classes or researchers.

In addition, the site is designed as though it is to be used by those who are familiar with its contents and/or are looking for a specific item.  Searching and browsing functions are abundant, but comparatively little information is provided about the collection, its contents and how to make the most of one's experience with it.  The text quoted above is all that exists to explain this archive to users.  This suggests that it is used primarily by students and professors conducting research with a specific focus.  The design does not appear to welcome the general public or make an effort to appeal to this wider audience and their various needs.  This is consistent with its description of itself as a research collection.  

Background Information

No information is provided about the background of the collection with the exception of what is revealed in the portion of text quoted above.  All that is clear is that the Digital Archive of American Popular Music is part of UCLA's Archive of American Popular American Music.  According to the Archive of Popular Music's home page, the digital archive is currently being developed, expanded, and improved.

What Was Digitized

In addition to the information already provided on the number of materials digitized, the Archive of American Popular Music's home page states that the sheet music is available in PDF form so that it can be quickly downloaded and printed.  This sounds like a decision that was made with the needs of students in mind.

What is strange is that the audio files that are said to exist are effectively inaccessible.  One cannot search by format.  An attempt to browse the entire digital collection reveals a lengthy list of esoterically named sub-collections.  It appears that most of these sub-collections contain only sheet music, so one would have to devote some time to digging through them before finding one of the sound files that are supposedly included.  Therefore one is left to wonder if the digitized sound files are indeed available to users at this point, as well as what format they are in.  Or perhaps there is a system of accessibility with which only students and other researchers are familiar.

Conclusion

This project's description is promising yet somewhat inconsistent with what it currently offers.  This is probably because it is in the process of being improved.  Little information is provided about the digitization process or the future of the collection, so one can only wonder if it will remain as it is or if new materials will be added in digital form, hopefully expanding the scope.  If improvements and progress in this digitization project result in a collection that is more consistent with the description that is currently available, it will be a vast and valuable resource. 

Sounds of Australia

• Project Name, Organization Name and URL
  

Sounds of Australia, National Registry of Recorded Sound, National Film and Sound Archive, http://www.nfsa.gov.au/whats_on/soundsofaustralia/index.html

• Overview
  

Sounds of Australia differs from many audio digitization projects in that its goal is to represent the an entire country's history of recorded sound with a small number of carefully selected recordings of all genres.  This creates a concise summary of Australia's history of recorded sound.  It is presented in a simplistic, accessible format, giving users around the world a brief introduction to the audio history of this country.

Only ten recordings are added to the collection each year.  The site contains a nomination form so that users may recommend recordings that they deem appropriate for the collection.  According to the site, 

"Criteria for selection include artistic excellence, historical relevance, technical or scientific achievement, and prominence in shaping Australia's culture and identity.  To be eligible for inclusion, sound recordings must have been made in Australia, or by Australians, and must be at least 20 years old."

The ten recordings that will be featured in the collection are selected from these nomination by "a panel of experts from the recorded sound industry and cultural institutions."

• Audience
  

The intended audience is clearly an International one, considering that this project presents a sort of condensed national history to users all over the world.  Sound files are readily available online in a streaming audio format.  Each entry is accompanied by a short description of the recording and its significance as well as a visual image,  typically the sheet music for the song or a photograph of its author.  This evidence suggests that the collection is aimed at a very broad audience.  English-speaking people from a wide variety of backgrounds, ages, and geographical locations could easily access and learn from this collection.

• Background Information
  

The collection was created in February of 2007 with "a foundation list of 10 [recordings]."  Evidently, ten more recordings were added that year because there are now a total of thirty recordings in the collection.  2008 additions are showcased, and the 2009 nomination process is underway.

• What Was Digitized
  

The chronological scope of the collection (1896 - 1983) obviates that early sound recordings in a variety of formats were digitized.  However, no information on the digitization process itself is readily available.  It is also clear that old photographs, sheet music, and other material were digitized to compliment the sound recordings.  It is possible that the later recordings in the collection, specifically the three from the 1980's, may not have been digitized at all.  They may be already been available in a digital format.  One assumes that the lack of detailed information available on this site is connected to its effort to reach a broad audience; it is clearly not  designed specifically for those with an interest in digitization or the information sciences.  However, those in search of information beyond what is presented on the site are encouraged to contact a staff member for what amounts to virtual reference services.  It is possible that if one were to take advantage of this service to inquire about digitization, more details would emerge.  This collection appears to take itself quite seriously, and by inference, this is likely to apply to the digitization process. 

• Conclusion
  

This collection is of interest because of its unique type of focus, combining the narrow with the broad.  It is represents an area of overlap between digital libraries and digital museums.  This is somewhat unusual among current digital sound archives.  Perhaps it represents a new trend that will be followed by digitization projects with similar goals.

Black Gospel Music Restoration Project

• 
  
• Project Name, Organization Name and URL
  

Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, Baylor University, http://www.baylor.edu/lib/gospel/index.php?id=55375h

• Overview
  

I heard about this project for the first time last year when its director, Robert Darden, was interviewed on National Public Radio.  I listened with great interest because his vast knowledge and intense enthusiasm for this music and its preservation was captivating.

According to the site's home page,

"The purpose of this project is to identify, acquire, preserve, record and catalogue the most at-risk music from the black gospel music tradition.  This will primarily include 78s, 45s, LPs, and the various tape formats issued in the United States and abroad between 1945 and and 1970. . . .  The ultimate goal is to preserve and store a digital copy of the audio long term, and to provide standards-based discovery tools through an online interface into a full catalog of materials, along with 30-second samples of all tracks from the audio archive."

The text on the home page goes on to explain the history of the project and its broader significance as a cultural and historical record.

• Audience
  

As part of Baylor University's library collection and audio archive specifically, students are a natural target audience for the project.  However, this digitization project seems to be future-oriented, focused on preserving gospel music for future generations.  Part of its goal is to showcase the beauty and significance of this music, influencing its prominence in the historical record.  From this, one can infer that this project actively seeks to increase the size of its audience both in the present and in the future.  The audience consists of everyone with who is interested in or curious about gospel music, and it is hoped that the project itself will increase the size of this audience by spreading the information and access that will allow people to better understand and appreciate gospel music.

• Background Information
  

Some background information is available in the project's blog.  The blog and home page indicate that this project was started recently yet has been the fortunate recipient of generous publicity and donations (including a two-year grant of $347, 175).  Therefore it is progressing quickly compared to similar projects.  In February of 2007, a sound isolation booth necessary for the digitization process was installed.  A whole page is devoted to a collection of photos of the Wenger sound isolation booth and its installation, which present an intriguing visual timeline of this aspect of the project.  

• Description of Materials Digitized
  

As stated in the quote above, this is primarily an audio archive.  The digital audio files are complimented by relevant materials in other forms, as the home page explains:

"Additionally, any ephemera that may be of use to scholars - including PR photos and press packets, taped interviews, informal photographs, tour books and programs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and sheet music - will also be acquired as it becomes available.  The ultimate goal is to have a copy of every song released by every black gospel artist or group during that time period."

The time period to which that quote refers is, of course, 1945 through 1970.  

It sounds as though this ambitious and important digitization project is off to a good start!

The Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings

The Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings, Library and Archives, Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone/index-e.html

This multimedia digitization project covers the early history of recorded sound in Canada.  The bulk of the collection is a database of digitized 78-rmp disc recordings and cylinder recordings.  The main page is attractive in its simplicity, but one soon realizes that no information is provided on the size of the collection.  In addition to this disadvantage, one can only browse by title or author; no obvious effort has been made to categorize the recordings by genre, although the advanced search function does offer it as an option.  This is problematic in a world where music is increasingly divided into genres and sub-genres.  Without any semblance of this type of organization, users who do not use the advanced search function to seek a specific recordings may be confused and therefore discouraged.

Fortunately, a detailed and concisely written guide to the database and its cataloging details exists and is easy to find.  Curiously, this page indicates that the recordings are categorized by genre and sub-genre in the database's catalog.  The following are the other database fields listed:

• Performer 
  
• Performer heading 
  
• Title 
  
• Composer / Lyricist 
  
• Larger Work (for songs that are part of an opera, for example) 
  
• Album Set Title 
  
• Generic Label 
  
• Transcribed Label 
  
• Sub Label 
  
• Issue Number
  
• Matrix Number
  
• Take Number
  
• Side Number
  
• Album Number
  
• Coupling Number
  
• Control Number
  
• Miscellaneous Numbers
  
• Distributor
  
• City
  
• Manufacturer
  
• Province / Country
  
• Date of Recording
  
• Recording Location
  
• Recording Company
  
• Release Date
  
• Release Year
  
• Issue Type
  
• Alternate Issues
  
• Comments
  
• Authority
  
• SMD
  
• Dimensions
  
• Language
  
• Siglum
  
• Shelf Number
  

The cataloging is said to be in accordance with Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed., Ammendments 1993 (AACR2) and the Descriptive Cataloguing Manual, of the National Library of Canada.  

All evidence suggests that detailed bibliographic records were created for these materials before they were digitized.  If the same catalog exists for the digital database, it is not made available to users in an accessible manner.  (Perhaps there is some way to track it down by following a trail of links?)  This may effectively limit the audience to those who are familiar with the collection or are seeking a specific recording or set of recordings.  The site's organization does not seem to have been designed in consideration of the needs of users who wish to increase their knowledge of Canadian music from this time period by browsing.

Upon close inspection, the database of sound recordings turns out to be much larger than one might guess, although its exact size is unknown.  A page on the history of the collection describes a long history, beginning in the summer of 1998 and including nine phases.  Sadly, the final paragraph may explain why the organization seems incomplete and in need of improvement:

"Phase Nine, known as Turning Points, was implemented in June 2006 with the addition of podcasting, videos, an essay and two biographies (Edward Johnson and Florence Easton).  In December 2006, it will include an essay on Columbia Records 78, 45 and 33 RPM discs from 1900 to the 1990s."

The site was last updated on June 29, 2006, and the essay on Columbia Records cannot be found.  So one is left to wonder why this digitization project came to such an abrupt halt and if progress towards its development will begin again at some time, or if it will simply be left as it is and fade into obsoleteness, depriving users of such a unique, extensive, and informative resource.

Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry

Library of Congress, American Memory Project, Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/berlhome.html

The digitization project called, "Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry", is a part of the Library of Congress's American Memory Project, whose scope is so broad as to be nearly incomprehensible and certainly not fit for sufficient coverage in a blog entry of this length.  This specific collection, made up of approximately 400 text items and 108 sound recordings in addition to some image files, draws from the Library of Congress's Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division.  This division of the Library of Congress continues to position itself at forefront of the current mass-effort to digitize analog sound recordings with experimental projects such as the Digital Audio-Visual Prototyping Projects, whose purpose is to analytically compare and contrast methods for digitizing analog materials.

Emile Berliner's life and work are showcased in this digital collection because, according to the collection description, he was, "a prominent inventor at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.  Overlooked by today's historians, Berliner's creative genius rivaled that of his better-known contemporaries Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, and, like the works of these two inventors, Berliner's innovations helped shape the modern American way of life."

The Berliner Collection was established as a part of the Library of Congress's Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound division before its materials were digitized.  Unfortunately, the website does not offer much information about the history of the collection and the timeline of its digitization, focusing instead on the life of Berliner himself and the legacy he left to the recording industry.  It does contain a narrative on the development of the digital collection, but from an information science perspective, it could be more informative.  

This indicates that the intended audience for this digital collection is made up of those who are interested in the history of the recording industry, excepting those who are also interested in digitization.  This is ironic because digitization is so central to the present and future of the recording industry that one would that imagine many people interested in this industry's past would also be interested enough in digitization to be curious about the dates and other details of the project's implementation.

It is also interesting that the sound recordings, like the other materials, are offered in a multiple formats, but left out are the most technologically current or popular options.  For example, the sound recordings are available in WAVE files and Real Audio streaming files.  While these are still popular formats, they do not rival the now-standard MP3 and newer technology.  Perhaps this is due to an effort to work around copyright restrictions while making the most of limited resources.  However, because the sound recordings predate 1972, copyright laws are not applicable unless the library chooses to copyright their digital versions.  

Written manuscripts and images have been scanned and made available as JPEG files and TIFF files.  A single digitized 16mm film is presented as a Real Video streaming file, a QuickTime movie file, and an MPEG file.  These options allow users to choose between smaller, lower quality versions and larger, higher-quality versions of these digital materials.  Clearly, this collection makes an effort to consider the differing needs of users, suggesting that it is attempting to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Therefore it is unfortunate that the site is not designed in a more user-oriented manner.  Simply put, it could be organized more clearly and is therefore somewhat difficult to navigate compared to sites for similar collections.  The main page indicates that the collection can be searched only by keyword.  However, the search function actually allows users many options, including varying levels of complexity and specificity, with a fairly simple interface.  Users can also browse the collection by Subject Index, Title Index, Series Index, Name Index, or Recordings.  The first three lead the user to a short list of nebulously named categories that lead to exhaustive alphabetical lists of everything included in that category.  The second two deliver the user directly to the latter.

Some information about how to use the collection is offered to users at the bottom of the main page.  There are two links to the Library of Congress's page on how to access various materials, including video and sound recordings.  There is also information on cataloging and copyright.  Unfortunately, users are offered no advice or guidance for navigating the collection or making the most of what it offers.

Overall, this is a very unique and interesting collection with far more to offer than meets the eye.  When one makes the effort to read the historical information about Berliner and then browse through the materials with this contextual information in mind, it is an enlightening experience.  It is unfortunate that the organization and design are anachronistic enough to complicate this process, as people become accustomed to digital collections that are increasingly attuned to the needs of the user in their design and organization.  If it were subject to a series of simple design updates, this site could offer a lot more to the audience it clearly intends to serve and to the American Memory Project as a whole. 

Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project

Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project, Department of Special Collections, Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara, http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php

The University of California at Santa Barbara's Cylinder Digitization Project is an ambitious and extensive endeavor to preserve cylinder recordings through digitization and to make these recordings available to the public.  The project's web site devotes a page to the history of the cylinder, in which it explains this format's historical significance in this manner:

"From the first recordings made on tinfoil in 1877 to the last produced on celluloid in 1929, cylinders spanned a half-century of technological development in sound recording.  As documents of American cultural history and musical style, cylinders serve as an audible witness to the sounds and songs through which typical audiences first encountered the recorded human voice."

Sound recording technology was developing rapidly during that era, and it continued to develop at an increasingly rapid rate, allowing cylinders to be eclipsed by the still-ubiquitous disc format.  Now cylinder recordings and the phonographs designed to play them are sought and held only by collectors with a special interest in recordings of this era.  The Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project bridges the gap between these collectors and the general public by making these sound recordings available on the web at no cost in multiple digital formats.

The collection is large and abundant with educational narratives about the cylinder to complement the sound archives.  Users can search by title, author, subject, year, keyword, or U.C.S.B. call number, or they can browse the collection by genre.  Each file is available as a stream, MP3 file, and wav file, the latter two of which can be downloaded.  This versatility naturally increases the number of users who can access the collection and the purposes for which they can use it.

According to the Project Overview page, this digitization project began in January of 2002 and now contains approximately 36,000 audio files.  This part of the site provides thorough information on the project's history, funding, sources, technical details, cataloging, and the issue of quality.  Copyright information is addressed in a separate page, which explains that the restored and digitized recordings in the collection are licensed for non-commercial use under Creative Commons, although sound recordings were not eligible for copyright protection until 1972.

This vast and accessible digitization project has received quite a bit of press, and the reasons for this are immediately apparent.  In fact, the news section at the top of the main page states that The Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project was named one of the 50 best websites of 2008 by Time Magazine.  It is clear that the collection is constantly being expanded and the site is constantly being improved in order to provide more information to a wider audience of users.

The Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project sets a fine example for similar digitization projects, which are currently being under-taken at an increasing rate.  Hopefully, others who are interested in digitizing analog sound recordings for the sake of preservation and accessibility will learn from this project.  It will doubtlessly have a lasting impact in the field of sound digitization and as well as on its users.

Digital Library of Appalachia

Digital Library of Appalachia, Appalachian College Association Central Library http://www.aca-dla.org/index.php


Description of what was digitized: The Digital Library of Appalachia provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The thirty-four member libraries, archives, and museums associated with the Appalachian College Association, known collectively as ACA Central Library, seek to generate interest and encourage continued scholarship for the entire region. Digitized items include: color or black and white photographs, reformatted typed pages, published books, unpublished manuscripts, personal diaries and correspondence, journal and newspaper articles, musical recordings, oral history recordings and transcripts, and other related reproductions.


Audience for the project: General Public

Purposes of the Digital Library of Appalachia:

1. To improve scholarly access to research resources related to Appalachia. Improved access, particularly to primary source material, will strengthen academic offerings in Appalachian Studies.
2. To bring together research resources that are currently scattered throughout geographically remote locations. The digital library allows items to be viewed side-by-side, even if they are physically located in different states. The opportunity for comparison and contrast will foster new learning about Appalachian experience.
3. To share information about Appalachia with scholars worldwide. Students, faculty, and researchers will be able to draw upon the Digital Library of Appalachia for authentic information, and thereby gain a greater understanding of the region.
4. To broaden opportunities for classroom instruction. Faculty will be able to design new or revised courses based on the resources newly made available through the Digital Library of Appalachia. Likewise, students and teachers in regional schools may find the Digital Library of Appalachia revitalizes their courses in state and local history and culture.

Sample of the search interface:

1. 

International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) Project

International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) Project
http://www.music-ir.org

“The virtual home of music information retrieval research.”

Description of what was digitized: The objective of the International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory project (IMIRSEL) is the establishment of the necessary resources for the scientifically valid development and evaluation of emerging Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and Music Digital Library (MDL) techniques and technologies. Part of the project is the creation of secure, yet accessible, large-scale collections of music materials in a variety of audio, symbolic and metadata forms. These collections, when coupled with a set of standardized experimental tasks and standardized evaluation metrics, will allow members of the international MIR/MDL research community to participate in TREC-like evaluation "contests" so they can scientifically compare and contrast their various approaches to making the world's vast store of musical heritage materials ever more available.

Audience: Musicians and other Music Professionals

Principal Project Components: The IMIRSEL project comprises to major subprojects:
The Virtual Research Labs (VRL) using Music-to-Knowledge (M2K) project
The VRL subproject is being undertaken to provide a uniform mechanism for the international MIR/MDL community to access the standardized resources of IMIRSEL in a robust, yet secure, manner. The VRLs are constructed using IMIRSEL's M2K rapicd prototyping and evalution environment. M2K is an open-sourced extension of the D2K (Data-to-Knowlege)/Text-to-Knowlege (T2K) Java-based datamining framework, developed by the ALG at NCSA. For more information on M2K please read our M2K (Music-to-Knowledge): A tool set for MIR/MDL development and evaluation pages.

There are 6 ways to find information in this collection:
* search for particular words
* access publications by title
* access publications by author
* access publications by subject
* access publications by date
* access background readings by topic



The Human Use of Music Information Retrieval Systems (HUMIRS)
The HUMIRS subproject is designed to provide answers to the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions as they pertain to the use of MIR and MDL systems. By focusing on real-world examples of music information seeking the HUMIRS subproject will allow IMIRSEL to develop a set of experimental MIR/MDL evaluation task grounded in reality. This real-world grounding will thus make the set of evaluation tasks much more meaningful as developers prepare their MIR/MDL systems for real-world deployment.

Background: IMIRSEL is located at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Project Principal Investigator is J. Stephen Downie of GSLIS and Co-Principal Investigator is Prof. Michael Welge of the Automated Learning Group (ALG) of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

The International Children's Digital Library

The ICDL Foundation's goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world. Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community.

• Organization

ICDL is a project of the Human- Computer Interaction Laboratory at University of Maryland and was founded with the Internet Archive.

• Description of what was digitized (partially excerpted from an article on the ICDL in the Boston Globe -- http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/02/21/literary_treasures_kid_friendly_format?mode=PF

Run by a local nonprofit, the electronic database contains thousands of digitized historic and contemporary children's books in dozens of languages, from Chinese to Croatian, including rare and fragile works that have been largely hidden from public view. …

Most important, it is easy-to-use. Rich with simple graphics and primary colors, the kid-friendly website enables visitors to search for, say, books with red or yellow covers, or fairy tales, or stories about imaginary creatures, or books with chapters and pictures…

Designed using feedback from children, the site recognizes that young readers rarely search for books the way adults do, such as by title or author. As a result, it lets children choose books by age level (from 3 to 13) or length ("short," "medium," or "long"), or tales that are happy or sad, or stories that include poems and rhymes. They can also select not simply animal books, but books specifically about ducks, or bears, or magic dogs….

The website, which lets children choose passwords guarded by monsters, is also making literary treasure troves widely available to the public for the first time. The BPL, for example, is sharing a grant with the digital library to post online a portion of its Alice M. Jordan Collection, a 160,000-volume storehouse of children's literature that is not available for general circulation….

Because the website's collection is available in multiple languages, it can be used worldwide - including in obscure places where, paradoxically, an Internet connection can be more common than a public library, thanks to organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that are working to spread technology. In a partnership with the World Bank, for example, the digital libary recently created its first "branch library" in Mongolia by digitizing more than 250 Mongolian children's books and installing a computer server in Ulaanbaatar, the country's capital….

The website has appeal to large urban US school systems, whose student populations speak dozens of languages. It also provides a solution for parents who may not have time to take their children to a library, or for parents whose first language is not English and who want their children to read books published in their native tongue.

Aerial photography Florida

Aerial photography Florida is a fascinating collection of photographs offering a bird's eye view of Florida during most of the 20th century (1930-2000). The initial digitization project in which 100,000 photographs were digitized was funded by a grant from 2002-2004 to the University of Florida Libraries. They plan to continue adding materials to the site. There is more information about the collection including the technical aspects of the image capture methods and hardware on the website.




One browses the collection via a zoomable map of Florida. As you zoom in you colored dots represent photos that are listed in the lower part of the window. Clicking on the camera icon allows the viewer to see the photograph. There are choices for magnification. There is also a search interface that allows input of place names that is shown after clicking on the cryptic "Basic" in blue letters at the bottom of the screen. However, I couldn't get it to return any results to me.

This site is designed for researchers, both historical and contemporary as well as educators and students. The site has curriculum materials for teachers to use.

Overall it is a nice project, rich in content. Unfortunately the user interface, while innovative in its idea, pales compared to other map applications like Google Maps and will probably frustrate users familiar with the fast response of that technology. Since searching didn't work for me, I can't determine whether that would be a better way to access the collections.

19th-Century American Sheet Music Digitization Project

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
19th Century American Sheet Music Digitization Project
http://www.lib.unc.edu/music/eam/index.html

The UNC-Chapel Hill Music Library has digitized and made available 82 volumes (3300 pieces) of 19th-century American sheet music and made it available online. Each volume consists of a young woman from the time period’s favorite pieces of sheet music that had been gathered and bound into a volume. The audience is specifically stated as those using this collection for class use and research in a variety of disciplines, including Music, History, Art, English, Political Science, Sociology, and the curriculum in American Studies. Not much background information is provided about the project, though information regarding the importance of the collection, as well as historical background on three of the volumes is provided. Users may search or browse by title, volume, composer, or keyword. Interestingly, not all of the contents of each volume have digital images available, but even just the metadata that is provided is interesting in the history it represents.

Minnesota Digital Library

• Project name:

Minnesota Digital Library

http://www.mndigital.org/

• Organization name:

The Minnesota Digital Library Coalition

• Description:

The Minnesota Digital Library presents the user with a collection of the state’s unique resources and special collections. “Minnesota Reflections” contains more than 20,000 images and documents shared by more than 75 cultural heritage organizations across the state.

• Audience:

The site’s intended audience is researchers, educators, students, and the public.

• Background information:

The website offers this background information: “’Minnesota Reflections’ is the initial digitization effort of the MDLC. This digitization project, conducted from 2004-05, involved more than 50 participating historical societies, special archives, and libraries. The MDLC and participants digitized more than 6,000 unique photographs and images, collected the information on these images, and is creating a searchable database to help people access and use them. Search Minnesota Reflections at reflections.mndigital.org.

Administratively, the Minnesota Digital Library is a grant-funded project operating under the umbrella of the MINITEX Library Information Network.”

• Presentation, Metadata and Review:

One thing I like about this project is that it devotes a portion of the site to “Standards and Practices” including metadata guidelines, curriculum standards, program best practices and a project guide. This is an especially great resource for information students and professionals that I really enjoyed exploring.

I also really like that so much of the site is devoted to education and offers such great teacher resources.

The collections themselves can be browsed by region, by topic or by collection. There is a wide range of topics covered, including agriculture, religion, social issues and Native Americans, among others. There are also basic and advanced search tools. On the opening page for Minnesota Reflections, there is a section titled “Spotlight” that features links to different items within the collection with a brief introduction. This is a great way to introduce materials to the user that he or she wouldn’t have found otherwise.

The items themselves are cataloged using CONTENT software. Items are displayed with a thumbnail image alongside their title, subject and description. The metadata for each item includes title, creator, contributor, description, date of creation, general subject, specific subject, local subject, Minnesota city or township district, Minnesota county, state, country, contributing institution, rights management and local identifier. One of my favorite features is that the user can save items to his or her “Favorites” for easy access later on.

I really appreciate the links to related sites and organizations offered in addition to the artifacts themselves. This site is truly a wonderful resource.

The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation

• Project name:

The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation

http://invention.smithsonian.org/home/

• Organization name:

The Lemelson Center, Smithsonian Institution

• Description:

The Lemelson Center offers this mission statement, which I think sums up the website very well:

•	To document, interpret, and disseminate information about invention and innovation
•	To encourage inventive creativity in young people
•	To foster an appreciation for the central role of invention and innovation in the history of the United States

(Source: http://invention.smithsonian.org/about/)

The site is devoted to showcasing the invention-related holdings of hundreds of archives throughout the United States. The collection covers inventions from the medical, consumer, scientific, household and legal fields, among others.

• Audience:

As one can gather from reading the mission statement, the Lemelson Center’s online project is geared toward young people and students, but anyone can find interest in this site. The variety of topics is so vast; the site appears to include everything! The “Centerpieces” portion of the website leads the user to virtual exhibits ranging from watches to guitars to artificial hearts.

• Background information:

The website offers this background information: “The Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation was founded in 1995 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History through a generous gift from the Lemelson Foundation.”

(Source: http://invention.smithsonian.org/about/)

• Presentation and Review:

The website is divided into a few different sections: “About Us,” which gives the user background information on the project, “Centerpieces,“ where virtual exhibits are featured, “Events,” “Resources,” with educational matierals, research opportunities, articles, archives, books and websites, among other things, “Video and Audio” and a “Press Room” with links to different press releases.

Records can be searched by subject, inventor name, and collection title or repository name. A simple keyword search will reveal what materials exist on the chosen subject, which institution holds them, and how to contact them for more information.

Each exhibit is different, with no standard format or layout, which makes the site lack some cohesion. I found that a little overwhelming as I explored the site; I would prefer some uniformity or standardization in the way exhibits are presented. Nonetheless, the site is an incredible resource, with great stories attached to each artifact. One of my favorite exhibits was “Inventing Ourselves” where one can “Explore how wearable and implantable inventions for the body are changing the way we live, and how we think of ourselves as human beings.” So cool!

One feature I really like is that on the side of each page, under the menu, is a little “teaser” piece of information that the user can click on to be lead to a different part of the site. (For instance “Who invented the electric guitar? Find out in our virtual exhibit” or “Did Edison invent anything besides a light bulb? See what other bright ideas he had.”) I think this is a great way to get users to explore the collection deeper.

The Podcasts under the “Video & Audio” section are also a great feature that I really liked.

Overall, this is a great website, though a bit overwhelming!

National Library of Australia Digital Collection

Organization name:

National Library of Australia

Description of what was digitized:

Pictures, rare historical maps, early Australian sheet music, manuscripts, selected printed works from the collection and selected audio recordings.
As of December 129,088 items across all collection and formats have been digitized.

Audience for the project:

The audience spans from scholars, to researchers, students and general public. Anybody interested in Australia’s cultural heritage.

Metadata:

According to the website “the library is committed to maintaining and promoting appropriate standards for creating, managing and providing access to its digital collections.”

There is an in-depth description about used metadata.
The digital collection is using the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata standard, which is closely based on the Dublin Core standard.

Audiences seeking more information can read the Website Metadata Strategies and Guidelines.

Digital Capture Standards:
This digital collection uses quality control assessment and a frequently updated Digital Capture Standard. Here are described among others, the digital capture equipment, the format for images and more.

Presentation of digital objects:

Pictures: Pictures can be viewed either using the Picture catalog site or browsing through different collection organized by themes.
Additionally one can search for pictures via the search functions.

All pictures can be ordered or links to the picture can be emailed. Pictures can saved and downloaded for research purpose only. For all other purposes users need to fill out a permission request form.

Maps: as with the pictures, they can be viewed either by a thematically ordered collection or via the digital collection map site. Most of the maps zoom over a function.
All other digitized items are presented in a similar fashion – either through the digital collection catalog or by browsing through selected showcases.

Project background information
This site offers a tremendous amount of background information.

For example it describes digitization guidelines, digitization policy, digitization infrastructure and much more.

What I liked:

This site offers many great collections, but the most interesting for me was how thoroughly and well the site offered its background information. This is extremely helpful for anybody involved in digital libraries or for people like myself currently studying digital libraries.

UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

• Project name:

UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

http://asian.library.ucsf.edu/

• Organization name:

University of California, San Francisco

• Description:

This website showcases a collection of 400 Japanese woodblock prints on the subject of health and medicine, the largest collection of such in the United States. The prints “provide a window into traditional Japanese attitudes toward illness, the human body, women, religion and the West.” Themes include contagious disease, drug advertisements (the largest category), foreigners and disease, religion and health and women’s health. The majority of the prints date mid-to late nineteenth century, just as Japan’s self-imposed isolation was ending and the country opened to the West. The collection shows a gradual shift in attitudes towards health and medicine, from “reliance on gods and charms… to the adoption of Western, scientific principles as the basis for medical knowledge.”

• Audience:

The audience for this collection would be scholars of Asian medicine, the history of medicine, Asian religion and Japanese art. It has also attracted the interest of health care practitioners, especially those interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine or Alternative Medicine.

• Background information:

The website offers this background information: “In 1963, UCSF Provost and University Librarian, later Chancellor, John B. de C. Saunders, M.D., started the East Asian Collection, which was then developed over the next thirty years by Librarian/Curator Atsumi Minami. Mrs. Minami traveled to Japan and China and purchased items from various smaller, private collections, acquiring the woodblock prints as well as hundreds of rare Chinese and Japanese medical texts, manuscripts, and painted scrolls.

In 2003, the California Digital Library funded the project to make digital images of the prints available online. The project involved translating titles of the prints into English, updating catalog information, digitally photographing the prints, and ingesting the metadata and digital images into the CDL's website Calisphere.”

• Presentation and Review:

The user can browse the entire collection, or browse by theme. There is a search function, but no advanced search options are given, unfortunately. The site offers some search tips to users, which I think is a great idea.

The images themselves are vibrant and beautiful! A brief list of details is given for each print including the title in Japanese and English, the creator/contributor, the date and the contributing institution. Clicking for more information brings the user to a different page with further details like the subject, type, physical description and origin. Printer-friendly versions of the images are offered, with or without details. Browsing by theme is a great option. A brief introduction is given for each theme on its opening page, ending with a link to further information.

References are listed should the user wish to find more information on the subject, but I wish the site offered links to related pages.

Krieger's Watercolors of Fungi

Organization name
University of Michigan Herbarium

Description of what was digitized
The collection consists of images of watercolors created by Louis C. C. Krieger from 1918 to 1928 for the collection of Dr. Howard A. Kelly. The watercolors depict various types of fungus. The library contains 332 records and 365 images.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
The library is designed for mycologists and other interested in studying fungi.

Type of project background information available on the site
Documentation for the project is located on the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service page (http://www.lib.umich.edu/lit/dlps/docs.html). However, most of the documentation is related to the software, DLXS, with little information available about the actual conversion process or metadata types. The library does offer a digital conversion service and information on processes are available on the Digital Conversion Services page (http://www.lib.umich.edu/lit/dlps/dcs/).

Is it easy to use?
The collection is very easy to use, if not very pretty. The main page offers links to browse the images or records or to search the collection. The search function allows you to search by genus, species, scientific name, common name, or keyword anywhere. The browse function allows you to sort the images by genus, species, common name, or age and allows you to view 20 records at at time. The images are displayed with a caption, though the user can also view the captions with no image or the images with the first part of the record. In the images with record display, 20 thumbnails are displayed and the selected record is displayed to the side. Clicking on the image displays a resizable version of the watercolor with a few details about it. Clicking on the description tab displays the entire metadata record. The navigation for the library is intuitive and easy to use, though hyperlinking searches from the record would improve its accessibility.

Notable New Yorkers

Organization name
Columbia University Libraries Oral History Research Office (OHRO)

Description of what was digitized
The collection consists of ten of the oral histories collected by the OHRO. Both the audio and a transcription are available for use. Included with the oral histories are a variety of photographs of the individuals.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
This project is intended for New York historians. However, the individuals included in the library have had an affect far beyond the borders of New York and will be of interest to anyone studying the history of the US.

Type of project background information available on the site
The OHRO site offers a lot of detail regarding the collection and its practices for collecting oral histories, but little information on how the items were converted and what if any metadata was used.

How are the digital assets presented?
The Notable New Yorkers collection is beautifully presented, but appears to be more of an online exhibit than a digital library. However, there is a lot to be learned from a site like this. Physical libraries generally include exhibits of current materials, so creating a display of notable material that brings together disparate pieces from various collections with additional description might make increase use and understanding of the collection.

The Museum of Musical Instruments

• Project name:

The Museum of Musical Instruments

http://www.themomi.org/museum/index.html

• Organization name:

The Museum of Musical Instruments

• Description:

The Museum of Musical Instruments is an online collection of fretted musical instruments that looks at the relationship between art and the musical instrument. The website offers an interesting mix of history, art and design expressed through instruments, artists and music. Online collections include “Dreadnoughts,” “Rebels and Rolling Stones,” “From Ragtime to Riches,” “Getting Hip in the Roaring 20’s,” “Roots of Music in the Jazz Era” and more. The user can also find exhibitions (given at fine institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts, The Smithsonian and the Museum of Modern Art) like “The ZigZag Moderne Style,” “Bound for Glory: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie,” and “The Private Life of Mark Twain” among others.

• Audience:

This website isn’t geared toward any particular audience; anyone with an interest in music, musicians, musical instruments, art or design will probably appreciate all this site has to offer.

• Background information:

MoMI offers the following background information: “Hank Risan and Bianca Soros established MoMI in early 2000, choosing to build a virtual museum to reach the largest possible audience of music lovers throughout the world. Risan and Soros feel that guitars are an enlightening medium for examining our society, conveying important developments in technology, communication, and fashion. These soulful and beautiful icons of our culture now have a home where they will be preserved for enjoyment by future generations. Plans for constructing a physical museum are underway, with groundbreaking ceremonies tentatively scheduled for Spring 2002.” (Source: http://www.themomi.org/museum/history.html)

• Presentation:

The website is divided into several sections: Collections, Exhibitions, Our History, Articles, and Manufacturers. The home page gives a good introduction to the site and promotes several of the site’s collections and exhibitions. Choosing a collection brings the user to a new page where photos of different instruments are laid out with their model name and year. Selecting one of these examples brings up a larger photograph of the instrument; the user can hover his cursor over different parts of the image for a highly detailed zoom-view. A brief description of the instrument is given, along with related articles and links.

• Review:

My favorite part of this site is the integration of art history with musical instrument design. I love the material on different art movements’ impact on musical instrument aesthetics and the examples given (Van Gogh, Cezanne, and so on).

The biggest problem with this site is that there is no search function. I enjoyed browsing through the collections but wish there were a way to search for exactly what I was looking to find without having to go collection-to-collection.

Also, I wish the site included a glossary of terms for people who are not familiar with the various anatomies of the instruments featured or with different music vocabulary.

Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive

• Project name:

Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive

http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/

• Organization name:

This site is a collaboration between five institutions located in the Columbia River Basin: Washington State University Vancouver, the Idaho State Historical Society, Oregon Historical Society, Washington State Historical Society, and Washington State University Pullman.

• Description:

The Columbia River drains a 259,000-square-mile basin that includes territory in seven states -- Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah -- and one Canadian province. This website “brings together selected highlights of the ethnic collections from leading repositories in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.” The site also offers tutorials on information literacy and attempts to spark an online discourse on ethnic history sources and issues. Some of the ethnic groups featured are African Americans, Basque Americans, Chinese Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Mexican Americans, and Russian Americans. A historical background is given for almost each of these groups (for certain groups, the historical overview is still in the works), with select images along side the text to support each story. Native Americans are not included in the collection, but the website offers links to other projects devoted to representing Native American history and culture.

• Audience:

The audience for this website would be anyone interested in the history of the Columbia River Basin and the immigrants who found a home there. The site would also hold special interest to someone looking to improve their information literacy skills, as well as teachers who offer instruction on information literacy, who will be able to find lesson plans in the “Tutorials” section.

• Background information:

The site offers the following background information: “Funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the collaborative project sought to create a database with thematic coherence that would engage online researchers in thinking more deeply about the significance of the rich primary resources available in museums, libraries, and historical societies. We also hoped the project would serve as a model for other institutions that wanted to share collections and stimulate public interest in and use of those collections.”

• Presentation:

The website is divided into four sections. Section I offers an introduction to the website and gives background information on the project as well as a map of the region. Section II takes the user to the database, where he or she will find selected documents, reports, records, maps, photographs, newspapers, artifacts, and oral history interviews. The entire collection can be browsed using CONTENTdm, where documents are presented as a thumbnail with their title, subject and description. Section III will lead the user to tutorials and lesson plans. Finally, Section IV holds the discussion forum, where topics include “Discrimination and Equal Rights,” “Family Life, Religion and Social Customs,” “Immigration and Migration,” “Work and Labor,” “Ethnicity and Race” as well as sections devoted to each individual ethnic group. There are roughly 4,000 users registered with the site.

• Additional Information:

The CRBEHA gives general history links and a list of resources used by the project in acquiring information about each ethnic group.

• Metadata:

The metadata used includes the title, description, date, subject, type, coverage, collection source, identifier, repository, relation, contributors, project identifier, language, format and rights.

• Review:

I really enjoyed browsing this site and exploring the rich cultural heritage of the Columbia River Basin. The tutorials really set this site apart from the other digital libraries I have explored. I love that the project tries to promote information literacy and even offers teaching guides. What a great resource!

Dorothea Lange Collection 1919-1965

The Dorothea Lange Collection was created by The Oakland Museum of California to allow researchers, students and other interested persons access to the huge body of documentary photographic work by Dorothea Lange. This collection of nearly 21,000 items spans the work of Dorothea Lange from her early Native American photographs through her work with migrant workers in the 30's up to her later years traveling the world. The images are available in thumbnail or high-resolution versions with significant metadata. However, the hi-res jpg files are not very high resolution. Most that I looked at were less than 100 KB. Another criticism of the site is that it is very slow to browse through. Even when using the search function, which is very handy, the results are displayed as text only and images can only be viewed by clicking on them.

According to the sites Scope and Content page, the negatives were digitized in the 1990's. The entire negative as captured, giving additional information to the researcher.

It is wonderful to see all of this great photographers work available online.

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

Project name and URL

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/UFDC.aspx?g=spohp

Organization name

The University of Florida's Department of History

Description of digitized materials

This collection is made up more than 85,000 pages of transcribed documents, originating from over 4000 interviews with individuals about various elements of Florida history. At this time, only the transcribed pages are available on the project's site.

Audience for the project

The stated audience for this project includes research scholars, students, journalists, genealogists, and other interested groups.

Presentation of digital assets

The information is organized into multiple categories, including:

• Native Americans
• African Americans in Florida
• Civil rights activities in St. Augustine (1964)Q
• Women in Florida
• Pioneer settlers
• Florida education
• The citrus industry
• The Florida Highway Patrol
• Florida politicians
• Florida newspapers
• Growth Management in Florida
• History of the University of Florida
• The UF Law School
• The UF Medical School
• The Civilian Conservation Corps
• African Americans in the Korean War
• Florida business leaders
• History of Florida's Water Management Districts
• The UF Women's Studies Program

Metadata

Individual files contain the following metadata fields:

• Bibliographic ID
• Volume ID
• Resource Identifier
• Title
• Publication Date
• Source Institution
• Holding Location
• Attribution Statement
• Subject
• Spatial Coverage
• Subcollection

Is it easy to use?

Yes. The main interface allows users to conduct either a basic or an advanced search, and they are able to search across all collections or select individual collections. The site offers searching tips, and the presentation of the information is simple. The site is very easy to navigate.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story
http://www.cmsstory.org

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story exhibits the area’s local history online and is the website of the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room of PLCMC (located in the Main Library in uptown Charlotte). It’s a part of N.C. ECHO, North Carolina’s history portal to state cultural institutions’ websites and their holdings. The Robinson Spangler Carolina Room is an important repository of historical and genealogical information with special collections including sound recordings related to the North and South Carolina Piedmont Region, photographs of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, archives and manuscripts, surname and biography files, local and state government documents, and area maps. Their website includes all of their online exhibits (currently 20), which are each digital collections of materials from the library. Each project (online exhibit) includes information about the project, which mainly includes only acknowledgements of community members and organizations who assisted with the project and a list of resources related to the project where users can find more information on the subject matter. The audience of these projects are anyone interested in the history of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, including those researching their genealogy or family history.

One thing that’s overwhelming to me sometimes when looking at digital collections is that if I don’t have a specific interest in mind I wish to search for, I’m sometimes left to hunt around for a way to browse, beyond just a list of titles or authors in any meaningful way. With The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story, I can view each of their digitization projects as a separate site with materials only related to that exhibit. Though these might be seen as individual silos, limiting search capabilities of the materials housed there, it creates a specific destination for those with a focus on what they’re searching for, as well as for the casual browser, like myself.

Louis L. McAllister Photographs

Organization name
University of Vermont

Description of what was digitized
This library contains 745 photographs taken by Louis Lloyd McAllister between 1897 and 1963. The photographs are of Randolf and Burlington landmarks and people. The collection contains a large number of group photographs since Louis was one of the few photographers with a panoramic camera during this time.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
The photographs document a time of significant growth in the Burlington area and are of interest to those studying the history of Burlington. While many of the photographs have descriptions of the scene most of the photographs do not contain the names of the person photographed making the collection less useful for people studying their families genealogy.

Type of project background information available on the site
The Center for Digital Initiatives (CDI) web presence provides many details about this and other projects completed at UVM. The site includes information on the equipment used and the standards adhered and includes a list of resources from which they made their decisions.

What metadata is present?
According to the CDI website, the collection uses MODS and DC for descriptive metadata, METS for the encoding standard, and EAD and TEI as mark up languages. Each image is initially displayed with its title, a portion of its description, and the creator, but a link takes the user to more detailed information. The detailed information is not displayed with the photograph and includes details about the format of the original and its digital image and where the original is located. The only change I would suggest would be to make the subjects hyperlinked to a search of items in the collection.

Internet Sacred Text Archive

Project name and URL

Internet Sacred Text Archive

http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

Organization name

Sacred-texts.com (Internet Sacred Text Archive)

Description of digitized materials

The digitized items include texts from religious traditions ranging from Islam to Buddhism to Christianity to Mormonism. The site also provides selected texts from lesser publicized religious movements and traditions such as Oahspe, Sky Lore and Grimoires. Additional digitized material include subject information on Women and Religion, Shakespearean texts and books related to the study of UFOs.

Audience and background for the project

The designers and caretakers of the Internet Sacred Text Archive have taken materials from various religious and philosophical traditions and made them available for free online. The targeted audience includes anyone interested in learning more about their own tradition or the traditions of others. Persons studying world religions, book history or various theological tenets will find the site of interest.

The site is also currently targeting users to purchase the sacred texts on DVD or CD-ROM in order to keep the materials "free for the entire world to read." The digital library went 'live' in 1999 and has since collected and scanned books and articles in the public domain encompassing over a dozen world religions and humanities topics. The designers of the site wanted to draw attention to some of the under-represented traditions by making some of the writings available for a global audience.

Presentation of digital assets and metadata

The front page of the website includes a listing of various world religions to the left of the page. Users click on these links to get to material particular to each tradition. I selected Judaism and was sent to a page that highlighted texts such as The Talmud, the Tanakh and The Kabbalah. Selecting the text 'The Talmud' (Joseph Barclay, 1878) takes the reader to a series of hypertext links that indicate individual chapters from the scanned item. Once the user clicks on the chapter link they are taken to the text.

The descriptive metadata for each text is helpful in that it provides the author (if known), the date of publication (if known), and a helpful paragraph contextualizing each book. Before reading the text the user will have a better idea of what to expect from the selection. Overall, the website was not overly impressive visually but does provide dozens of texts from religious traditions around the world. The site will be somewhat helpful for persons planning to digitize documents but, it seems, may not be functional much longer unless more users purchase the texts available for free online.

The African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920

Project name and URL

The African American Experience in Ohio, 1950-1920

http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/

Organization name

The Ohio Historical Society

Description of digitized materials

The digital materials include: manuscripts, newspapers, photographs and pamphlets. The manuscripts include letters, handwritten materials and account books. The newspapers include the Colored Citizen, The Informer and The Palladium of Liberty. The photographs range from stereopticon views to images from books to pictures related to The Underground Railroad.

Audience for the project

The audience for the project is not mentioned. Persons interested in the materials from this site would include scholars of African-American history, researchers interested in Ohio history, students working on projects related to American history, and religious historians analyzing the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Background information on the project

The African American Experience in Ohio project was a collaborative effort between the Library/Archives of The Ohio Historical Society and the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center. The website identifies an assortment of scanners used for the project as well as information related to image resolution and database construction. These notes are helpful for those beginning similar projects as benchmarks to identify what scanned images will look like online when digitized by certain scanners at certain resolutions.

Presentation of digital assets

The website provides two options: a 'search' function by keyword or a 'browse' function to search by format. By selecting the browse function the user is taken to a list that links to the manuscripts, newspapers, pamphlets, photographs and serials. I selected the 'photographs and prints' section. This took me to a variety of individual photographs ranging from images of people, landscapes and buildings. The images were high resolution TIFF scans of particularly good quality.

The metadata identified the collection, description of each image, and the date the photograph was taken. This information is especially helpful for researchers looking for particular images for their research. Genealogists will also find the metadata helpful for identifying particular individuals. Overall, the site is a great example for persons planning to build a digital library. The site is easy to navigate and the accompanying metadata provides helpful descriptions of each object.

Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html

“Documenting the American South” (also referred to as DocSouth) is sponsored by the University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with the texts and materials coming primarily from its southern holdings, which includes texts, images and audio files related to southern history, literature and culture. There are eleven thematic collections of primary sources, each accessible separately with its own index of materials limited to that collection. The site for DocSouth also features a Google-powered search box that can be used to search all of the collections, though for the browser, each collection has its own page with information regarding what materials are included, information on the subject, a formal introduction, information regarding the ways in which to browse and then specific information about the collection’s subject and resources for more information.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such extensive information regarding a digitization project (DocSouth is called a “digital publishing initiative”). Along with general information, a guide to citing DocSouth materials, readers’ comments, a timeline of the collections, remarks by University Librarian on DocSouth’s 1000th title, information on the Advisory Groups and Editorial Board, as well as links to other resources “for the study of the American South” at UNC-Chapel Hill are included, providing an incredibly rich online resource.

I am truly impressed by the plethora of ways in which to search the collections. With the Google search, the different ways to browse each collection and also the links to author, title, subject and geographic indices, DocSouth users should be able to find what they are looking for and many other resources they weren’t. The Classroom Resources page is also a nice addition with information on how to use DocSouth in the classroom, plus lesson plans (divided by subject within the realm of History) and digital narratives and associated resources. The depth of information seems never-ending!

Historical State - NCSU

Historical State
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/universityarchives/historicalstate/index.html

“Historical State” was created by North Carolina State University Libraries and the Special Collections Research Center “to be a single access point for resources on the history of the University.” The content is divided into three categories: “University Images,” “Texts and Audio,” and “Web Resources.” The first seems self-explanatory, but is broken down further by subject, while “Texts and Audio” includes “Course Catalogs,” “Published Resources,” “Oral Histories,” and “NCSU Audio-Visual Collection.” “Web Resources” include “University Timelines,” “Internet Resources on NCSU History,” and “Centennial Campus.” There are brief descriptions of each on the Home page and each link opens either a search screen (with options to browse by keyword, title or subject, or other specific search terms related to that particular collection or links to related resources. No background information is provided beyond the quote I gave at the beginning of this post, which solely states its purpose and creators.

As an NCSU alum, I feel like I’m the target audience as I sit here and keep exploring without any attention to time! The target audience does appear to be anyone with an interest in NCSU’s history.

Though I’m intrigued by the amazing photographs from the University’s history on a personal level, from the perspective of someone learning about digitization, I am also interested in how some of the collections are integrated into NCSU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center within their Digital Collections site. This is opposed to the separate site for “Historical State” as well as the sub-sites launched in the images collection.

Quotes from: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/universityarchives/historicalstate/about.html

Spencer Museum of Art Digital Collections

Project name and URL:

Spencer Museum of Art Digital Collections

http://www.lib.ku.edu/imagegateway/index.cfm?page=detail&collection=10

Organization name:

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas

Description of what was digitized:

The project is made up of 17,700 images relating to world art history from the collections of the Spencer museum. The images are photographs and scans of the museum’s materials with strengths in the following areas medieval art; European and American paintings, sculpture, and prints; Japanese Edo-period painting; 20th-century Chinese painting; photography; regional art; and more than 150 quilts.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed):

The primary audience for the collection is students and faculty members studying fine art, art history, and related subjects both around at higher education institutions around the world and at the University of Kansas. In addition to this audience, any individuals outside these organizations concerned with art or humanities may find the collection of interest.

Type of project background information available on the site:

The collection was started in 1917 with the donations of Sallie Casey Thayer, a Kansas City art collector. The collection as contains approximately 25,000 items and with 17,700 images in the digital library this is a very thorough project in terms of the percentage of items represented. As for as the digital library project itself, little background information was available on when it began or how it was performed.

How are the digital assets presented?

The digital images are presented in an Insight® browser with the user being able to choose between the basic version and Java version of the client with expanded functions and capabilities. The images are presented for selection as thumbnails with the control panel on the left side of the browser. Once an image is selected in the Java client, a separate workspace is opened for viewing the image that gives the user the ability to magnify or reduce the image, measure items, print, and other functions. The workspace can be used with more than one image at a time if desired.

The images typically open as JPEG files, but in the Java client images may be exported to PowerPoint, HTML, or JPEG. However, even images displayed as JPEGs are named with .tif extensions, which may indicate that the master scans were made as TIFF files.

What metadata is present?

This project has very detailed metadata, it was one of the few I ran across that actually provided file specific metadata such as file format, filenames, compression, height, and size of images. This information is very useful for other institutions trying to implement digitization plans. As well, the descriptive metadata for materials providing all the basic information as well as giving subtitles, series titles, detailed creator information beyond the name of the individual responsible, and other details not always included for researchers by other projects. This level of metadata was probably fairly time consuming but allows users fuller control in researching and understanding of the materials. This level of description should be the “gold standard” for scholarly research collections.

Is it easy to use?

It took me a little while to get used to the interface and searching functions of the project. The Java browser workspace is fairly minimalistic with no text describing its functions so you have to mouse over the control panel to understand what the tools perform what functions. However, after a few minutes I was fairly confident in my use of the system and think it provides a lot of functions that could be extremely useful for researchers. One of them is that users have the ability to attach links and annotations to images. This function was a little confusing, however, as it was not fully clear if these additions are for that user only, or will be visible to all users of that image like social tagging.

Final Thoughts

I think this is an excellent project in terms of size and scope as well as material description and functions for users. The combination of all these factors should make the collection very useful to art scholars and students.

The Fenian Brotherhood Collection

Organization name
American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives (ACUA)

Description of what was digitized
ACUA digitized its manuscript collection of materials related to the Fenian Brotherhood. The collection consists of letters to and from John O'Mahony, James Stephens, John Mitchel, O'Donovan Rossa, and other Fenian leaders, speeches, pamphlets, newspapers, chromolithographs, cartes de visit photographs, tickets, and legal records that record the activities of the Brotherhood. Items in the collection are mostly from the 1860's to the 1880's, but additional items that address Irish history and nationalism into the early 1900's are also included.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
No audience is stated, but the collection appears to be designed for researchers interested in the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish nationalism of that time period.

Type of project background information available on the site
Little information on the creation of the library was available on the main website, but it is part of the Washington Research Library Consortium and was created by its Digital Collections Production Center (DCPC) which contains information about the project. Included are sample project plans, project summaries, document handling instructions, a Dublin Core Template, and a copyright status statement. There are also details of the digital library architechture.

What additional information is presented? Enough? Too much? Worthwhile?
Included with the collection is the EAD Finding Aid for the collection. This document contains lots of details about the history of the collection and the importance of the items in it. Items listed in the finding aid are linked to the actual document loaded in the library. The finding aid is in addition to the search and browse functions of the library. This is an interesting use of the EAD and offers multiple ways to access the documents.

NBII Digital Image Library

Organization name
The National Biological Information Infrastructure


Description of what was digitized
The library contains images of nature from the NBII collection and the collections of contributing partners. There are currently 7349 images in the library.


Audience for the project (stated or assumed)
Scientists, conservationists, decision makers, educators, students and the general public worldwide. The site also includes a Kids Corner that is specifically geared towards a younger audience.


Type of project background information available on the site
The site includes a downloadable factsheet that contains details about the project, how to use the database, and who to contact if you have any questions. Additional information can be found on the NBII website.

How are the digital assets presented?
The main page of the site is a little busy, but it provides quick access to many areas of the site. I especially liked the featured image section that allows you to link to the collection the image is from or information on the image itself. Other options include a search box and tabs to topics, special collections, and a Kids Corner. The topics and special collections areas contain labeled images that take you either to the a collection of images on the topic or an area to further break down the topic.

Search results are presented as 12 thumbnails on a page with descriptions and the photographers name under the photo. Clicking on the photo brings to a larger view of the image with associated Dublin Core metadata. The metadata includes both the key words, location of the image, and rights information. The site also gives you the ability to download high, medium, and web resolution versions of the photos.

Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature

Institution
The Baldwin Library of Children's Literature is part of the University of Florida Libraries digital collections.

Description of Items Digitized
The collection consists of over 3,000 fully digitized examples of children's literature dating from the early 1700's to the present. The items were published either in Great Britain or in the United States. Covers as well as interior pages are all digitized. Strong collections within this larger collection include editions of Alice in Wonderland, editions of Robinson Crusoe and related texts, and St. Nicholas Magazine (a 19th century magazine for children).

Audience
The audience is likely to be made up primarily of scholars of children's literature, illustration, publishing and history in general. However, given the engaging subject matter, a much wider audience should be assumed.

How Assets are Presented
The collection is searchable, and browsable by title, genre, and subcollection. As stated above, the items are fully digitized, so users can page through each item literally cover to cover. Users can also jump from page to page quickly, or zoom in closely on a particular page to examine wear and tear on the item, or to view illustrations in extreme detail. Users can also view thumbnails of an item's pages all on one page. Metadata such as publisher and origin are viewable if desired, but do not clutter up the main view of the item.

Background Information Available
Funding information for the project, and some basic background information on children's publishing, is available. However, there little detail on the digitization process itself - a pity, as many of the items digitized are obviously fragile, and the process by which these were digitized is likely useful to know about.

Ease of Use
The collection is extremely easy to search and browse, and items are easy to page through. The only potential problems I observed were the need for high bandwidth due to high resolution images (not a problem unless you have a slow connection), and a slight difficulty in navigating back to the collection's main page from item records. On the whole, an amazing collection and one I plan to revisit again in my spare time!

Fuuta Tooro Oral History Project

Institution
The digitization of the Fuuta Tooro Oral History Project is being accomplished under the auspices of the African Online Digital Library. This larger digital library project is a partnership among the following agencies:

• Institut Fondemental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN)
• West African Research Center
• MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online
• 
  
• International Development Research Centre
• National Science Foundation

Description of Items Digitized
The items digitized (and yet to be digitized) are recordings of interviews/monologues recorded in West African from 1968 to 1969. The individuals interviewed were/are custodians of oral history, and the recordings are comprised of extended descriptions of local history dating back decades and in some cases centuries. The spoken language on the recordings is Pulaar; French and English text transcriptions accompany the recordings.

Audience
The assumed audience would be scholars of African history, and individuals worldwide interested in West African history, oral history in general, as well as the historical spread of Islam in Africa. Students of West African languages might also find the recordings to be of use.

Background Information
Extensive historical background information is provided in order to place the recordings in context. Furthermore, a great deal of detail is provided about the recordings themselves; how they were gathered, and the manner in which they were recorded. However, there is little technical information provided on the actual digitization of the recordings (although the digital library as a whole has posted extensive best practices materials, which could be mined for information on the digitization process).

How Assets are Presented:
Since the digitization of the Fuuta Tooro Oral History Project is still very much a work in progress, the presentation of the items is quite bare bones. At the moment only a few sample interviews are provided, and the recordings (as noted above) are accompanied by English and French transcriptions when played back. The name of the individual interviewed and the general subject of the interview are provided, as well as the format of the audio file. Finally, each interview is accompanied by a brief description of the individual giving the interview, and his personal background (as this has a strong bearing on the content of his monologue).

Ease of Use:
This small collection as it exists now is certainly easy to use (if rather text-heavy). Whether the collection will continue to be easy to use as more items are digitized remains to be seen; a different finding aid and/or search function will need to be implemented if a great many more assets are included in the final project.

National Museum of American History Online Collections

Project name and URL:

National Museum of American History Online Collections

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/index.cfm

Organization name:

National Museum of American History

Description of what was digitized:

The digitized items in this collection are a small selection from the wide variety of artifacts significant to American history within the Smithsonian’s collection relating to social, cultural, medical, scientific, and technological topics. These items can be anything from clothing, music, furniture, or tools to printed and written works as well as many other types of objects of cultural significance.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed):

The primary audience for the project is the American public since the Smithsonian’s mission as a government run free museum is to educate and inform Americans about their history while preserving it. Other audiences would include anyone interested in or researching American history around the world.

Type of project background information available on the site:

The background information on this project informs users that the online collections are not complete and many items have yet to be digitized, unsurprising given the 3 million objects in the Smithsonian’s collection. The “About Our Collections” section also includes information on what is and is not included in the online collection as well as search tips. However, there is little or no information provided about the institutional history of the project such as when it began, etc.

How are the digital assets presented?

The digital assets in the collection are primarily photographs of objects in JPEG format, due to the number of three dimensional artifacts in the collection there are fewer scanned items. No information was available on the technological standards used to create the assets.

Selected items open with a thumbnail version of the photograph presented with its associated metadata. Images can be enlarged for closer viewing by clicking on the photograph itself or the enlarge icon marked with a magnifying glass underneath.

What metadata is present?

Metadata provided for the items includes a title for the object, generally a descriptive one, such as “Spinning Wheel” or “Grand Piano.” Other provided information includes the Object ID number used to identify the item, the name of the museum division the item is held by, and the subject terms applied to the item. The subject terms are controlled vocabulary terms chosen from the Smithsonian’s set of 28 broad, pre-selected subject areas rather than more specific free text keywords. When applicable, the metadata also includes a Credit Line which identifies gifts and donors.

As well, each item has a one or two paragraph description explaining its significance as it would in a museum exhibit.

Is it easy to use?

The collection is primarily designed for the casually interested viewer and is easy to use for those who want to browse the collections. The items are presented most readily for browsing by the Smithsonian’s predefined subject areas, which when selected bring up a number of the selected items for that topic. As well, those interested in more specific topics can look through the smaller collections of items on narrower topics the Smithsonian calls “Object Groups” such as sub-collections on patent medicine or coin collecting. Users can also search by keyword and limit the search to only items that contain images, but there are no advanced search options for in-depth research. It is also important for users to remember that the online collections cover only a small part of the entire collection when looking for information.

Final Thoughts:

Overall this site is well designed, and provides a good overview and selection of highlights from the museum’s vast collection. This online collection is especially important currently since the museum has been closed physically to the public for the past two years and will not reopen until the fall.

Pages from the Past

Institution
The creation of this collection was collaborative, with a number of different South Carolina institutions contributing items. Web hosting is provided by the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL), and digital collection hosting is provided by University of South Carolina Libraries.

Description of Items Digitized
Pages from the Past is a digital collection of all the institutionally-held medieval manuscripts in South Carolina. According to the collection main page, there are 8 basically complete codices included, but most items are individual pages or partial pages. Some are illuminated, while others are not. Item subject include science, theology, liturgy/music, and general history.

Audience
Stated audience includes South Carolina residents, teachers and students, and medieval scholars worldwide.

Background Information
The site provides a detailed essay on the history of medieval manuscripts in South Carolina (dating from the arrival of the first manuscript in 1864). The essay also details previous non-digital projects that took a census of institutionally-held manuscripts in SC, and provides a great deal of historical detail on the manuscripts themselves.

How Assets are Presented
The main page of the collection shows a rotating series of collection images along with links to the accompanying item. In addition, the collection is searchable, browsable by country and century, and browsable by subject/manuscript type. One interesting feature is a link to audio recordings of the USC Chorus performing works from the manuscript collection - unfortunately there is no information on which works are being performed in the recordings, but the link does provide atmosphere and context.

Ease of Use
This particular collection is quite easy to use overall. The navigation is, for the most part, straightforward, and searching/browsing is easy to accomplish. One minor problem is the use of medieval history-specific language in the navigation for individual item pages. For those not familiar with the terms "recto" and "verso", some confusion might arise. On the whole, however, the collection is easy to use and extremely interesting to peruse.

Historic American Sheet Music

Organization
Duke University Libraries

Description of Items Digitized
The collection consists of American sheet music (covers and interiors) published between 1850 and 1920. A wide variety of types of music are included (quoting the collection description): "bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, Civil War songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, "Tin pan alley" songs, and songs from World War I." In addition, items were selected to cover a wide range of lyrical subjects.

Audience
No specific audience is identified, but it can be assumed that the collection is intended for scholars of music, American history, and general culture. Music provides an important facet of the historical record, providing insight into the social activities, political attitudes, and cultural tastes of previous eras.

Background Information
A great deal of background information is provided along with the items. An explanation of sheet music, an introduction to music publishing in the United States, and a thorough explanation of the preservation and access challenges associated with these items are all included in the site. The creators of the project also explain the difficulties inherent in giving accurate publishing dates for some of the included items. Additionally, a list of FAQs and a research guide are provided.

How Assets are Presented
In item lists, the items are generally shown as thumbnail images of the work's cover accompanied by title only. Individual items (and the rest of their metadata) can be viewed page by page in at least 2 sizes. Items are searchable, or can be browsed by publishing decade, publisher, or location of publication. One unique and helpful feature (although a bit buried): the glossary of musical terms provided links to specific items that illustrate each term.

Ease of Use
The HASM collection is extremely easy to use - casual users are not overloaded with information, but a great deal of information is accessible with only a little digging. I have only one suggestion, which is that the collection should also be browsable by lyric subject matter and by musical type. Other than this minor quibble, I am thoroughly impressed with this project.

Digital Library of Appalachia

Project Name and URL:
Digital Library of Appalachia
http://www.aca-dla.org/

Organization Name:
Appalachian College Association Central Library (a collaboration of 34 libraries, archives and museums)

Description of Items Digitized
The collection includes color and bw photographs, typed and handwritten manuscripts, published and unpublished books, personal diaries and correspondence, journal/newspaper items, musical recordings, and oral history recordings/transcripts. All of the items relate to the cultural and historical heritage of central and southern Appalachia.

Stated Audience
The project's stated audience includes Appalachian scholars, students, and teachers.

Background Information
There is not a great deal of background information on the development of the project itself. Most of the available information focuses on the purpose of the collection, copyright permissions, and links to participating institutions.

How Assets are Presented
The digitized items are both searchable (simple or advanced) and browsable (by institution or topic). They can also be accessed by reading several essays - these essays are multimedia online documents, consisting primarily of text and photographs, but with links to relevant items in the collection. Topic pages provide an overview of the topic, also with links to relevant collection items.

On item list pages, items are always associated with a thumbnail image (even in the case of non-visual items such as sound recordings). Where possible, non-visual items are associated with a logical visual image thumbnail (such as a photograph of performer in the associated recording).

Ease of Use
The DLA website is fairly easy to use. Its design is simple, making it less attractive than some other digital collection sites but more accessible to users at low bandwidths. One possible improvement would be better or more explicit directions for accessing audio files. For a Web-savvy user, this is not particularly problematic - for a less experienced user, figuring out how to actually listen to the recordings might require some trial and error.

Wyoming Memory

Project Name & URL
Wyoming Memory: A Digital Archive of Wyoming History
http://www.wyomingmemory.org/index.htm

Organization Name
Wyoming Memory is a project of the Wyoming Statewide Digitization Committee, and the site itself is hosted and maintained by the University of Wyoming Libraries.

Description of Digitized Items
Since Wyoming Memory is a collaborative portal-type project rather than a single collection, a wide variety of items from numerous sources have been digitized. Photographs, maps, and written documents make up the bulk of the collections, but a number of audio and video recordings are also available. The majority of the items have some bearing on Wyoming, either historical or present. A few collections represent special collections holdings from institutions in Wyoming, and have little to do with the state itself content-wise.

Audience
Given the wide variety of items in the Wyoming Memory project as a whole, the possible audience for this project is quite broad. One would assume that the main audience for the project is made up of individuals interested in Wyoming history. Two choices on the project page's main menu indicate two other main audiences: teachers, and content providers (either those contributing to Wyoming Memory, or those interested in digital collections in general).

Background Information Available
There is a dearth of background information on Wyoming Memory specifically available on the website. However, prominent links to planning and best practices documents from the Wyoming Statewide Digitization Committee and easy-to-find contact information for project managers provide some options for project development information.

How Assets are Presented
The items are searchable, either by collection or overall. They are presented in subject-specific collections or exhibits, and these collections are in turn presented in various subject categories. The items themselves are stored by the websites of their various home organizations - the Wyoming Memory site merely provides organized lists of links (and some photographs indicating content) to collections housed elsewhere.

Ease of Use
Due to the collaborative/portal nature of Wyoming Memory, there are some difficulties with actually using the collection. One problem is that for most of the University of Wyoming collections (of which there are many), items are displayed in a pop-up viewer window which seems to require a fair bit of bandwidth and is difficult to navigate. Another problem is a dead link issue - at least 3 collections I tried to access from the Wyoming Memory page resulted in a 404 error, indicating that link maintenance is an issue with this project.

Finally, because the items are housed at many different institutions, users must adapt to completely different websites when accessing different Wyoming Memory collections. Navigation and organization vary widely from organization to organization, making it complicated to access similar collections from different organizations.

Eastern North Carolina Digital Library

The Eastern North Carolina Digital Library is one of the Digital Collections of Joyner Library at East Carolina University. It provides historic texts related to eastern North Carolina, historical fiction set in North Carolina, maps, images and video footage of museum artifacts. Though anyone with an interest in the history of eastern North Carolina create the audience for this project, specifically, area educators in focus groups helped "refine the site to better meet the needs of teachers and students" and thus, are a targeted audience. North Carolina teachers also provided the lesson plans and activities.

The site provides extensive background information, including all stages of the project. It began in 2003-2004 as the North Carolina History and Fiction Digital Library. Details as specific as the name of the Principle Investigator are included, as well as the types of materials added at each stage of this project's development. "Significant support" coming from a NC ECHO Heritage Partners grant for 2004-2007 with previous funding for the original DL came from NC ECHO in the form of a digitization grant and from Apex CoVantage.

I REALLY like the artifacts included in the DL. For each, users can zoom in on the artifact, as well as watch a video description or download a podcast version. How interesting, especially those items from the Country Doctor Museum! I can't say I've ever seen an amputation kit from the 1800s before (or any other time period!). Each artifact's page includes one main picture with several additional views accessible via the provided thumbnails. Metadata information is given, as well as a prose description and then a transcription of the audio provided in the video and podcast. As a note, the difference between the video and podcast seems to solely be the format in which the video is provided, with one being streamed and the other provided in mp4 format.

(Quotes from http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/about.aspx)

Alabama Mosiac

The Alabama Mosiac is a "repository of digital materials on Alabama's history, culture, places, and people. Its purpose is to make unique historical treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories electronically accessible". The audience for this project is Alabama residents, students, researchers, and the general public. The project was initiated under a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and is now administered by the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries (NAAL). The site is run by Auburn University in Alabama.

The background information for this site pretty sparce. It only lists the contributors for the project, but they have a resources section coming soon. I can’t give a summary on how the collection was presented because each collection just links you to the home site for the contributors. Some of the links don’t work, and nothing is formatted the same. The site was not easy to use or to browse because of the way it is set up going to each individual site. The project should be compiled into one resource for ease of use.

King County Snapshots

The King County Snapshots project is a collection of 12,000 historical images from 19th and 20th century images portraying people, places, and events in the county's urban, suburban, and rural communities. The partners for the project are Black Heritage Society of Washington State, Seattle, WA; Eastside Heritage Center, Bellevue, WA; Maple Valley Historical Society, Maple Valley, WA; Museum of History & Industry, Seattle, WA; Northwest Railway Museum, Snoqualmie, WA; Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle, WA; Rainier Valley Historical Society, Seattle, WA; Renton Historical Museum, Renton, WA; Shoreline Historical Museum, Shoreline, WA; University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, WA; White River Valley Museum, Auburn, WA; Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA
The project began with a 2001-2003 National Leadership Grant for Library-Museum Collaboration from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, led by the Museum of History & Industry.

The implied audience suggests students, faculty, and the general public, but looks to be mostly for museum and historical society use. The background information given is technical info, workshops, web resources, abstract, narrative, and final report on the project. The site also gives the history of King County with maps and a timeline. The collection is presented using mostly images, showing as thumbnails with titles. No additional information is given with each item besides metadata. The metadata provided is Title, Photographer, Date, Caption, Notes, Subjects, Digital Collection, Image Number, Ordering Information, Repository, Physical Description, and Digital Reproduction Information. The site was easy to browse, easy to search, and very usable in general.

Nebraska Western Trails

Nebraska Western Trails is a "multi-state collaborative between Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Participants in the project digitize and provide World Wide Web access to photographs, text, and maps about historic, and modern trails in the western states. The Western Trails Project was funded through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Nebraska Library Commission is the coordinator for the Nebraska participants." The collection focuses on primary source materials defined as "original Nebraska trails-related historical and cultural material only", including artifacts, books, documents, maps, postcards, original paintings, and photographs. The implied audience is the general public, students, and teachers.

Background information for the site includes photo galleries, lesson plans, exhibits, collections, and partner information. This project is related to the Four States Western Trails project (Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado) at http://www.bcr.org/cdp/, which doesn't seem to be the correct website for the project. Only Kansas Western Trail had a comparable site, but it was structured totally differently.

The collection was presented three different ways: bookshelves, collections, exhibitions. It was easy to use when browsing, but not easy to use when searching for a specific thing. There was not much additional info given in the bookshelves section for each item beyond the metadata. However, there was a lot of info in the collections section explaining each item. The metadata given was institution, title, creator, description-abstract, subject, date, source, format, rights, url, and filename. This site would be a good resource for extensive research (college age students and faculty) but not for grammer school student projects.

adFlip

(full access only available through SU library website)

Overview: adFlip is "the world's largest archive of classic print ads"

Materials digitized: Ads, ads, and more ads. Text and photographs, no audio or video.

Audience:
Unlike the last SU database I reviewed (Classical Music Library) this one is aimed at anyone interested in advertisements. They have not geared their collection towards libraries but rather the general public.

Background information:
They don't have very much technical information on their website (at least not that I could find within a reasonable amount time spent browsing). Their "about" page has more information regarding how to subscribe (even though I was logged in under SU) than it does on the collection itself.

Observations:
It got confusing as to whether or not the adFlip realized I was logged in as a subscriber through SU. As I browsed through the site the subscriber information at the top (in red) kept changing between acknowledgment that I was a subscriber and logged in, and considering me a "guest of adflip" and that I needed to log in to see hidden pages. This was a bit aggravating, as well as all the exhortations for me to subscribe.

The website layout is very intuitive and easy to browse. The search function is easy to find although there is no advanced search option. The two search boxes right next to each other are a little deceiving, causing me to think that I could quickly restrict my keyword search by date, however the search boxes function independent of one another (you can either do a keyword search or by year).

This is most definitely set up for browsing purposes. They have put their collection into categories (automotive, business, etc), publications, and decades. It would be greatly improved if it allowed you to search within these categories instead of forcing you to browse through the results for what you wanted. If you have an ad's identification number you can put it into a certain search box and be sent directly to it, but you would have had to already found that ad through browsing in order to get the number.

They do allow you to send ads as e-cards, which is a fun perk to subscription.

Darwin Digital Library of Evolution

Project name and URL

Darwin Digital Library of Evolution

http://darwinlibrary.amnh.org/

Organization name

American Museum of Natural History Library

Description of digital information

The Darwin Digital Library of Evolution (DDLE) is composed of an assortment of manuscripts and publications including a searchable edition of Darwin's important work On the Origin of Species (1859). To contextualize Darwin's scholarship other works are included on the site such as the edited work Charles Darwin's Natural Selection (1975) by R. C. Stauffer. A series of photographs credited to John and Irene Palmer are also included on the site. These images provide snapshots of 'Darwin's Plants' and portray beautiful close-up images of flowers and insects (including Latin names for each).

Audience for the project

The website indicates the material has been digitized and placed online for both students and scholars interested in Charles Darwin and the historical development of Darwin's theory of evolution. Though not specifically stated the website would also interest botanists, religious historians and those who happen upon the site while visiting the website of the American Museum of Natural History.

Project background information

The website is the collaborative effort of many people and organizations. David Kohn and Christie Stephenson served as General Editor and Project Director. An Advisory Committee of individuals representing institutions in England and the United States helped build the project. An assortment of Contributing Editors help shape the site into being through written documentation.

The website indicates the "DDLE supports the goal of integrated search tools that will eventually allow all users to pursue Darwin's thought across all the genres that he used to express himself." As a result, Cambridge University, the Charles Darwin Forum, and Darwin Correspondence Project are important players in the development and implementation of the entire site. This collaborative effort between individuals and institutions spans two continents and assists global users to learn more about an influential person who has a lasting impact on many academic disciplines.

Presentation of digital assets

The digitized texts placed together on the same web page provides users with the opportunity to search back and forth to make better sense of Darwin's work. The Stauffer text is on Macromedia FlashPaper and can be somewhat difficult to navigate for users unfamiliar with the software. Users should be able to easily navigate the writings of Darwin. The floral images are a pleasure to view. But, the same images are difficult to search - if one is looking for specific plant life - since users are required to view images one at a time.

Additional information and metadata

A thumbnail listing of each image with accompanying metadata would be a nice addition to the site in case researchers are looking for specific examples of plants/flowers. There is some metadata present though it would have been helpful to indicate additional notes as to when and where the photographs were taken. For persons interested in traveling to the same places as Darwin during his HMS Beagle journey a map of his route would be beneficial. Overall, the DDLE is a useful project and will assist students and researchers interested in the life and work of Charles Darwin. A bibliography of close to 3,500 publications related to Darwin will point users toward further study of materials not covered by the website project.

University Achives Digital Image Collection, University of Pennsylvania

Project Name and URL

University Archives Digital Image Collection

http://imagesvr.library.upenn.edu/p/pennarchive/

Organization Name

The University of Pennsylvania

Description of what was digitized

The digitized collection includes over 35,000 images depicting the history of the University of Pennsylvania campus. This portrayal of history includes images of people, sporting events, buildings and the changing landscape of the university. Materials digitized include photographs, sketches, slides and maps.

Audience for the project

The viewing audience is not stated on the project website. Viewers who would find this site of interest include: UPenn students, academic researchers, local historians and persons interested in the history of the University of Pennsylvania. Others who might find the site of interest include architects, art historians and sports historians.

Type of project background information available

Many of the photographs were taken by George E. Nitzsche, a publicity agent for the University of Pennsylvania between 1901-1944. Nitzsche had taken, stored, and preserved the images to document the history of the university. Other organizations involved with the background of the project include the athletic department, the campus News Bureau, and freelance photographers.

How are the digital assets presented?

The site is set up for easy navigation. Viewers can search the photograph collection by using a 'simple search' or a 'Boolean search'. Users can also browse the entire collection or compare certain images side by side. This feature allows viewers to compare sport uniforms for different years or compare the campus landscape between years. A final helpful feature is the 'Beyond this Collection' option that allows users to navigate outside this collection to view other collections on the UPenn website.

What additional information is presented? Is it easy to use?

The website itself is easy to use and viewers can access certain photographs without wading through a number of links. I decided to select the black and white photograph collection looking specifically at the sports section. The page provides users with an assortment of viewing options for each image ranging from thumbnail to 'extra large'. Users are provided with the option of examining the images as a 'text list' or 'slide show'. Unfortunately, neither of these options seemed to work. If the slide show option worked the user would have a nice arrangement of photographs and could then select certain images for specific viewing.

The metadata present for each photograph is very useful for the viewer/researcher. While looking at the sports images I found a photograph of the 1907 UPenn baseball team. The metadata describes not only what archival box the image can be found but also the record identification number, date of the photograph and size of the print. Overall, the site is a useful experience for persons interested in starting digitization projects.

The Modern English Collection

Project Name and URL:

The Modern English Collection

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/modeng0.browse.html

Organization Name:

The University of Virginia Library

Description of what was digitized:

From the Web site:

This heterogeneous collection contains fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, letters, newspapers, manuscripts and illustrations from 1500 to the present, arranged for browsing by author's last name or by category of interest. Each text is encoded in either SGML or XML and includes a bibliographic header with details about the creation of the electronic text and its print source.

Audience for the project (stated or assumed):

Assumed: Anyone interested in modern English literature.

How are the digital assets presented:

Visitors to the site can browse by author last name or by one of the following categories:

• African Americans
• Native Americans
• Women Writers
• American Civil War
• Thomas Jefferson
• Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers
• Texts for Young Readers
• Literature in Translation
• Best Sellers, 1900-1930
• Items for the UVA Special Collections
  

Is it easy to use:

The browsing feature is presented exclusively by author's last name. Users of the site can either select a letter from the main page or within an individual collection. The collections can be searched using keywords and further constrained by author's name, title, and date range. The interface is pretty basic, but it is is easy enough to use.

Minnesota Reflections

Minnesota Reflections is run by the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition (MDLC), which is comprised of “professionals from libraries, archives, historical societies, and museums across Minnesota” and “supported through annual grants provided by the federal Library Services and Technology Act through the Institute of Museum and Library Services and State Library Services, a division of the Minnesota Department of Education”.

I thought this was one of the few sites that gave a nice overview of the collection, so I decided not to tamper with it. The audience for this site is researchers, educators, students, and the public. “Minnesota Reflections is the initial digitization effort of the MDLC. This digitization project, conducted from 2004-05, involved more than 50 participating historical societies, special archives, and libraries. The MDLC and participants digitized more than 6,000 unique photographs and images, collected the information on these images, and is creating a searchable database to help people access and use them.”

The background information for this project is all contributors to the site, but to get any additional info you have to go to the MDLC site which doesn’t have a lot of info about the reflections project but does have a lot of info on the organization itself. You can search collections by contributor, topic, or region. The site is easy to search, easy to browse, and easy to use. They present images as thumbnails with subjects/titles so it's easy to find what you need. The metadata offered is Title, Description, Date of Creation, General Subject, Specific Subject, Local Subject, State, Country, Contributing Institution, Rights Management, and Local Identifier. It's an interesting site and easier to use than some others I’ve seen. It seems like a great site for local historians and grammar school children who need to do local history projects.

Making of America

Making of America is runs by the University of Michigan in collaboration with Cornell, but the two projects seem separate. Project funding is from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The collection presents “primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints”. The audience is mainly college students/faculty, to be used for scholarly research (audience not stated, only implied).

Background info for the projects includes different phases of the project, the partners for the project, MARC records, future of the project, online implementation, digital conversion process, etc. The presentation of the collection is sort of like searching a database; books/articles show up one page at a time. It's a little clunky, but it has a bookbag feature like a shopping cart for online shopping, which is useful. There is not a lot of information given with each article/book. The only metadata present is basic citation information, so you have to read each thing to really understand what it’s about. This site is not great for easy research but it’s a useful resource for researchers because of the information that’s available. You just need a lot of patience for this site.The Cornell Making of America site is just as clunky.

NYPL Digital Gallery

Of all the libraries that I've been to, the New York Public Library is perhaps my most favorite. I've always gone there for the ambiance (how can you go wrong when there are two majestic lions waiting by the entrance?), the architecture, and a quiet place to work (not to mention free internet!). It would not be uncommon to just browse around the library stacks and pick up a random book and just browse -- truly an amazing collection. Well, now that I'm in Boston and my travels take me 30,000 miles a year around the globe, I find it rare that I'm in anywhere near NYC and certainly not with enough time to browse the collections like I would do often when living in Manhattan.

So, to say that I was ecstatic at the discovery of the NYPL Digital Gallery, would not be a misrepresentation. Every day since discovering it earlier in term, I browse a few images or flip through a few pages of prose. Here are some pertinent details:

• Project Name: NYPL Digital Gallery
  
• Organization Name: New York Public Library
  
• Description of what was digitized: From the Website-- "NYLP Digital Gallery provides access to over 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated book, printed ephemera, and more."
  
• Audience of the project: ME! Well, the general public, to include historians, naturalists, and those just interested in the NYPL's fascinating unique holdings
• Type of project background from the site: There is a good FAQ on the site that describes the collection as a free service and clearly delineates the copyright and usage rights for the available materials. There is also an About page that goes into more detail about the collections.

After going through the over 600,000 images on this site, don't stop! There are other NYPL digital collections that you can browse through from the NYPL Digital Collections site, which includes other images collections. The navigation of the collections is uniform across all the collections, albeit with a little bit of a learning curve (at least for me...). There is a good set of metadata associated with each image, including creator, source, image caption, library, description, subject terms, author names, medium, digital record identifiers, and a NYPL Call Number. 

Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana

• Project Name: Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana
• Organization Name: Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Description of what was digitized: The Biologia Centrali-Americana (BCA) is a collection of 58 digitized volumes consisting of beautiful images of thousands (nearly 18,000) of hand drawn images of species. It also contains the authoritative original or revised description of nearly 50,000 species of life found in the Central Americas.
• Audience: Natural historians, scientists, and enthusiasts. As stated on the website, the BCA "grew from a desire by the partners to widen greatly the accessibility of the information they hold. Currently data needed to undertake many kinds of research, including taxonomic, are available only as a scattered and widely distributed resources, inaccessible or unknown to the majority of people who need them."
• Project Background from the site: There is an extensive background section on the Website that goes through the various aspects of the project. While it seems that project ceased future updates since 2005, there are a series of powerpoint presentations that go through a number of the technical aspects of the project. 

The BCA is an example of the digitization of a large body of literature in the natural sciences that are of vital importance to the science of taxonomy. Many of the images and prose might also be of interest to general natural history enthusiasts. There was a lot that went into the technical aspects of the project behind the scenes, which one can really only appreciate after going through the powerpoints and related documents on the site about the project. Of particular interest is that the entire collected is systematically annotated with a detailed XML schema, called taXMLit. The use of the schema to represent the prose in natural history documents (the OCR text that is) is still an area of active research in the biodiversity informatics community.

The general navigation through the collection is semi-straight-forward. One first selects a volume from a tiered list of topics. The user is then taken to an intermediate interface that lets one select either a specific page or image in the volume (e.g., for beautifully illustrated frogs of the Rana genus.). There is the ability to browse through the thumbnails (e.g., for a volume on beetles [Coleoptera]) for all the images ("plates") from a given volume, which I found very helpful in picking those images that I wanted to see up close. Overall the scans seem to be of very high quality, and the images are simply breathtaking (or creepy if you don't like snakes...).

Considering that the interface to the scanned documents was made in 2005, the site is still functional and works very well (I didn't encounter any dead links, for example). Still it is unfortunate that, beyond basic bibliographic data, there is little metadata that is made available through the Web interface. This is interesting, because on of the motivations for the XML representation of the documents is that they also embed various types of metadata within the site. Perhaps if one can go through the taXMLit documents, there would be more; however, I couldn't figure a way to get at the taXMLit version of any of the pages that I viewed.

Nonetheless, the documents and the images are a great deal of fun to browse through.

National Yiddish Book Center: The Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library

A while back, my mother gave me a book to read, entitled Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky. Like the writer of this book, my only experience of Yiddish had been as a 'secret language' that my parents used whenever they wanted to keep something hidden from the children. So I was fascinated to read this true account of Lansky's personal mission to rescue the Yiddish literary tradition from extinction – leading to his receipt of a Macarthur 'Genius Award' and the establishment of the National Yiddish Book which houses over a million and a half books in Amherst, Massachusetts.

• Organization

What began as one man's passion to save Yiddish books has grown into an impressive organization that houses 1,500,000 books, the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, outreach programs that translate or reissue Yiddish books, a book repository, theater, conference space and museum exhibitions. The organization is funded by private contributions and matching grants from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

• Description of what was digitized

The goal of the Yiddish Book Center is to return old books to a new generation of readers. "As the world’s only comprehensive supplier of Yiddish books, we’ve drawn on our extensive duplicate holdings to establish or strengthen Yiddish collections at more than 450 of the world’s great libraries, including Harvard, Yale, Library of Congress, the British Library, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and national libraries in countries as distant as Australia, China and Japan.

Because many of our books are physically deteriorating – and because we no longer have sufficient supplies to meet demand – in 1998 we launched the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library: a pioneering program to digitize the titles in our collection and make high-quality reprints available on demand. Our easy-to-use online catalog means that Yiddish, once the most endangered of literatures, is now the safest and most accessible." (http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/+2 )

• Audience for the project (stated or assumed)

The audience is anyone interested in Yiddish language and culture – from European 'old-timers' who want to reconnect with their earlier cultural experiences to students interested in learning the language and learning more about the rich history of Yiddish culture. People interested in owning copies of the books thathave been digitized can also purchase high-quality reprints made to order for them.

• How are the digital assets presented?

The library is more of a kind of pay-per-view catalogue than an actual presentation of the digital assets themselves. Though there is a plan in place to put digital copies of Yiddish volumes online for all to view, currently, information about the volumes is available online, and copies can be ordered and purchased.

• What metadata is present?

The image below shows the kind of metadata available for items in the library.

UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

The organization that supports this collection is the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Library and the California Digital Library.

The UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection contains 400 digitized versions of Japanese woodblock prints with "health-related themes," mostly from the mid-late 19th century . The digitization was done by photographing the prints (About the Collection).

The audience for the project would be anyone interested in Japanese art, culture, or medical knowledge in the late Edo and Meiji periods.

The digital assets are presented in a simple and intuitive manner. They are separated into collections based on themes. These themes are:

• Contagious Disease
• Drug Advertisements
• Foreigners & Disease
• Religion & Health
• Women's Health

Users can browse all the prints or by theme collection. If viewed by theme, the collection is presented with a brief explanation for context.

When an image is chosen, it is presented in a medium size with the metadata alongside. The short presentation of the metadata includes the title, creator/contributor, date, and contributing institution. The short presentation of the metadata also includes a link to more information. Further information includes translated title, subject, type, physical description, language, identifier, origin, and collection. The way this information is presented seems very logical, as most users will probably not require such specific information, and, if they do, it is easy to find. The simplified metadata also allows the user to focus on the image itself, as displaying all the metadata would probably result in a smaller image displayed.

Overall, I was very impressed with the presentation of this digital collection. It's simple, clear, and provides a significant amount of information with the digital assets. Due to the nature of the collection, I think they made a very wise decision to focus the initial item view on the asset and not on the metadata, as it is a work of art.

National Yiddish Book Center

Many years ago I heard radio spot about some grad student who realized people were throwing out Yiddish books because they no longer knew anyone who spoke or read Yiddish. He was going around collecting Yiddish books from garages and basements and even plucking them from the trash. After a few years, he had collected so many books that he was trying to find a warehouse he could put them in.

As I understand it, the problem was that people who fled the pogroms and the holocaust assimilated to the language of their new countries and Israel adapted Hebrew as it's official language. Yiddish was a dying language and the cultural wealth of generations was on the verge of being tossed in a dumpster.

This story stuck with me over the years because I so admired the effort and the brilliance of the simple act of saving and collecting these books. You can only imagine my delight when I started looking for digital collections to cover and I stumbled upon the National Yiddish Book Center.


The center was established in 1980 by that same student and current president, MacArthur Fellow, Aaron Lansky. He had taken a two year leave from his own graduate studies to save these volumes before it was too late. He made a public appeal for Yiddish books and a nation responded. To date, the center has recovered over 1.5 million volumes in what can legitimately be considered, "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history."

The center's goal is to return old books to a new generation. To that end, in 1998 it established the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library. The collection was in great demand by libraries and much of it was deteriorating. The digital library project was designed to preserve digital representations of the books and provide greater access to them. In its current form, the library provides high quality printed volumes generated on demand from digital images. Every page of the entire 1.5 million books has been captured and every volume is available for purchase. There is talk of making these available online at some future date but short of veiled references no specifics were provided (I can't wait for that).

Sadly, my Yiddish vocabulary is just a few dozen words. I needed to find a volume that had both English and Yiddish so I could understand that. I dashed off an email to the help desk and received a quick reply from Catherine, one of the bibliographers. She was a great help. The metadata in the catalog is fairly limited but the record for Original Riddles by Solomon Small does indicate that it has an English translation. The online catalog provides simple and advanced queries and is easy to use.


As I waited for my book to arrive I took notice that there was no information on the technical and policy issues around the digital aspects of the center. The book I chose was published in Brooklyn in 1938. I do wonder how copyright issues are being handled. In any case, this method of print on demand is a very different approach to our current thinking on electronic texts and online availability. It has its drawbacks in regard to access but its benefits in regard to physicality.

The digital book is a beautifully produced hard bound volume with a black cover, pure white pages, and clearly printed black text. It is premium quality. There really is nothing that fully replaces reading an actual book, especially when you know it is from a time before computers. I also could not be happier with my selection. It fits me and it reminds me that culture is entirely personal.

It is with great admiration and even greater gratitude that I whole heartedly recommend the National Yiddish Book Center and look forward to future reading both online and in hand.

UVa Library Digital Image Collections

The organization that hosts this collection is the University of Virginia (UVa) Libraries.

The Digital Image Collection consists of “local collections, licensed resources, and faculty projects” (UVa Library Digital Collections: About the Image Collections). The collection includes:

• Jackson Davis Collection of African-American Educational Photographs
• Smithsonian American Art Museum George Catlin Indian Paintings
• Flora Materials for the Study of Landscape Architecture

This collection contains old and new digitized photographs. (Many of the collections of newer photographs are restricted to the UVa community because they are higher resolution photographs.)

The assumed audience for this collection is researchers. This is somewhat stated in that some of the collections are restricted to the UVa community.

There is not a lot of background information available, except that the repository runs on top of Fedora, an open source IR architecture, developed by both Cornell and UVa. This project was funded by grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation (UVa Library Digital Collections: Digital Collections Repository FAQ).

The digital assets are presented in the context of their collection. Usually each collection has an explanation followed by a list of items. An item, such as Abingdon Church in the Frances Benjamin Johnston Photograph Collection, is displayed at the bottom of the record for the item. Sometimes one record contains multiple items. The Abingdon Church entry, for instance, contains a picture of the interior AND a picture of the exterior of the church.

These images are initially presented as thumbnails, and then the user can click on them to view the larger image. The larger image is displayed in a new window which contains ImageViewer Tool menu bars. Using the menu, the user can adjust the brightness and contrast of the image, zoom in and out, and rotate the image. The user can also download the file.

The metadata presented includes primary title, larger entity name title, photographer, sponsor, place (country), date, medium, type, technique, note, subject, culture, identifier, access, and copyright.

The interface is pretty easy to use. The only strange part about it is that it sometimes has multiple items in one entry.

University of Illinois French WWI Poster Collection

• Project name:

French World War I Posters

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/hix/WWI_Posters/index.html

• Organization name:

University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign

• Description:

On this website, one can find digitized versions of 105 posters published in France during World War I. The originals are part of the University of Illinois Archives. The poster began to be considered an art form in the late 19^th Century, made possible by new printing techniques. World War I marks the first time in history that posters were used as a political tool. Now considered propaganda, the posters were employed by the French government to mobilize the animosity of the community against the enemy, to maintain friendly relations with neutrals and allies and to boost morale. Some important themes featured in this collection are disease and wartime, the image of the German, the “poilu,” or French soldier, bank loans, Marianne (a symbol of victory), allegiance with the United States, the “ghost army” and women and children. The posters were issued by institutions and organizations such as the French War Ministry, French and British banks, the American Red Cross, YMCA Union Franco-Americaine, Comite Nationale de Prevoyance et d'Economies, and associations Francaise contre la Propagande Ennemie. The project features French artists such as Jules Abel Faivre, Maurice Neumont, Atelier Pichon, and Theodore Steinlien.

• Audience:

The audience for this project would be students of the University of Illinois, as well as anyone interested in history, mass communications, gender studies, visual arts, political science, and many other multidisciplinary fields.

• Background information:

The original posters are housed in the University of Illinois Archives. Repairs and encapsulation were accomplished prior to 2001 using funds provided by a gift of Marian H. Thompson, and the posters were scanned between 2001 and 2005. This website created by graduate assistants from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library during academic year 2006-2007.

• Presentation:

The entire collection can be browsed using CONTENTdm, where they are presented as a thumbnail with their title, subject and description. The website also offers separate pages with information on the artists, themes and a timeline of the war, featuring select posters as examples to underscore the information presented. The physical location of each poster is offered as well.

• Additional Information:

The additional information offered by the site is great. The website provides links to related sites, like the Library of Congress: Guide to WWI Materials, Georgetown’s WWI poster collection (though that particular link has an error; clicking on it will bring the user to the wrong page so he or she must copy and paste the URL) and a site called Propaganda Postcards of the Great War. The website also offers a great bibliography; very useful for users looking to learn more about subject materials presented on the site.

• Metadata:

The metadata used includes the title, language, the French text, its English translation, the artist, the printer, a description, subject, subject TGM, date, dimensions, sponsor and location details.

• Ease of use:

The site is incredibly easy to use. I love the way it is laid out – by theme, artist and with the timeline. The material covers so many interesting aspects of the time period, French culture, war culture, and art. It is easy to navigate and visually appealing. I keep coming back to browse the collection! I have yet to find one problem with this site, other than the broken link mentioned above.

Ling long women's magazine

Organization name:

C.V. Starr East Asian Library (part of Columbia University Library)

Description of what was digitized:

The entire holdings of the Ling long magazine from the Starr library were digitized. Supplementing these holdings, missing pages or issues of Ling long held by the University of Heidelberg, Germany are also included. Issues held by the University of Heidelberg are indicated by an (h) next to the page number.

Ling long was a popular Chinese women’s magazine published in Shanghai from 1931 to 1937. According to female Shanghai author Zhang Ailing (1944):

“Every female student had an issue of Ling long magazine in hand during the 1930s. On the one hand, Ling long imparted the beauty secrets of movie stars, and on the other hand instructed "beautified" and "made up" girls how to keep close guard against the attacks of men, because all men harbor bad intentions. True dating is dangerous, but marriage is even more dangerous, because marriage is the tomb of dating.”

The magazine promoted beauty in women’s life and encouraged culture and entertainment for the Chinese society. The magazine was divided in two parts: these were represented by the front and back covers. The front cover showed a picture of a woman–usually she was the ideal modern woman. The back cover was usually related to cinema. The magazine was read in both directions.

Audience for the project:

Primary target audiences are researchers and scholars.

Metadata:

There is not much metadata information available. Every page includes the issue number, the publication year and the page number.

Presentation of digital images:

The website states “The materials are displayed "as is" and without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including any warranties of title, non-infringement of copyright, or other rights.”

The collection can be browsed by year, date and/or page number. Additionally, issues can be selected via the Collection Index. The collection index links to information on how to read the magazine and missing issues.
The entire issue can be viewed at once or in layouts of four, two or just one page. Users can forward and backward within these different views – this gives the feel of scrolling through a magazine. Furthermore, all images can be printed out.

Project background information

The site gives in-depth background information to novices to the Ling Long magazine. Users can read about the Ling long woman, specifically where she lived, what she did and the historical context of the magazine.

Additionally the site provides users with background information about the project methodology, such as what resolution the magazine was scanned, etc. and a resource site with a bibliographical list.

What I liked:

I really liked the way the magazine was presented. The site is simple yet graphically appealing. I had never heard about the Ling long magazine and I was fascinated to get a glimpse into the modern Chinese women of that period.

Unfortunately the site is only presented in Chinese, no translations are given. Having a translation of the presented magazine would improve this site tremendously for the non-scholarly visitor.