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digital projects best practices

Frederick Zarndt

frederick@frederickzarndt.com

how’s and what’s of a digital archive / library

•  what is a (good) digital library ? •  how should a digital library be designed ? •  how should a digital library be created ? •  how is a digital library measured ? •  how should a digital project be executed ? •  how should a digital library or a digital project be

managed ?

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why a digital project?

•  to enhance accessibility of the content in libraries and archives

•  to increase collaboration and cooperation between libraries and archives around the world

•  to promote research •  to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs

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digital projects overview

•  collections: organized groups of digital objects

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digital collections Library and Archives Canada

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digital projects overview

•  collections: organized groups of digital objects

•  objects: digital materials

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digital object issue from the California Digital Newspaper Collection

digital projects overview

•  collections: organized groups of digital objects

•  objects: digital materials •  metadata: information about objects and

collections

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digital object metadata metadata from the Singapore National Library

project phases

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•  assess •  design •  implement •  measure •  preserve •  manage

assess

•  select the collection or content

•  define the goals

•  identify the users

•  identify ownership and legal risks

•  identify applicable standards

•  evaluate capabilities

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design: standards

•  METS XML for descriptive, structural, technical, and administrative metadata

•  descriptive metadata •  Metadata Object Description Standard

(MODS) selected metadata from MARC •  Dublin Core fundamental group of text

elements for describing and cataloging •  technical metadata

•  ALTO for OCR text •  PREMIS for digital preservation •  MIX for images

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design: standards

•  image standards •  TIFF •  JPEG2000 •  JPEG •  ANSI/NISO Z39.87

•  file standards •  PDF, PDF/A, PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-1a •  TEI

•  record standards •  ISAD(G) •  ERA

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design: access

•  user community •  user interface (UI) •  search •  authentication and user

management •  digital object presentation •  portability •  administration

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create requirements and acceptance criteria repeat {

digitize (small) pilot batch test data against acceptance criteria adjust requirements and acceptance criteria

} until (no more adjustments are necessary) digitize more data

implement: pilot

NB: pilot batches are VERY VERY important!! 15

implement: in-house

reasons for in-house production

•  collection cannot be moved •  collection is badly organized •  digitization must be done slowly over a long

period •  digitization is very simple

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implement: outsource

reasons for outsourced production

•  originals can’t be scanned in-house because… •  equipment is too expensive •  output data is beyond staff experience •  labor is too expensive

•  large volume of work in a short time •  insufficient space, infrastructure, or staff

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implement: software

•  commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) •  open source •  customized COTS •  customized open source •  custom in-house

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implement: crowd sourcing

•  FamilySearch.org

•  National Library of Australia Newspapers Digitisation Program

•  Library and Archives Canada

•  Wikipedia

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measure: acceptance criteria

•  automatic quality checks •  is the digital object complete? •  is the digital object verifiable? •  is the digital object uncorrupted?

•  manual quality checks •  does the metadata meet accuracy

specifications? •  does the text meet accuracy

specifications? •  is the image quality satisfactory?

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measure: image quality

“…images which are ultimately to be viewed by human beings, the only “correct” method of quantifying visual image quality is through subjective evaluation. in practice, however, subjective evaluation is usually too inconvenient, time-consuming and expensive…”

“…best way to assess the quality of an image is to look at it because human eyes are the ultimate viewers of most images…”

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Zhou Wang and Hamid R. Sheikh. Image Quality Assessment: From Error Visibility to Structural Similarity. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. April 2004

Zhou Wang, Alan Bovick, and Ligang Lu. Why is image quality assessment so difficult? IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. April 2004

measure: use

•  who is using the collection? •  what is the collection being used for? •  how many page views per day / week /

month? •  how long do visitors to the collection stay? •  how many repeat visitors to the collection?

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preserve

•  bit rot •  format obsolescence •  media obsolescence / decay •  migration to new media or hardware •  standards obsolescence

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preserve: bit rot

gradual decay of …

•  storage media because of media quality

•  storage media because of improper storage

•  data due to random events (bit-flip,

•  software due to interface changes

•  software due to non-obvious or inadvertent configuration changes

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preserve: media decay

a report by NIST and the Library of Congress says that

•  virtually all CD-Rs tested indicated an estimated life expectancy beyond 15 years

•  only 47 percent of recordable DVDs indicated an estimated life expectancy beyond 15 years, some had a life expectancy as short as 1.9 years

•  in practice actual lifetimes may be considerably shorter

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preserve: media obsolescence

•  5 ¼” floppy disks •  8 track tapes •  3 ½” floppy disks •  ZIP drives •  CD-R, CD-RW, Blu-Ray •  microfilm

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preserve: migration

•  file format changes •  file name differences: case sensitive /

insensitive •  extended file attributes •  file permissions •  soft links / hard links

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preserve: standards obsolescence

remember …

•  WordPerfect ?

•  MARC records ?

•  Adobe Flash ?

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preservation Open Archival Information System (OAIS)

reference model

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the problem

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the 2009 CHAOS Report (The Standish Group) reports that of all software projects surveyed, 44%

are “challenged”, 24% failed, and only 32% succeeded

the problem

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Roger Sessions estimates that the worldwide cost of IT failure is USD $500 billion per month

Roger Sessions: CTO of ObjectWatch. He has written seven books including Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises and many articles. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Software Architects.

the problem

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in a recent survey of 1230 IT professionals conducted by Embarcadero Technologies, 2 of the

3 biggest project challenges cited by the IT pros are “poor planning” and “poor or no requirements”

the problem

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in a March 2007 web poll conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association "nearly

28 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents singled out poor communications as the number one

cause of project failure"

the problem

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in a white paper written for Project Perfect by Taimour al Neimat, he lists

• poor planning • unclear goals and objectives • objectives changing during the project • unrealistic time or resource estimates

• lack of executive support and user involvement • failure to communicate and act as a team

• inappropriate skills

as primary causes for the failure of complex IT projects

the problem

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a recent tender from an (anonymous) government agency

•  project to convert ~ 170,000 text images to xml •  value of project ~ USD $180,000 •  19 pages of definitions, governing law, proposal evaluation criteria, contractual conditions, instructions about tender response format, etc •  technical requirements description? < 1 page •  data acceptance criteria? “a high level of accuracy”

the problem

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a recent program established by a prominent national library

•  digitize more than 20 million text pages •  high level image and xml requirements •  value of work awarded? > USD $5,000,000 •  after award of work, technical requirements expand to 43+ pages from ~3 pages •  acceptance criteria? added as an afterthought and not well defined

the problem

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the problem

typical tender evaluation criteria in priority order

1. understanding of requirements 2. reputation of service bureau 3. price

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requirements

the problem

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requirements Library of Congress JPEG2000 profile

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requirements acceptance

the problem

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acceptance National Library of Australia NDP

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requirements acceptance

communication

the problem

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communication

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“projects are about communication, communication,

and communication”

Elenbass,  B.  (2000).  “Staging  a  Project:  Are  You  Se>ng  Your  Project  Up  for  Success?”.    Proceedings  of  the  Project  Management  InsItute  Annual  Seminars  &  Symposiums.  

references

•  METS, MODS, ALTO, PRISM, etc : http://www.loc.gov/standards

•  OAIS : http://public.ccsds.org/publications/RefModel.aspx •  NISO standards and guidelines :

http://www.niso.org/publications/rp •  good practice guides : http://www.ukoln.ac.uk •  And many, many more

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preguntas?

Frederick Zarndt

frederick@frederickzarndt.com

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