uniting digitization & heritage metadata : calames plus & other tracks

Uniting heritage digitization and EAD metadata : “Calames Plus”

solutions and other tracks

LIBER Annual ConferenceTartu, Thu. 28 June 2012

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ABES & the French context (1)• ABES = Bibliographic Agency for French Higher Education

– created in 1994 to implement Sudoc (the union catalogue of French higher education libraries, opened in 2001 : www.sudoc.abes.fr)

– a public organ of the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, located in Montpellier

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ABES & the French context (2)• During the last 10 years, diversification of activities range,

development of new applications and devices for scientific data management : – Catalogue of archives and manuscripts (2008, www.calames.abes.fr)– Hub for authority records (2010, www.idref.fr)– French theses portal (2011, www.theses.fr), etc.

• New management plan for 2012-2015 :– Mutualized Library Management Software– National licences (native digital resources)– A “heritage” constituent in the plan

• BUT no national nor official mission regarding digitization …3

Written Heritage in France• Several catalogues (MARC/EAD and institutional boundaries)

CCFR (MARC metadata) : French libraries’ meta search interface, in particular for printed heritage

≠ CCFR-Manuscrits (EAD metadata) : gathers BnF Archives & Manuscrits, municipal libraries inventories… and soon Calames records.

• Several digitization initiatives : especially towards medieval and/or illuminated manuscripts, but a long-lasting lack of projects regarding non-books heritage

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A database for academic libraries’ heritage: Calames

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• Originally developed for hosting and modifying EAD conversions of manuscripts records published in national directories

• More and more directed towards archival inventories (manuscripts and non-manuscript materials)

• Main purpose : to improve descriptions, and not to give direct access (to surrogates or transcriptions)

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Calames’ public and professional interfaces1° An XML editor (XMetal) plugin with ABES developments,

for creating and modifying online XML-EAD inventories …

2° … a public catalogue fed with full XML data as soon as librarians wish to publish it

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International Library ofContemporary History

and Documentation Jacques Doucet Literature Library

Institut de France (French National Academies)

Sainte-Geneviève Inter-Academic

Library

Calames’ customized servicesfor heritage-centric institutions

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The digitization file : ABES’s « missing link » (1)

• NUMES : a public and professional database of digitization projects and digitized collections

– using Michael Europe standards

– a few tens of records, basically for administrative or internal uses

– unsatisfactory : we all need to know precisely which item is (or is going to be) digitized, better than collections or sets of documents

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The digitization file : ABES’s « missing link » (2)

Other liabilities :• Abandonment of a French Manuscripts Portal project• Prevalence of Gallica as meta-interface in the French

digitization landscape• Ticer « Environmental scan » for ABES strategic plan

(2011) : digitization is a major area of intervention for similar organizations

So how can we turn our catalogues towards digitized resources ? Does ABES have a “niche” ?

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A range of solutions for union catalogues (1)Three kinds of solutions to take over the digitization file within ABES’ catalogues:

• Classical linking solutions through metadata : -Textual mentions (one single link to another web page, or more) inside a public record -Textual mentions strengthened with one or more clickable images next to a public record -Other digital pictures (not reproductions) directly inserted into a public record

• API solutions : (javascript) code for equations between catalogue data and a targeted digital library in which cases do we inscribe links in metadata, and when don’t we? Ex. Liber Floridus in Calames, or Google Books API in Sudoc

• ABES digital repository with a specific viewer for Calames catalogue : Calames Plus solution (not a complete digital library)

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Specific metadatafor hypertext & customizable links dedicated to digization in Calames public interface.

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A more visual and practical kind of linking : clickable images next to a record…(or inside, in some specific cases)

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• Classical linking solutions through metadata (sometimes with standard adjustment or interpretations needed) : -Textual mentions (one single link to another web page, or more) inside a public record -Textual mentions strengthened with one or more clickable images next to a public record -Other digital pictures (not reproductions) directly inserted into a public record

• API solutions : (javascript) code for equations between catalogue data and a targeted digital library

Ex. : Liber Floridus in Calames, or Google Books API in Sudoc in which cases do we inscribe links in metadata, and when don’t we?


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ISBN matching =clickable cover(link to Google Books)

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Links and title of this clickable image are defined inside EAD metadata (<daogrp><daoloc> tags)…

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…but here, there are no information in the library’s inventory : a javascript code compare library names and shelfmarks in Calames and Liber Floridus

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• Classical linking solutions through metadata (sometimes with standard adjustment or interpretations needed) : -Textual mentions (one single link to another web page, or more) inside a public record -Textual mentions strengthened with one or more clickable images next to a public record -Other digital pictures (not reproductions) directly inserted into a public record

• API solutions : (javascript) code for equations between catalogue data and a targeted digital library in which cases do we inscribe links in metadata, and when don’t we? Ex. Liber Floridus in Calames, or Google Books API in Sudoc


Mailing librarians

A thread of comments

Example of a Calames account

Profile

For librariansonly (images)

Comments

« Calames Plus » : commenting records…

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« Calames Plus » : loading images on

ABES’ serversSimply by zipping a file containing the library’s identification number, and the shelfmark numbers of the targeted documents

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« Calames Plus » : viewing images

loaded by librarians

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As a conclusion…• A step-by-step strategy :

– first dealing with a description puzzle by tackling with iconographic collections

– then reforming union catalogues by enhancing an easy-to-use and flexible repository for different kinds of digital surrogates (and other types of complementary documents later on)

• To join databases for bibliographic or archival metadata, and repositories for digital surrogates, is for a mutualistic organization like ABES a matter of pragmatism.

Any question ?