In an ongoing series of blog posts at Futures of Learning, MacArthur grantee Anne Balsamo and colleagues explore how museums and libraries are cultivating “technological imagination.”

Some may know that I’ve been working on a project to develop a Web site to provide digital access to the classic writings in the history of protestant mission thought.

http://digilib.bu.edu/mission/

The project began several years ago, originally conceived as a class-oriented resource for courses in the study of the history of Christian mission. The original site included a blog and discussion forum as well as online chat for students in the class. Enough interest was generated beyond Boston University in the project that we decided to create a public version that included the biographical information as well as E-books in the collection. This week the public site makes its debut at the 2008 Costas Consultation in Global Mission. I’ll be presenting in a workshop entitled: “Technology and a Guide to Global Christianity.”

Some may be interested in a few of the technological issues. The Web site uses open source software:

• BU Linux (operating system)
• Apache (Web server)
• MySQL (database)
• Joomla 1.5(content management system)
• WordPress 2.3.3 (blog)
• Scriblio (Scriblio is a WordPress-based OPAC and CMS, which merges the concepts of “blog entry” and “catalog record”.)

We also use DSpace and Greenstone as repositories for digital content, though the Web site doesn’t actively use them.

The creation of metadata for the E-books hasn’t kept pace with the development of the Web site. In coming weeks, additional books will be added including books by and about most of the missionaries for whom biographies are available. Additional missionary biographies will be added as graduate student assistants are able.

With the completion of the redesign of the public version of the Web site, effort will turn to upgrading the design of the version designed for class use.

The Digital Commonwealth launched its new portal today at its Second Annual Meeting. It’s a really nice design that allows one to search all of the digital repositories in Massachusetts.

The Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a portal to the rich cultural heritage held in museums, historical societies, colleges, libraries and other cultural repositories in Massachusetts. From this site you can search or browse the digital collections of member institutions throughout the state for manuscripts, images, historical documents, and sound recordings, providing you with enhanced access and retrieval of information.

Mary Minow’s presentation on copyright at the Second Annual Meeting of the Digital Commonwealth was as good as I’ve heard on copyright for libraries. I found particularly helpful her discussion of Section 108. I left much more encouraged about the possibility of digitizing materials that don’t clearly fall in the public domain. If you haven’t checked out http://www.librarylaw.com/, you will find it to be an expansive and very helpful resource for libraries sorting through legal issues.

After a longer time than I anticipated, my project is nearing completion and I’m beginning to post more actively here. The project on which I’ve been working is a collaborative project with the Center for Global Christianity and Mission and Professor Dana Robert. We’ve been creating a repository of biographical information and digitized books to support the study of the History of Christian Missions. This is particularly focused on the class she is teaching this semester (thus the pressure to complete it), but we hope it will have much broader value.

The Web site is up and in production. In the next few days, we will be loading additional books (currently the collection contains 163) as well as additional biographical material for the missionaries. The class can interact with the materials through a blog and through comments.

For those interested in the technical components, This site is created with a content management system called Joomla. We have used that as a wrapper for a digital repository of the e-books created with the Greenstone Digital Library software developed by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. The digitized books have been cataloged, with records added to OCLC and loaded into the Boston University Libraries OPAC.

The digital objects have been loaded both into our DSpace repository and the Greenstone repository. The Library is continues to evaluate both digital repositories. Digital objects and metadata can be easily transferred from one to the other. We like the user interface of the Greenstone repository for the end user, but like many of the features of DSpace as well.

Chris Spalding, our Digital Collections Librarian, has played a major role in developing the Web site. We’ll continue to report on its use and appreciate constructive feedback about the project.

Google, the Khmer Rouge and the Public Good

Address to the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers

An interesting summary and rationale for the decision to participate in the Google Book Search project.

Adding University of California would be a significant addition….

University of California May Join Google’s Library Project – Los Angeles Times
In a move with major significance for the worlds of academic research and publishing, the University of California is in talks to join Google’s controversial project to digitize great libraries and offer books online.

Google is keen to have access to UC’s 34 million volumes from 100 libraries on 10 campuses, which is described as collectively the largest academic research library in the world. UC wants to delve more deeply into the Internet revolution with a deep-pockets partner like Google paying the costs of scanning books.

Even with the addition of the University of California collections, significant gaps will remain. Brian Lavoie, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, and Lorcan Dempsey did an analysis of the original “Google 5″ libraries published in D-Lib Magazine (September 2005). They compared the collective holdings of the Google 5 against the system-wide collection in OCLC:

The proportion of the system-wide collection actually covered by GDLP, once duplicate holdings across the five institutions are removed, is about one third (33 percent), or 10.5 million unique books out of the 32 million in the system-wide collection. About two-thirds (67 percent) of the system-wide collection, or 21.6 million books, are not held by any Google 5 library.

Decision Tree for Selection of Digital Materials for Long-term Retention

The Digital Preservation Coalition has developed an interactive decision tree for making preservation decisions for digital content.

Chris Rusbridge challenges some of the “truisms” of digital preservation in an easily readable and quite sensible article: “Excuse Me… Some Digital Preservation Fallacies?” (February 2006, Adriane, Issue 46)

1. Digital preservation is very expensive [because]
2. File formats become obsolete very rapidly [which means that]
3. Interventions must occur frequently, ensuring that continuing costs remain high.
4. Digital preservation repositories should have very long timescale aspirations,
5. ‘Internet-age’ expectations are such that the preserved object must be easily and instantly accessible in the format de jour, and
6. the preserved object must be faithful to the original in all respects.

Or, perhaps it should be the other way, Collection Development as cataloging. Regardless, I’ve been thinking about this for several months. I mentioned it a few weeks ago when I wrote about finding digital content. One of the strategic issues identified by the Library in the past few months has been to develop ways to fully integrate digital content into the overall workflow of the Library. That might sound easier than it is. The workflow for commercial content is different from content that is available via the various digitization projects taking place in academic and public libraries.

Traditional selection and acquisition processes are usually able to identify commercial content in digital formats. Identifying digital content available through non-commerical channels is more difficult. Some has been cataloged with marc records available through OCLC. Some are harvestable through OAI-PMH. Despite these, an effective comprehensive way to discover and “acquire” non-commerical digital content has eluded me if it exists.

I’ve mentioned in several contexts that I frequently blog while I’m watching the ball game. The Red Sox are playing the Twins as I write. I also catalog digital content during the games. I’ve been using OCLC’s Connexion Web client to identify existing records for digital content. Keyword searching on strategic terms limited by “Internet” and by date has enabled me to discover numerous records for content that fits the Library’s collection.

But I’ve also been working my way through a number of uncataloged collections. I have created a text file of constant data that I apply to the records I create. It’s been pretty easy to find good records in OCLC for print or microform versions. Deriving a record and updating it with the required fields to turn it into an “electronic resource” record has been pretty easy. But I’m more focused on collection development than on cataloging.

I don’t usually catalog the new commercial print books we acquire. This is certainly an adaptation of the workflow. There may be better ways to do this. But the thing that is consistent is the careful selection of items for the collection.

This is a little closer to the workflow we have for gift books. Titles are checked for duplication and to see if they match the scope of the collection. If they do, they are cataloged and added to the collection. I’ve been handling gift books recently and have found that it is easier to search on WorldCat using OCLC’s Connexion than to search using III Millennium. Since I have the record in a cataloging client anyway, I simply update holdings and export the record for those items we keep.

About a year ago I developed an unsuccessful grant proposal to digitize a portion of our collection, particularly the hymnals and the mission related materials. Part of the proposal was to develop or cooperate with an effort to create a central repository of digital content in the area of theology and religion.

I’m convinced this is a missing piece of the digitization efforts many have launched. I wonder, however, if it is an essential piece. I’ve been adding digital content when I find it. (It’s an interesting thing to do when watching the Red Sox.) I’ve been tempted to write an article about “collection development as cataloging” or perhaps, “cataloging as collection development.” I’ve been using OCLC’s connexion client to search for digital content using subject headings that seem appropriate to our collection. I’m confident I’m missing a lot, but I’m also adding quite a bit of digital content to the library’s online catalog.
Even as I do this, I continue to wonder if it is worth it, in the long run. Will the online catalog continue to be a primary source of information?