Notes from trip to UIUC scanning center

Notes from trip to UIUC scanning center - June 13, 2007

• Chris Freeland, MOBOT
• Jae Mauthe, IA
• Betsy Kruger, UIUC
• Candace Bulkey, UIUC
• Chris Jones, IA @ UIUC scanning center
• Trish, IA @ UIUC scanning center
• Martin Kalfatovic, SIL
• Keri Thompson, SIL
• Courtney Shaw, SIL

Summary
Martin, Courtney, and Keri (along with Chris Freeland of MOBOT) paid a visit to the UIUC to meet with J. Mauthe (Internet Archive) and Betsy Kruger (UIUC) and observe the physical and metadata workflow of an active IA TSP.
June 12, 2007
We arrived at the UIUC Oak Street facility (an edge of campus, purpose built structure for mass storage and digitizing activities). The BHL members first discussed with Candace Bulkey (UIUC) microfilm scanning. UIUC recently received a microfilm scanner from the IA under the condition that UIUC staff the machine. UIUC has been testing the machine and working with the IA on standards and data/metadata delivery. UIUC offered SIL the opportunity to send microfilm to the facility for scanning. Martin will follow up on this. The film needn't be BHL related and Lynne Altstatt had recently discussed some microfilm scanning project that she had in mind.
Next, we moved on to the actual Scribe scanning workflow. J. gave an overview of the Scribe machine and the way that it is being used at UIUC (which has two Scribes). BHL members also met to the staff hired by the IA to operate the Scribes (Chris Jones and Tricia, Chris is a recent GSLIS graduate and Tricia is a current student). J. and Chris walked us through the process of setting up a book in the Scribe, focusing, setting crop boxes for the page and page numbers, etc.
There was significant discussion about the use of the picklist and the packing list (the picklist is used to pull materials from the shelves by the contributing library; the packing list is sent with the selected book to the Scribe scanning station; in theory the pick and packing lists could be congruent but for various reasons – books not on the shelf, books rejected at time of pulling, etc. - in reality they will not be).
The packing list is used by the operator of the Scribe to fetch metadata from the library catalog for ingesting into the Internet Archive. Data transfer from the packing list to the Scribe is done either by cut/paste or rekeying of data. Betsy Kruger suggested a method that would allow for bulk ingestion of the packing list for batch metadata ingestion. Betsy will follow up on this had work with her programming staff to see how this can be done. There are a few side issues (items rejected by the scanner might have their metadata ingested into the IA), but all agreed is was something to be investigated. Once the packing has been used by the IA to fetch metadata, it is discarded. This led Chris Freeland to suggest other ways that the packing list can be reused (see discussion below).
J and Betsy discussed the pulling of books and how the printed out packing lists and any other special requirements are placed on book trucks in the scanning center. Even with two Scribes, the total number of volumes passing through the scanning center is not tremendous (2 double sided book trucks were in the room at the time).
Back at the hotel, Martin, Chris Freeland, and Keri continued the metadata discussion and how much data should be captured in the packing list and whether or not BHL members should impose on themselves a standard set of data to be captured in the packing list. Suzanne Pilsk was conferenced in for additional input into the idea. We drew up a list of 9-10 data elements that we feel would advance metadata capture and enhance the BHL portal with a significant decrease in overhead for the IA. Chris will document this discussion for vetting by the BHL Board and BHL members.

Data Storage Notes (Chris)

IA stores the bibid in <Call_number> in identifier_meta.xml. But, only if they use the bibid to pull title info at the time of scanning from the host library's system. If they do a generic title or author search, that info is stored in _metasource.xml and <Call_number> will be blank.

The folks at UIUC are nearing completion of scripts to troll IA and ingest metadata & files back into their local system. They are willing to demo & share when they're done. But, UIUC folks are also expecting that the automated processes will only get them so far, and that they will need cataloguers/library staff to add in more details after the ingest, or to match scanned items back to item records.

IA requires every library to send a Packing List (Excel spreadsheet) along with a cart full of books to be scanned that lists metadata about those books. IA says they have a required list of elements (bibid, itemid, barcode, title, volume, year), but in practice it's different for every library. The only info that's used from that sheet & actually committed to metadata in IA is bibid & volume/year.

The easiest way to get metadata into IA is to create a standardized BHL Packing List and work with IA to save all the metadata fields we submit in _meta.xml or another file. This way IA won't have to do extensive development to satisfy our needs.

DRAFT Packing List Elements 6/27/2007
1. Institution
2. Date Supplied

Then for each item:

3. BibID
4. ItemID
5. Barcode (if available)
6. Title
7. Call Number
8. Serial or Monograph
9. Enumeration e.g., Vol. 1 Issue 43 (if available)
10. Chronology e.g., Summer, 1902 (if available)


June 13, 2007
Martin, Keri and Courtney met with Melissa Cragen (GSLIS/UIUC) to do some follow up on the data curation specialization program that Melissa runs. We discussed the current status of the program (16 students enrolled); meeting schedule (phone conference this spring; UIUC meeting in the Fall at MOBOT possibly).
We also discussed the possibility of internships/practicums for the program students either specifically at the Smithsonian and/or in combination with other BHL members for more broad BHL-related topics. Melissa (and Bryan Heidorn of GSLIS/UIUC) are going to follow through on funding possibilities (NSF, IMLS) to supplement the NSF money they already have in hand to further support the internship/practicum.