Primary sources’ journeyfrom archive to web:

superstars and hidden gems.SAA 2008

August 28, 2008

Lena Zentall, Digital Special Collections

California Digital Librarylena.zentall@ucop.edu

Final resting place? Hardly.The journey is just getting started for these primary sources.

CDL is increasing visibility ofprimary sources

• We are actively targeting primary sources tospecific audiences (opportunistically)

• Approach: Cast a line (i.e., a URL Iink) out to usersand reel them back to the sources.

• CDL’s Executive Director, Laine Farleyencourages “getting in the flow of users”:reaching out to users - where they are - on theweb (google, wikipedia, etc.) to provide digitallibrary services users may not otherwise knowexist.

Let’s start the journey at thebeginning…

In the beginning was the box.And into the box went stuff.And it was called a collection.

Collection.

How do you discover what’sin a collection?

Trying to make sense of it all,Archivists arranged and describedthe kinds of stuff in the boxes andcreated lists they called “finding aids”.Being “discovered” is now possible forthe collection as a whole. But individualitems are still mostly anonymous.

Finding aid.

Here’s what’s inthe collection

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

?

How do you share this stuff?

It goes digital.

Pick mePick mePick me

Looking for a way to get the wordout, archivists made digitalcopies of the finding aids andoften selected a few “stars” fromthe collections to share with theworld and to represent the restof the stuff in the boxes.

What happens to the digitalstuff?

Finding aids and digital objects often getcontributed to more than one place.

Some institutions don’t provide access totheir materials online and send their stuffto aggregators.

It gets dispersed.

Finding aid

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

OAC websitewelcome finding aids!(and primary sources)

Calisphere websitewelcome primary sources!(we’ll visit the finding aid later if we need it.)

stuff that got digitized

Finding aid

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

+

“Chinese in California” hashomes in several places

Calisphere

OAC

Library of CongressAmerican Memory

How does CDL provide accessto archival collections?

Researchers want all the content in one place.(finding aid and digital stuff)Teachers want a few good things. (The layout ofthe Calisphere page puts the emphasis on theimage -- and includes only bare essentialmetadata with a link to more information.)

OAC is where you go forfinding aids and primarysources(archivists, historians, researchers)

Two audiences. Two sites.

Calisphere is where yougo for digitized primarysources(K-12 teachers, lifelong learners, undergraduates)

What kind of life does CDLoffer these digital objects?

A lot of hard work went intogetting them here.

So, what kind of treatmentcan they expect in theirnew digs?

Calisphere themed collections turnssome into “superstars”.

This is the first level of pulling theobjects out of their collections andout of the finding aids andrearranging them in a newcontext to fit the target audience:teachers.Calisphere themed collections:

•Hand-picked images•Grouped into smallcollections by theme•Contextual essays

Why did we do this? Teachers toldus they wanted small collectionsof a few good images. They don’thave time to search.

A link from the object’sdetail page in Calisphereleads back to the findingaid in OAC for moreinformation about thatcollection.

How about the unknowns?

“Untitled. Unknown.” primary sources are a dime adozen. Without good metadata, they are “hiddengems” lingering with their finding aid hoping tobe discovered. Poor things.

Let’s see if we can find some….

“hidden gems” in OAC

“hidden gems” in CalisphereA user is unlikely to searchfor “untitled” (shown here).Without descriptivemetadata, these “hiddengems” can be hard to findoutside of their finding aid.

CDL is helping the unknowns.

Pulling information from the finding aid, we add itto the object-level metadata to increase thechances of these “hidden gems” being discovered-- there’s hope.

Plus, we add this information for every object• Collection name (with a link to the finding aid)• Contributing institution (with link to institution)

What are CDL’s strategies toincrease visibility of primary

sources?

1. Releasing content to the web:low effort. (after initial setup)very high return on investment.

•Over 40% of Calisphere visitors come fromGoogle and Google images•Challenge: objects may lose their richcontext as they move further from theirorigins (from original owner to archive to theweb)

What am I doing here --next to a parrot?

Search engines.

Reel users back from Google toCalisphere.

Where aprimarysource getstreated like a“superstar”.

2. Aligning with other aggregators:low-med effort.medium-high return on investment.

•60 Calisphere themed collections werecataloged by 3 educational databases (aimedat California teachers)•Also in Aquifer, Oaister•Bonus: CDL can reuse any additionalmetadata added by aggregators to improveour Calisphere website (e.g., browse bysubject, curriculum standard, reading level).

Calisphere: Murder and Mayhem

CLRN: Murder and Mayhem(CA Dept of Education)

edZone: Murder and Mayhem(CA Dept of Education)

OER: Murder and Mayhem

3. Cherry-picking the best items:high effort.promising returns (can be morework to measure)

Wikipedia.

+ Puts objects in a highly relevant context (where user traffic is high)+ Wikipedia draws 6x more traffic than the next most populareducational site- Convoluted and opaque process; must follow existing conventions- Lifespan of your “edits” (added links) is uncertain

Maybe your digital stuff isalready in Wikipedia?

• We added 33 links• We found 53 links made by others (including

image uploads!)…a glimpse into what interestspeople

Next step…Blogs.

• NOW we’re in other people’s blogs• SOON we will start our own blog for Calisphere to

tell the story behind the pictures.

During evacuation, JapaneseAmericans in the West wereforced by government decreeto leave their homes,businesses, jobs, school, andfriends. The WRAphotographs taken during theevacuation process showpeople waiting to betransported to theinternment camps. Theparents, grandparents, andchildren went as familygroups.

Blog entry about Calisphere

from “ChineseIn California”collection

Reeling users back to the sourcefor more info.

A final stop on the journey…

an inspirational blog thatelevates primary sources tonew heights…

http://mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.blogspot.com

2 categorized as “perfect specimens”

This is the kind of fame primary sources dream about.….We’ve come to the end of the journey.