Announcing the

Eastern CONTENTdm Users Group
1st Annual Meeting

Dates: July 24-July 25, 2008
(half-day of pre-conference training on July 23)

Host: The Pennsylvania State University Libraries, State College, Pennsylvania

Location: The Nittany Lion Inn

Wednesday, July 23^rd

Pre-Conference
1:30-5:00pm
Map for Pre-Conference Sessions (PDF)
Two programs to choose from:

User Interface Customization

Speaker: Terry Reese (Oregon State University)

Advanced Level - Maximum 30 Participants

Looking at the CONTENTdm API
CDM File Structure
Files that can change
Files that can be gotten rid of
Specific Examples
Building Facets
RSS Tools
OpenSearch Integration
EAD Processing

CONTENTdm At Work: Importing Text and Building a Custom Query

Speaker: Geri Ingram (OCLC Digital Collection Services)

Intermediate Level - Maximum 12 Participants

The hands-on class will cover handling textual materials such as yearbooks, newsletters, and scholarly papers. The class will build both compound objects and simple objects, and will explore the best uses for the ‘converted’ .pdf format. Participants will import digitized materials as well as ‘born digital’ documents and will also learn to build a custom query.

Thursday, July 24^th

8:00-9:00am

Registration and Breakfast

9:00-10:30am

Planning/Workflow

Digital Project Planning and Workflow from Concept to Delivery: Linda Klimczyk (Penn State); This session will cover the Digital Project Planning model developed at Penn State University Libraries. This model was developed in response to questions raised repeatedly in digital projects to help content experts move through the digitization process effortlessly. Topics include organizational structure/dynamics; approval process; planning process, operational process; coordination of handoffs; communication with stakeholders, etc. The presenters will share workflow diagrams, checklists and other useful tools.
Under One Roof: A Model for Conducting Digitization Projects In-House: James Gerencser (Dickinson College); Flowing from the need to create a process to complete an LSTA Grant received by the Archives and Special Collections Department in 2002 to digitize 22,000 pages, the project team acquired CONTENTdm and developed a workflow process that allowed the entire project to be completed on time and on budget without having to outsource any services and without having to sacrifice any quality. One key component of this process is the reliance on undergraduate employees. This in-house workflow model has since been employed for several additional digitization projects.

10:30-11:00 am

Break

11:00am -12:30pm

Compound Objects
Customization
Using CONTENTdm in other places

What can I do with compound objects?: Kevin Clair (Penn State) and Larry Wentzel (Penn State); Compound objects, by default, are an excellent way to group together pages from a book, sides to a postcard, slide, or photograph, or view an object from different vantage points. Any multipage or multisided object(s) can be recreated in CONTENTdm, whether that object is a postcard with handwriting on the verso, a long letter written on several pages of stationery, or a hardcover book with an introduction, table of contents, chapters, appendix, and bibliography. But you can do more than that. Compound objects are also a good way to preserve archival order and frame collections within CONTENTdm.; In this presentation, we will present collections from Penn State's Archives and Special Collections department which have been digitized and presented online. We have used the compound object model as a framing mechanism to preserve their structure as encoded into their finding aid, as well as a means of framing various thematic aspects of collections and directing visitors to those aspects which interest them.
Beyond Query Builder: Karen Schwentner (Penn State); Include CONTENTdm queries in any web page through inclusion in your HTML code. Presenters will demonstrate the basics using CONTENTdm query builder plus advanced techniques to further customize queries using more complex HTML form code plus CONTENTdm variables.
Discovering CONTENTdm Materials from Cross Collection Search Interfaces: Michael Friscia (Yale) and Ernest Marinko (Yale); As part of a grant project and general initiative at the Yale University Library, a web interface has been created that will allow users to search across many of Yale’s diverse digital online collections. The cross collection search is not intended to replace the ability to search individual collections. Instead it was built to act as a discovery tool to be able to search across many collections and then link to objects in their native search interfaces, like CONTENTdm.; The purpose of the discussion is to demonstrate the ability to search across collections displaying material extracted from CONTENTdm mixed with material from other sources, explain the basic architecture of the cross collection search, and explain how the tool was built as well as demonstrate how it is used. Access to the source code for the tool will also be provided for anyone interested in using or improving its capabilities.

12:30-1:30

Lunch

1:30-3:00pm

Customization

Not by Default: Completely Custom CONTENTdm Projects: Robert Weidman (Lehigh University); Lehigh University's Digital Library has integrated CONTENTdm into a number of its projects. Using the API, Lehigh has created custom interfaces for each project, rather than rely on the default pages. This has allowed CONTENTdm components to integrate seamlessly with the larger context of each project. The Vault at Pfaff’s employs CONTENTdm to display newspaper articles within a much larger, MYSQL-driven bibliographic and biographical database. Villainy Detected and Beyond Steel incorporate essays from local scholars to help organize and contextualize the digitized materials presented with CONTENTdm. Recently, the addition of a GIS component to Beyond Steel enhanced this project further with dynamic maps and data. This presentation will discuss the different approaches taken with these customizations to fit the needs and goals of the individual projects. The talk will also describe specific methods utilized in many of the projects, including customized search and display interfaces.
Interacting With CONTENTdm Metadata/Collections Using 3rd Party Software Tools Like MarcEdit: Terry Reese (Oregon State University); As collections continue to be placed into CONTENTdm, the need for collection administrators to be able to work directly with the metadata continues to become more important. While CONTENTdm and OCLC continue to provide suites of software to provide various functionality -- a need continues to exist for third party software that can help fill in functionality gaps with the officially released software. This presentation will look specifically at two particular cases of metadata interaction: record generation from CONTENTdm data (i.e., automatic MARC record generation) and batch metadata edits using a proof of concept plug-in written for MarcEdit. In both cases, we will look at how users can utilize 3rd party software applications (in this case, MarcEdit) to interact with CONTENTdm collections to facilitate metadata reuse and data editing.

3:00-3:30

Break

3:30-5:00pm

Product Update and Discussion: Claire Cocco (OCLC); Claire will present on the latest developments of CONTENTdm.

5:00

Reception and Mentor/Mentee Meetings.: Dinner to follow on your own

Friday, July 25^th

8:00-8:30am

Breakfast

9:00-10:30am

Metadata

Metadata and Controlled Vocabulary Using Dublin Core and/or VRA: Lynne Graziadei (Nylink); Well-considered, well structured metadata adds value and is crucial to providing access to your digital collection. Explore the structure and uses of Dublin Core and VRA. Topics covered include: brief history, elements, guidelines, best practices, crosswalks and practical applications in CONTENTdm Collections.

10:30-11:00

Break

11:00-12:30

Institutional Repositories

U-SKIS: Extending the Power of CONTENTdm for Institutional Repositories: Anne Morrow and Allyson Moyer (University of Utah); The University Scholarly Knowledge Inventory System (U-SKIS)is an open source extension to CONTENTdm that provides an integrated workflow for institutional repositories. U-SKIS was developed at the University of Utah and uploaded to Sourceforge in Feb. 2008.

12:30-1:30

Lunch on your own

1:30-2:30

Choose one: