[SOA] Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group: Keynote speaker and program announced

[Carleton, Janet]

Lots of interesting sessions, and not too far away to Muncie Indiana. 

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Registration for the sixth annual Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group begins Monday August 15th. 

Registrations received by September 23, 2011 will receive a special early bird rate. (Flying into Indianapolis? A shuttle service is available from the airport to Muncie. )

Rachel Howard, of the University of Louisville Libraries, has been confirmed as our keynote speaker - and CONTENTdm Product Manager, Phyllis Kaiden, will be on hand to present the CONTENTdm update session.

Register today via the Meeting Website: http://www.bsu.edu/libraries/mwcdmug2011.

Now in its sixth year, the Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group welcomes all CONTENTdm users.

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Preliminary Program
DAY 1-Friday
8:30 - 9:00 	Registration
9:00 - 9:15 	Welcome
9:15 - 10:30 	KEYNOTE ADDRESS - Rachael Howard - (University of Louisville)
	Rachel Howard has been Digital Initiatives Librarian at the University of Louisville since 2006, where she has presided over the creation of 27 CONTENTdm collections featuring digitized and born-digital images, maps, oral histories, manuscripts, yearbooks, and electronic theses and dissertations.
10:30 - 10:45 	Break
10:45 - 12:00 	CONTENTdm Update / Q & A - Phylis Kaiden - (OCLC)
12:00 - 1:00 	Lunch

1:00 - 2:00 	Breakout Session #1

Keeping Track of Objects and Metadata at UNLV: From Material Selection through Metadata Quality Control
    Silvia Southwick & Jane Skoric (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
    Often times a large amount of time is spent in organizing materials and tracking workflow in digital collection projects. Time is a precious resource in most projects since they are constrained by a rigid schedule. This problem is exacerbated in collaborative environments where different people collaborate in various stages of the project. Silvia Southwick and Jane Skoric with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas will present effective and efficient simple tools to manage digital objects and metadata throughout the life cycle of a digital collection project. Using actual work processes, we will describe and demonstrate the tracking of physical and digital items while simultaneously capturing metadata. Our presentation will begin talking about provisional metadata provided by content experts as they select materials for the collection. It progresses through various stages of the project up to quality control of metadata records within a soon to be published collection. Some of the existing tools are based on Access database and Excel spreadsheets. The presentation ends with plans for improving management processes to better integrate with collaborative environments.

Out of the cabinet and onto the web: creating a digital natural history collection may be easier than you think
    Janice Gustaferro (Butler University Libraries)
    Butler University's Friesner Herbarium Digital Collection is an example of using CONTENTdm to create a digital natural history collection containing thousands of plant specimens collected in Indiana from the 1870s through the present. Existing metadata, grant funding, and collaboration within and outside of the University all contribute to making this ongoing project manageable. This program will cover the work involved in the project as well as some comments on using CONTENTdm 6.0 and OCLC's hosting service.

Integrating CONTENTdm with LibGuides and Wikis: A Discussion of Student Projects, Internships, and Experiments with Web 2.0 Technologies to Extend the Reach of Berea College Archives materials within Berea Digital
    Jaime Marie Bradley (Berea College)
    The session will begin with a brief overview of the Berea Digital Project and Team, followed by the primary presentation which will focus on the College Archives' participation in the project, especially the implementation and experimentation with presenting and contextualizing content using Web 2.0 technologies. I will discuss early steps and pre-planning, decision-making, trial and error, analysis of results, student involvement and success, concluding with what we've learned and how we are moving forward. Question and answers may follow if time allows.

2:00 - 2:15 	Break

2:15 - 3:15 	Breakout Session #2

What Images Tell Us: Descriptive Metadata from Image Analysis
    Vicki Sipe (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
    "What Images Tell Us: Descriptive Metadata from Image Analysis" uses images from the CONTENTdm based Hughes Image Collection at UMBC to demonstrate techniques for revealing information contained in an image. Utilizing a multitude of examples and a variety of tools, this presentation takes you from finding the facts to creating the metadata. Among the images will be buildings, portraits, ships, and gizmos. Using subject analysis as a guide, topics covered will include: what to look for, how to look for it, tools for verification of information, and when to consider information to be fact. Tools used will range from the zoom feature in the CONTENTdm viewer to such ancillary tools as city directories and Google Street View. Come be a detective.

Hacking CONTENTdm 6 with Jquery
    Jim LeFager - (DePaul University Libraries)
    At DePaul University Libraries we have upgraded to the hosted CONTENTdm 6, platform and have used jquery to customize our site. Jquery is a crossbrowser javascript library that allows for scripting of HTML. CONTENTdm 6 includes Jquery natively in the hosted environment, and this allows for heavy customizations using functions already included in CONTENTdm. CONTENTdm also allows additional scripts to be uploaded, either to the entire CONTENTdm site or to individual collections pages and when combined with CSS files, this allows for customization of a CONTENTdm site to an extent not possible using the web configuration tool. These changes may be applied to the site as a whole, or to individual collections pages.
    This presentation will examine how jquery can be implemented in a CONTENTdm site using the DePaul University Libraries Digital Collections page as an example.
    Included will be examples and walkthroughs for the following methods:
        Tabbed Navigation
        Animated Slideshows
        Removal and rewriting of CONTENTdm navigation to included dropdown Mega Menus
        Accordion boxes

Shine a Light on Your Digital Special Collections
    Ron Gardner (OCLC)
    This presentation helps you increase use of your organization's digital special collections. Managing and providing web access to special collections are key elements to increasing visibility and use of your valuable treasures. You'll learn how CONTENTdm organizations are reinventing how they provide web-based access to special digital collections. There is a check list of what you need to do to "shine a light" on your organization's digital special collections.

3:15 - 3:30 	Break

3:30 - 4:45 	Panel Discussion
Large Text Projects with CONTENTdm - Part One: Yearbooks Panelists
    Ann Olszewski (Cleveland Public Library)
    Shannon Mawhiney (Missouri State University)
    Janet Carleton (Ohio University)
    Susan K. Henthorn (Berea College)
    Blake Stiener (Ball State University)
Digitizing Yearbooks present many challenges, including providing accurate retrieval of personal names, accommodating different page orientations, two-page spreads, and artistic fonts. They are well worth the effort because of high interest to a large population of alumni and family. They are also wonderful primary source for cultural and educational history revealing changing fashions and hairstyles, sports, and popular activities. The panelists will describe and compare methodologies used for college and high school yearbooks digitization projects.

4:45 - 5:00 	General Q & A / Wrap up / Adjournment.

DAY 2-Saturday
8:30 - 9:00 	Registration
9:00 - 9:15 	Welcome
9:15 - 10:15 	Breakout Session #3

Voices of Extremism: Conflicting Ideologies in the United States Politics in the Decades Following WWII
    Patrice-Andre Prud'homme (Illinois State University)
    Examines a project in the making of an unique collection of audio recordings from individuals that characterized the Far Right and the Far Left movements in the United States politics from 1946 to 1980. The original audio documentation represents the work of Gordon D. Hall (1921-2001), a prominent leading expert on Twentieth-Century American political extremism. The recordings comprise speeches from political rallies, lectures, and interviews for the most part. Emeritus Professor Walter Mead at Illinois State University obtained the reel-to-reel magnetic tapes while conducting research and teaching seminars on American Political Extremism. He then donated this invaluable resource to Milner Library.
    A digitization workflow management was established to digitally preserve those analogs to new carrier and formats and to disseminate their content via CONTENTdm/dmBridge. The digitization process required a series of steps to reformat and annotate the captured files in respect to audio digitization guidelines as well as to enhance and assure quality control of audio files within a configured storage local solution. Files include at least two segmented digital audio files per record (*.wav and *.mp3), one non-synchronized transcript (speech) per segment, and biographical documentation.
    One crucial stage of the process is rights permission. Audio recordings have been categorized by copyright status and source. Rights permission is also sought to enhance the visual presentation of those objects with thumbnails. The presentation is based on CONTENTdm 5.3 with a customized extension in dmBridge to treat all categories of files. Maintenance of files has been addressed and still remains an important consideration for long term access.

Video Encoding and Delivery Options for CONTENTdm
    Alexander Lemann (Ball State University)
    We are investigating a range of solutions for taking videos from an archive vault to users' screens through CONTENTdm. Our focus is on the stages after initial digitization starting with encoding and ending with delivery to end users. The Ball State University Libraries has considered a number of solutions for video encoding including MediaSite from SonicFoundry and IIS Media Services as well as open source solutions including mencoder and ffmpeg. We have also considered various video players and delivery systems including WMA streaming through MediaSite, Microsoft Silverlight, and open source software using Adobe Flash and HTML5 video players. In this session we will share the benefits and pitfalls of the solutions we have tested and give demonstrations of how video can be delivered through CONTENTdm.

Ad-Hoc Workflow Design: A Survival Guide
    Jim Cunningham (Illinois State University)
    In the financially-strapped reality of the 21st century, libraries are often delegating digital project creation and management to existing personnel in existing operational units who then must learn the digitization trade with little training in a short period of time. Workflow design and execution by inexperienced personnel can be challenging, particularly for large collections dealing with complex subject matter.
    This presentation will discuss issues and solutions for ad-hoc workflow design for personnel with minimal expertise and minimal time. Examples will be used throughout, along with some lessons learned through experience about what will and will not work. Issues with fine tuning and revising digital projects will also be examined.

10:15 - 10:30 	Break

10:30 - 11:45 	Panel Discussion

Large Text Projects with CONTENTdm - Part Two: Newspapers & Playbills
    Panelists
        Ann Olszewski (Cleveland Public Library)
        Rachel Shaevel (Chicago Public Library)
        Linda Dasuch (Chicago Public Library)
        Phil Sager (Ohio Historical Society)
        Shannon Mawhiney (Missouri State University)
    More case studies of complex text projects, panelists will share challenges and experiences converting large collections with CONTENTdm.

11:45 - 12:00 	Wrap up and Adjournment.

______________________________
OHIO UNIVERSITY
Libraries
 
Janet Carleton
Digital Initiatives Coordinator 

Alden 322
Ohio University
Athens OH 45701-2979
740.597.2527
carleton at ohio.edu
http://media.library.ohiou.edu 

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