1. Moving Beyond CaptureThe IT Perspective Roy Tennant The California Digital Libraryescholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentations/2005sfs/

2. Having the Right Gear • Making the Right Decisions • Luck!

3. Outline • The Importance of Metadata • Platforms • Databases: Pick Your Poison • A Brief Demonstration • Your New Best Friend • I Know This Much Is True

4. The Importance of Metadata • Metadata: structured information about an object or collection of objects • No matter what access system you use, having the right metadata is essential • The services you want to offer will define the metadata you must capture • The storage format is not that important as long as you lose nothing and you can output it in all the ways you wish to support • Capturing it at the correct granularity is key

5. Metadata Granularity • The degree to which you segment or “chop up” your metadata • Gross: <name>John Doe</name> • Fine: <name> <given>John</given> <family>Doe</family></name>

6. Item v. Collection Metadata • Collection-level metadata: • Discovery metadata describes the collection • Example: Kentuckiana Digital Library; see www.kyvl.org/kentuckiana/digilibcoll/digilibcoll.shtml • Item-level metadata: • Discovery metadata describes the item • Example: MARC or Dublin Core records for each item; see californiadigitallibrary.org • Both types may be appropriate • Doing both often takes very little extra effort

7. dgilib.kyvl.org

8. californiadigitallibrary.org

9. Platforms Data Application Software Operating System Hardware

10. Platforms Data Application Software SystemAdministratoror Service Provider Operating System Hardware

11. Platforms Data Databasesoftware Application Software Operating System Hardware

12. Databases: Pick Your Poison • Virtually any database or indexing product will in most cases work • Key considerations: • What do you already have (in-house or via a service provider)? • Which platform are you on? • Which product will your IT staff or service provider be willing to support? • What do you want your users to be able to do? • How much money do you have to spend?

13. Databases: Examples • Targeted to the market and purpose; e.g., CONTENTdm from OCLC • General purpose commercial; e.g., Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server • General purpose open source; e.g., MySQL, SWISH-E • Shrink-wrapped consumer; e.g., MS Access, Filemaker Pro

14. Database & Indexing Sofware • Sample Indexing Systems/Databases: • Sprite (Perl module) • Microsoft Access, Filemaker Pro • SWISH-E, swish-e.org • MySQL, mysql.com • ContentDM, OCLC • Oracle or Sybase Access/Filemaker Oracle, Sybase MySQL/ContentDM SWISH-E Sprite Less More The power & complexity continuum

15. Two Brief Demonstrations… • SWISH-E Components: • A web server (Apache) and Perl • Free SWISH-E indexing software • An edited version of the included Perl script • Hand-created XML files (let’s do one!) • FileMaker Pro Components: • FileMaker Pro • Web Access Plug-in enabled

16. Your New Best Friend • Your System Administrator/Service Provider will be very important to you • Definition: The one person or organization upon whom the success of your project rests (i.e., God); and, the one person or organization who can most easily damage your project (i.e., the Devil) • Foster good relations • Communicate your needs clearly, and listen well

17. I Know This Much is True • Never forget for whom you are doing this! • Neither an early adopter nor latecomer be • Never underestimate the power of a prototype • Back it up or kiss it goodbye • Computers are cheap, people are expensive • Storage is cheaper than dirt • Buy hardware at the last possible moment

18. I Know This Much is True • Don’t buy software with a zero at the end of the release number • Like love and money, you can never have too much RAM, disk space, or CPU speed • All things being equal, open is better than proprietary • Know your source of support going in

19. I Know This Much is True • For any given project, there are many waysit can succeed • Just focus on (you guessed it): 1) having the right gear, and 2) making the right decisions ( and coming here was a great start)

20. Final Advice • Start and end with your users and the services you wish to provide • Digitize at the highest quality that you can, and save an unprocessed copy • Capture as much metadata as you can stand and store it in a highly granular fashion • Have fun!