Historic Postcards of Virginia (A Digital Collection)

As a group project for a course I took this summer at CUA (Foundations of Digital Libraries), I worked with three other library science students on seeing the development of a digital collection--from beginning to end--using OCLC's CONTENTdm. The end result was a digital collection titled, "Historic Postcards of Virginia," which can be found here. Before discussing the project and the site, a little history first, yes?

For starters, this was not my first project using CONTENTdm. I worked with CONTENTdm back when I was at the New Hanover County Public Library. (For examples of projects, see http://cdm16072.contentdm.oclc.org/) Before the library upgraded to CONTENTdm, I briefly worked with Laserfiche, so I was aware of the basic structure and ingredients. However, it was my first "structured" project in that we adhered to principles laid out through a tried and true workflow plan. Not that we didn't have one before--but by virtue of not being in graduate school, I didn't have a textbook to refer to, so it all seemed very new. Going through the gauntlet of scholarship and weekly readings improved my understanding of the process, but all of the literature would have been abstract and theoretical if I did not have any prior experience to make connections.

 Through the semester, which ran from June to August, our class covered the steps taken in identifying and planning a digital collection through to seeing its design and development. The first half of the course focused primarily on scholarship, readings, essays, and putting together proposals and papers, but the second half, which began in early July, was when we finally broke down into teams of four and proceeded to piece together our digital collections.

Our group worked with the Arlington Public Library's Center for Local History (formerly the Virginia Room) and, after being granted access to 80 postcards from two collections, proceeded to scan the postcards, create the corresponding metadata, and upload both to CONTENTdm. We then sought out participants to test the usability of the website and provide the team with feedback. Their feedback proved helpful, and a more polished version of the website was developed. We then ended the project and semester with a presentation of our findings. After which, as per an agreement with the Center for Local History, we gave them both the scanned images and metadata so they could be uploaded to their content management system, ContentPro.

Screenshot from Center for Local History (Courtesy Arlington Public Library)

Screenshot of "Historic Postcards of Virginia" (Courtesy Catholic University of America)

So what was learned from this project?

1) The use of JPEGs as compound objects may trump PDFs in CONTENTdm. This is particularly true for loading time and the zoom-in features.

2) Visuals aside, the strength of a digital collection depends largely on the content and organization of the metadata. While not a new idea, upon viewing the user assessment, it's good to keep in mind. When developing metadata in previous collections at the New Hanover County Public Library, my supervisor taught me to research the history of the publishers, photographers, businesses,  and buildings. In doing so, I made use of newspaper clippings from the 19th and 20th centuries, city directories, family files, maps, and other resources available in the North Carolina Room. I immersed myself in the history of what was on the postcards to know exactly what it was I was describing. We did not have such a luxury for this project.

3) CONTENTdm's Project Client proves very helpful for larger projects and developing compound objects.

All the issues we encountered could easily have been addressed with more time. Because this was a class project, time was not a luxury. In a normal semester, it may have been difficult, but going from organizing a group and negotiating with an organization to access their materials to producing a finished product (after conducting user tests) in a month while working full-time jobs leaves little room for error. 

Granted, I am very pleased with the final product and was impressed with the input, ethic, dedication, and quality of the work produced by my teammates. At the same time, I might be a bit of a malcontent. If you give me a Snickers bar, I will be happy--until I see someone would a banana split. 

"You mean that was possible?"

When we made our final presentation, the sticking point for me was the images. It's a learning process, and given more time, I would have liked to have polished off those photographs (using filtered JPEGs for faster loading) and delved more into historical research to provide better/more detailed metadata. For a month of work, it was still very impressive, and much of the credit goes to the team.