This past week, we started depositing digitized books into our institutional repository instance for The McMaster Collection. As of this posting we have 216 books in the collection. However, currently these materials are only available to the McMaster community. This is completely out of my control, and I agree what some of you may be thinking, “wait, out of copyright books are not available to the general public!?”
The workflow is a little complicated right now, but it is the beginning and will definitely be improved.
The McMaster University academic librarians have formed a new association – the McMaster University Academic Librarians Association (MUALA) – and decided to unionize under the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
On February 10, the association filed an application for certification with the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The Board held a secret ballot vote the following week and a substantial majority of McMaster librarians voted in favour of certification
Rick Stapleton, was elected president of the new union.
Now that Historical Perspectives of Canadian Publishing is all finished up we have time, albeit a small amount of time, to concentrate on other portions of the Digital Collections site, and other collections.
World War, 1939-1945, German Concentration Camps and Prisons Collection is nearly complete. Only a few boxes remain to be scanned. The next portion of the project is World War, 1939-1945, Jewish Underground Resistance Collection. This collection is predominantly from 1941-1944 and will contain 325 items.
Ok, more Drupal stuff for Digital Collections site. I’ll yammer on about “must have” modules in this one. Hit the snooze button if you’d like. Oh, and this is in addition to the ones I mentioned in the previous post… Community Tags, Tagadelic, Service Links, Faceted Search, Views, Zen Theme, Quicktabs, and of course CCK.
First thing first, CCK add-ons: Audio Field - Defines audio field type for CCK content.
I have written about Drupal & the Digital Collections site (http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca) a few times now, but haven’t really explained how to make a digital collections site out of Drupal. So, without further ado…
What are the necessities of a digital collections site? Dublin Core standard metadata OAI-PMH Version 2 Searching Browsable Collection Sets Image display - ideally JPEG2000 What are some additional features that have become necessary? Tagging Social Bookmarking Faceted Searching Visually rich environment Profiles, internal site bookmarking Contact forms, Image requests, Questions Commenting Content Recommendation
Here is the library press release:
The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster University Library is launching the latest in a series of digital initiatives aimed at bringing its unique collections to a wider, online audience. The new site, Peace and War in the 20th Century, has been developed with the assistance of almost $100,000 in funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, through the Canadian Memory Fund.
Ok, kids. Finally, done. The Peace & War in the 20th Century is finally done - http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca. The site is now official. The site consists of nearly 3000 records, and is divided between two over archiving themes, Waging Peace and Waging War. The over arching themes are broken down into sub categories, and case studies, covering an expansive wealth of information. Images digitized for the collection include posters, letters, 3-D objects (grenades, metals, etc.
We’ve added pictures from our Mass Digitization and Publishing Launch to the blog, including pictures of or brand new Kirtas scanner. The event was a huge success, drawing over 100 guests, and press coverage. The Hamilton Spectator Catherine Baird, our Marketing, Communications, and Outreach Librarian and myself about the project. The article can be viewed here:http://thespec.com/article/388938
Ok, the Digital Collections website is ready for beta testing. Registered users can comment, vote on comments, and tag records - and updated version of the “bookbag” will be added soon. Collections with content include; Peace and War in the 20th Century, Russell Library, and World War II Concentration Camp Correspondences. At this time, AICT, and Kirtas Book Collection are outlines for content to be added later.
For the technical nerds!
ummmmm, I don’t know how to make a post about the Institutional Repository funny or witty, so I’ll go a little corporate sounding. bleh. I have been updating the repository quite a bit since the beginning of this year. We were apart of the first batch of upgrades from Bepress last month. We added categories and series, for most of the departments on campus so faculty can begin submitting scholarly output.