A Glitch in the System: Accessing ISU Library Digital Collections

The Iowa State University Library Digital Collections include a wide variety of content which is presented in a variety of formats.  There are many photographs presented as individual images, some audio and video files, and plenty of PDFs like the example below of a seed catalog from 1887.

We want all of our collections to be accessible to the public who view the content from a variety of computer devices that connect to the internet, so we test everything by viewing it on different computers besides the computers on our desk in our office.  We discovered that our PDFs were not opening on any of the public computers throughout our library.

The library has an automated system that turns off all the public computers when the building closes and when it turns them on in the morning, it also opens the Internet Explorer browser to the library web page so that when a patron comes up to any computer it’s ready for searching the library.  Eventually, I figured out that the reason that the PDFs were not opening was that the add-ons for Adobe PDF and Adobe PDF Link Helper were not enabled when the Internet Explorer browser opens automatically each morning.  Through much trial and error, I finally figured out that all I had to do was to close Internet Explorer and re-open it for the Adobe PDF add-ons to be enabled.  However, having somebody manually close and re-open Internet Explorer every morning on all the public computers in the library is not a very good solution to the problem.  Library IT is looking into why the Adobe PDF add-ons are not enabled when Internet Explorer opens automatically every morning and how to make it happen.  However, as Library IT continues to work on a solution, this glitch in the system remains for our potential Library Digital Collections users.

 

Hand in Hand: Analog and Digital Preservation

Sometimes people are surprised to find out that I have an interest in digital preservation.  I find their surprise surprising.  It’s as if they assume that, because I am a book and paper conservator, I must labor away in an ivory tower filled with moldering books while the modern trappings of technology hold no sway over me, if, indeed, I realize that “digital technology” exists at all.

Image from Lisa Gregory’s ASERL-sponsored webinar “Preservation Planning and PREMIS,” held on April 2, 2013, 11 am EST.

While it is true that my profession entails a love affair with history (i.e. “the past”), and the literal tools of my trade are mechanical devices and hand tools designed centuries ago, my passion for preserving the cultural record crosses the boundary of analog versus digital.  As time ticks relentlessly on, the culture of the present day slips ever backwards into history, and preserving born-digital works becomes just as important as preserving centuries-old manuscripts.  In truth, I see little difference in the mission.  In my day-today activities, I may deal more with the chemical deterioration processes of cellulose than I do with corrupted bitstreams, but I still consider it a significant part of my profession to stay informed about advances in all aspects of library and archives preservation.

I’m lucky to have a supervisor who shares my sentiments.  Our Head of Preservation includes me on the “Digital Team,” which is made up of our Head of Preservation, the Digital Initiatives staff, the Digital Repository Coordinator, the University Archivist and Assistant Archivist, and — when the position is filled later this spring — our Cataloging and Metadata Management Librarian.  This also means that I am invited to educational webinars like the one we all attended today, the ASERL-sponsored webinar “Preservation Planning and PREMIS,” presented by Lisa Gregory, the Digital Collections Manager at the State Library of North Carolina.  The webinar is the first in a series of four about digital preservation.  I enjoy thinking over the theories and practicalities of digital preservation while I’m at the bench, repairing and mending books and documents centuries older than I am.

 

Mobile Devices with Graphic Web Pages

Upon opening a website, there is an expectation to see a nice, neat, orderly layout with a banner across the top and a menu down the side. Whichever browser is opened, it will look and function the same. However, what happens when using a mobile device?

Mobile devices are a recent addition to the technology-based world. There are two different types of mobile devices: smart phones and tablets.  Each present two different ways to look at information. Although smart phone screens are inching back up to larger sizes, viewing a full website typically results in too small a view to appreciate the layout.  Tablets (including hybrid e-readers), however, are just miniature laptops, so viewing a full site looks decent.

More people are ditching desktops and laptops for tablets and smart phones. Tablets are a more affordable and portable option for many who only need to go online, check email, watch media and occasionally write documents.  Plus, more locations are offering free Wi-Fi.

While these device are more light-weight than laptops and desktops, and present instant-on and instant access to information, they offer an interesting and complicated development for website designers. There is waffling on how to present web pages with these devices in mind, with absolutely NO consistency across the internet. While using smart phones, some sites (www.iastate.edu) present a page or a pop-up window giving an option between a mobile or full site.

For tablets, it goes straight to full site. Others (www.lib.iastate.edu) simply send the user to the full site, whether using smart phones or tablets.

Other sites vary. The Des Moines Register utilizes a mobile site with two different layouts, in addition to the full site. The tablet edition gives the option of increasing data storage on your tablet to 50MB; the use of images is prevalent.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE. Clockwise from top left: tablet first screen; tablet second screen; tablet full site; tablet mobile screen.

On the smart phone layout, the images are unobtrusive, but these images are rotated out every few days.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE. Left to right: smart phone first screen; smart phone scrolled to bottom of screen; smart phone full site; smart phone landscape view.

The Ames Tribune defaults to the full site when using a tablet:

and mobile site (with no images) when detecting a smart phone:

The ISU Library Digital Collections site currently does not design with mobile devices in mind. This decision was made not only because images are not temporary and continue to be added, but because the images are managed and hosted through CONTENTdm^®, which does not utilize mobile layouts. To offer the mobile layouts for devices on the front end of the site, only to link into non-optional layout pages is neither seamless nor professional, and therefore the site will be left as-is for the foreseeable future. How would the user benefit from a text-only site, where the information, ultimately, is neither bite-sized nor appropriate without images?

 

Why Am I Surprised?

Friends who read the blog have been asking what I’ve been doing lately since I haven’t posted for awhile. The answer is that I’ve been over in Special Collections creating an inventory of the scrapbooks in the collection. My life has looked like this lately.

And this.

That’s not to say that the scrapbooks are boring. There is some pretty cool stuff in those boxes that you will be hearing about in the coming months, but I will admit that I’ve been missing my workbench lately.

No worries, though, because Melissa has my back (I think). She asked me to work on this the other day.

I was a bit surprised that she brought me a book to work on until I opened it and found tears,

tape,

and large pieces of folded paper.

Am I the only one surprised to discover she brought me a book of bound blueprints? It seems I am now the lab’s blueprint expert.

The book contained three beautiful drawings for the original library building. I’ve taken them out of the binding to repair and flatten them. Our friends over at Facilities, Planning and Management have kindly agreed to scan them for us on their blueprint scanner, and we’ll hopefully have them up on the Special Collections web page in about a month.

 

E-Journal Preservation Registry

The PARS Forum held in Seattle during the 2013 ALA Midwinter meeting focused on e-journal preservation and in particular the Keepers Registry which is a database of e-journals and the entities that are caring for their long-term access.  Ann Marie Willer from MIT hosted the session, appropriately so since last year, she presented on a project that identified e-journal stewards for MIT’s holdings before this database was available. Winston Atkins from Duke University and Robert Wolven from Columbia University presented some of their findings when they ran their journal holdings against the Keepers Registry.

The Keepers Registry is currently in Beta and was developed by EDINA, a national data center at the University of Edinburgh with the assistance of the ISSN International Center. Bibliographic information is provided by the ISSN Register. The Keepers Registry basically keeps track of  e-journals that are being archived by at least one of the following repositories:  British Library, CLOCKSS Archive, e-Depot, Global LOCKSS Network, HathiTrust, National Science Library (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Portico.

 

Some of the current limitations of the database were touched on by the presenters. Because the Keepers Registry is based on the ISSN Register, only journals with well formed ISSNs are included in the database. Wolven reported that half of the Cornell & Columbia project titles did not have ISSNs and for those titles that did have ISSNs, roughly 25% were included in the registry. Atkins also experienced roughly a 22% hit rate with the 61,682 serial titles at Duke. It was also reported that among the titles archived by these agencies there was a lot of overlap or redundancy among the agencies especially for major titles. Some titles do not have complete runs within a single repository and some of these segments are scattered across multiple repositories. This creates a reliance on multiple archiving agencies to guarantee preservation of complete runs of e-journal titles. To address these gaps, the identification of other archiving agencies is underway.

Participating agencies are required to share their metadata with the Registry. This information is linked to the authoritative bibliographic information obtained from the ISSN Register. These agencies also provide Keepers with a description of their organization and their approach to the preservation of and access to their digital content. Keepers is still finalizing the requirements for agency participation.

Keepers is a step toward global collaboration in preserving e-journals. It also provides the tool to identify titles that are not being preserved by trusted agencies and most at risk.