Revised slide amnh

The American Museum of Natural History Special Collections Practicum by Jack Weiss

Dean Tula GianniniLIS 698-01

Origins of the Image Database

• Shortly after its founding in 1869, AMNH began accumulating images made by its scientist and explorers. They photographed their missions, as well as the lands and peoples around them.

• Albert Bickmore, AMNH founder, was an enthusiastic proponent of visual education.

Growth of Photographic Collection

• By end of 19th century, AMNH had a 140,000 lantern slide lending library for NYC schools. This began trend to “go beyond the Museum’s walls”

• Currently, the Photographic Collection has about 1.5 million images in all formats. Originals are kept in 7-story climate controlled archive

• To build internal support for digitization projects, Library staff produced a 50 image print-on-demand book distributed to AMNH Trustees in Jan. 2007

NY METRO Library Council

• In 2007, AMNH secured a grant from NY METRO and created its first digitization project, Picturing the Museum: Education and Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History.

• This 989 image website was a showcase for the Photographic Collection and the prototype for the Image Database.

NY METRO Grant

• Enabled cataloger and scanning technician to be hired

• Enabled equipment to be purchased: Epson Perfection V750-M Pro flatbed scanner, MAC Pro work station, Eizo CG211: ColorEdge Color Calibration LCD Monitor w/hood, and Eye One Calibration Hardware

Sources of Image Metadata

• Mellon Foundation grant funded digitization of typed logbooks, negative envelopes, and photo print file cards.

• All data was “triple-keyed” by hand (outsourced) to compare and eliminate errors.

• This produced 186,000 “legacy records”

Cataloging Procedures & Metadata Documentation

• The Descriptive Data Fields were formed according to DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard)

• Mapped to Dublin Core

• Syntax Rules for ‘new caption’ field based on VRA Core Element Description were designed to be brief and descriptive

Descriptive Fields Used

• Drop-Down Menus: Format, Original Photographer, Copy Photographer, Artist, Department/Discipline, Subject Heading

• Drop-down menus used for ease and consistency

• Fill-ins: Caption title, Date, Geographic Location (repeatable), Institution, Permanent Hall, Expedition, Cultural Context, Cataloger’s Notes (seen only in Administrative Interface)

My Internship Role

• Edit Metadata• Save Original Caption & Source Data• Write New Caption, descriptive and brief,

eliminate any “culturally insensitive” terms• Complete fill-in and drop-down menu

selections using Authority Files (various AMNH Departmental databases, LC Authorities, TGN)

Workflow

• Work of interns editing metadata reviewed by Visual Resource Librarian

• If approved, work sent to Head Archivist for review in batches of 100 images

• If approved by Head Archivist, available for on-line viewing; “culturally insensitive” images are suppressed and available only to researchers at AMNH

Classic Photo Album

Omeka CMS Virtues

• Good points: easy to install, easy to learn and use.

• Over a dozen plug-ins available

• Dublin Core is default Metadata Set

• Tagging is easy

• It’s open source (free)

Omeka CMS Drawbacks

• Endless scrolling within a record

• If one moves to another tab without hitting ‘Save Changes’ risk of loss of new data; no warning from Omeka

• Not designed to handle large volume collection

Digital Migration to new CMS?

• AMNH might acquire LUNA• LUNA is a proprietary CMS • Annual Licensing fee; fee for 24/7

maintenance/support• Source data unavailable – customization handled by

LUNA for a fee• Easy to create different interface templates• Can offer streaming video• Features searchable text• Handles large volume collection easily