UC Image Service News: Saskia collection added to UC Shared Images in ARTstor

Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | Category: General, Digital Special Collections

By Lena Zentall, CDL UC Image Service Manager

CDL has added the Saskia Art & Architecture collection to UC Shared Images in ARTstor. Saskia provides over 26,000 core art history images on Western European civilization from more than 100 museums worldwide including the Prado, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Uffizi, the Louvre, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as archaeological sites in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Egypt.  Saskia includes selected African, Asian, and Pre-Columbian art.

You will find the Saskia collection listed as UC Share: CDL Saskia Art & Architecture on the ARTstor home page under Institutional Collections.   You may search Saskia along with the more than 750,000 images in the ARTstor digital library by simply doing a keyword search in ARTstor.  By default, ARTstor searches include all collections.   To limit a search to the Saskia collection only, you may select the collection name from the search menu on the ARTstor home page or advanced search page.

In 2003, the California Digital Library purchased the Saskia Archive to make these images available for educational and research use to all University of California campuses.   Users may download screen size jpeg files from ARTstor for use in
PowerPoint or Keynote.  In addition, full size images are available for downloading to ARTstor’s Offline Image Viewer (OIV) presentation software.

To learn more about UC Shared Images and ARTstor, see the CDL Image Service website: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/image or contact Lena Zentall, Image Service Manager (lena.zentall@ucop.edu, 510.987.9233).

New OAC Redesign Project Page

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | Category: General, Digital Special Collections

By Rosalie Lack, CDL Digital Special Collections Director

The Online Archive of California (OAC) is being completely redesigned for a planned live launch by early spring 2009.  OAC provides access to nearly 9,000 online archival finding aids and more than 170,000 digital images and documents, aggregated from more than 90 contributors from all 10 UC campuses and from cultural heritage institutions across California.  It is a vital resource for the University of California, the state of California, and researchers across the world.
A new web page has been created for the Redesign Project; see: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/oac/oacredesign.html .

The page includes a project status as of April 25th; project goals, timeline and background information.  This page will be updated as the project progresses.

UC Image Service News: Luna Insight Collections Update

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 | Category: General, Digital Special Collections

By Lena Zentall, CDL UC Image Service Manager

UC Shared Images implementation continues with CDL moving some collections from Luna Insight to ARTstor, while access to other collections is reverting to UC websites.

What do you need to do? 
Since PIDs (persistent identifiers) stay the same even when URLs change, you will not need to make any changes to links for collections with PIDs — provided you are using the PID.  (The UC Shared Cataloging Program manages PIDs.)  You may need to update descriptive information in your local catalogs and websites as some collection hosts have changed.

CDL licensed image collections

Saskia and Hartill will be available in Luna Insight until June 15, 2008, after which they will only be available in ARTstor.

Saskia Art and Architecture
Saskia will be available as a UC Shared Images collection in ARTstor in April 2008. 
PID: http://uclibs.org/PID/32963  PID will be updated with the new URL on June 16, 2008,
New URL: http://www.artstor.org

Hartill Art and Architecture
Hartill is available now in ARTstor as part of the ARTstor digital library.
PID: http://uclibs.org/PID/97273  PID will be updated with the new URL on June 16, 2008,
New URL: http://www.artstor.org

What does this mean for users? 
Users will be able to easily search across these two CDL collections along with more than 750,000 images in the ARTstor digital library.

Other Insight collections moving in June 2008

AMICA
Art Museum Images from Cartography Associates (AMICA) will be available in Insight until June 30, 2008 when the license expires.  (See CDLInfo, March 6, 2008.)

Access to these collections in Insight will end on June 15, 2008:
LUCI
UC Riverside will continue to provide access to this collection on the LUCI website. Some contributors to this collection will be moving their LUCI images to their UC Shared Images collections hosted on ARTstor beginning in Fall 2008.
LUCI website: http://vrc.ucr.edu/luci/index.html

MOAC
An expanded version of Museums and the Online Archive of California (MOAC) is available to the UC community as well as the general public on CDL’s Calisphere website and the MOAC website (see below for URL).
PID: http://uclibs.org/PID/32962  PID will be updated with the new URL on June 16, 2008,
New URL: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/moac/search.html

SPIRO
SPIRO is UC Berkeley’s online image database from the College of Environmental Design Visual Resources Center.  The Visual Resources Center is in the process of merging select images from SPIRO into the UC Shared Images’ UC Berkeley Art and Architecture collection to be hosted by ARTstor. UC Berkeley is working with ARTstor to make this collection available in September 2008.  In addition, UC Berkeley will continue to make the SPIRO website available.
SPIRO website: http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/spiro

Tebtunis Papyri 
The entire collection of Tebtunis papyri images is available from the Bancroft’s Tebtunis website.
PID: http://uclibs.org/PID/22416  PID will be updated with the new URL on June 16, 2008,
New URL: http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/index.html

UCSF Demonstration Project
This set of 99 dental and medical images from UCSF will no longer be available after June 15, 2008.

What does this mean for users?
Alternative access is available for nearly all these collections.  Many of these collections were built in Insight during the Image Demonstrator project to get experience with delivering image services and merging collections.  Most of these collections have primary sites outside of Insight that have been growing and improving while these “demonstrator” collections in Insight remained static.

Insight collections available after June 2008
More than 30,000 images are available in these collections provided to Insight clients.  New collections will be made available periodically in accordance with the JSCSC process for adding open-access resources.

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
http://uclibs.org/PID/97598

Estate Project for Artists with Aids
http://uclibs.org/PID/97599

Farber Gravestone Collection
http://uclibs.org/PID/97601

Hoover Institution Poster Collection
http://uclibs.org/PID/97602

Japanese Historical Maps
http://uclibs.org/PID/97603

National Palace Museum of Taipei
http://uclibs.org/PID/111721

What does this mean for users?
Users will continue to have access to these rich collections, which are freely available to the Insight community.

To learn more about UC Shared Images, see the CDL Image Service website: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/image or contact Lena Zentall, Image Service Manager (lena.zentall@ucop.edu, 510.987.9233).

Counting California will be Decommissioned June 1, 2008

Monday, March 31st, 2008 | Category: General, Digital Special Collections

By Rosalie Lack, CDL Digital Special Collections Director

Counting California, an award-wining, innovative site, was created in 2001 by the California Digital Library’s Patricia Cruse, with Margaret Low, Claudia Woo, Juri Stratford (UC Davis), Ilona Einowski (UC Berkeley) and Fred Gey (UC Berkeley).  The current project team, led by Rosalie Lack, includes Michael Russell and Brian Tingle.  The project received initial funding from the California State Library, the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), and the CDL.  At its launch, Counting California counted a number of “firsts”:

  • It was among the first web sites providing aggregated statistics.
  • It provided users with a single interface for accessing a variety of data and statistics about California from local, state, and federal government agencies.
  • The site’s innovative use of DDI (Data Documentation Initiative), a metadata standard for social science data resources, resulted in a consistent display of data from different data producers.
  • The site brought to light the preservation risk facing online statistical information.

Since 2001, the Internet has transformed the way data, statistics, and other information is disseminated.  As increasing numbers of trusted sites have begun making statistics available online, the content is no longer uniquely available from Counting California.  Although this was a compelling reason behind the decision to decommission the site, we also considered these other factors:

  • Many new sites have been created using newer technologies that provide more robust search and display.
  • According to a survey, most of our users were looking for population information, which is now widely available on the web.
  • Usage statistics indicate that usage has been consistently decreasing over the last three years.
  • No new datasets have been added to the site since 2006, because significant resources were needed to upgrade the interface and backend architecture to stay current.

When the site is removed, it will be replaced by a Referral Page that points users to online versions of the Counting California content.

UC Image Service News: AMICA

Thursday, March 6th, 2008 | Category: General, Digital Special Collections

By Lena Zentall, CDL UC Image Service Manager

Reminder: Art Museum Images from Cartography Associates (AMICA) license ends June 30, 2008.

Access to the vast majority of AMICA images is available on ARTstor.  Currently, less than 20% (about 20,000) of AMICA images are unavailable in ARTstor; however, in many cases, ARTstor offers additional images from participating museums.  For example, AMICA has 29 images from The Phillips Collection, whereas ARTstor recently added 1,200 images from this collection.  The five campuses currently subscribing to AMICA (Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside and Santa Barbara) will  not renew their subscriptions.  CDL paid the final year of the subscription July 1, 2007-June 30, 2008, on behalf of these campuses to provide faculty and staff time to make the adjustment from AMICA via Insight to ARTstor. Individual faculty may subscribe directly to AMICA from David Rumsey.

Calisphere’s First Year in Review

Thursday, February 28th, 2008 | Category: Digital Special Collections

By Rosalie Lack, CDL Digital Special Collections Director

CDL is pleased to report that in its first year, Calisphere (www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu) has become a valuable resource for scholars, a popular destination for the general public, and an essential site for K-12 educators, who call it “a dream resource” and “a teacher’s dream come true.”

Calisphere’s success rests on the quality of the primary source images and documents provided by CDL’s content contributors. The site’s unique organization and intuitive user interface makes these resources easily accessible to the general public and educators alike. Throughout the state and nationally, teachers report that Calisphere’s targeted organization of primary sources allows them to locate specific types of images quickly, and to build classroom lessons that motivate and inspire students to learn:

“So much easier!” “Your website has made it so much easier. Two years ago I created a PowerPoint presentation on Japanese Internment. I searched the web for countless hours trying to find images! If only I knew about your website then! Your images are excellent and very helpful to educators and students.”

“Thankful to have this program” “I used the complete collections in preparing my lesson. A new teacher would be so thankful to have this program. I intend to use it next year when I change grade levels to go to 5th grade. I will be the Social Studies and History teacher for 90 4th and 5th graders.”


“The lesson came to life”
“I downloaded the images into a PowerPoint presentation, then used the PowerPoint over three lessons . . . I have taught this lesson previously, without the primary sources. This time . . . I feel my students got a lot more out of the experience. . . . The lesson came to life.”

As Calisphere continues to evolve, students, educators, and the general public will have unprecedented access to an increasing number of unique images and documents. In the coming year, CDL will be working toward broadening and deepening existing categories and adding new features that will continue to attract more and more users to explore the site.

Calisphere’s Year in Review highlights the successes and future goals of this important resource.

Learn more about what Calisphere has to offer:
Calisphere Year in Review  <http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/publications/calisphere_year_in_review.pdf> (PDF)

Local History Resources - New Collections in Calisphere and the OAC

Thursday, February 7th, 2008 | Category: Digital Special Collections

By Rosalie Lack, CDL Digital Special Collections Director and Adrian Turner, CDL Data Consultant

Over 1,500 new digitized primary resources are now available in the CDL’s Calisphere and Online Archive of California (OAC) websites as of February 2008. The collections offer unique glimpses into California local history, and were assembled by a range of institutions throughout the state:

Digitization work was supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian, as part of the “California Local History Digital Resources Project” (LHDRP).

The LHDRP is a multi-year (2000-present) statewide program to provide persistent public access to local history digital resources. The project is a collaborative endeavor involving multiple supporting agencies, including the California State Library, Califa, and CDL. Over 55 public and academic libraries, historical societies, and archives have participated in the LHDRP, and approximately 18,000 images have been made publicly available for the long-term. For more information, see the LHDRP project website.

UC Image Service News: 8 Campuses in 8 Days!

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 | Category: General, Collection Development, Digital Special Collections

By Lena Zentall, CDL UC Image Service Manager

ARTstor and CDL representatives met with faculty and stakeholders at all 9 campuses participating in the ARTstor systemwide license, beginning with Berkeley on September 13 and concluding with a whirlwind tour of the final 8 campuses in 8 days from October 15-24, 2007.

The joint CDL/ARTstor campus visits attracted large numbers of faculty, staff, administrators and other stakeholders who were enthusiastic about using ARTstor and welcomed the collaborative opportunities and efficiencies of participating in UC Shared Images. We held two 90-minute sessions at each campus — a demonstration of ARTstor, and a meeting with stakeholders to discuss integration with ARTstor and UC Shared Images.

We were elated with the tremendous diversity of faculty, staff, administrators, and other stakeholders and with the many compelling questions and comments we received. We were pleased to see the large number of disciplines interested in using ARTstor and it was gratifying to hear the plans of instructional technology staff at the new ARTstor campuses for promoting ARTstor and installing the ARTstor Offline Image Viewer (OIV) for faculty and students.

Upcoming will be a summary of issues raised and next steps in implementing UC Shared Images.

For more information, contact Lena Zentall, Image Service Manager (lena.zentall@ucop.edu; 510.987.9233).

CDL Guidelines for Digital Objects, Version 2.0: Updated for METS File element

Thursday, November 15th, 2007 | Category: Digital Preservation, Technology, Digital Special Collections

By Adrian Turner, CDL Data Acquisitions

The "CDL Guidelines for Digital Objects, Version 2.0" (CDL GDO) has been updated to include specifications for use of the METS File <file> element.  You can find the updated version at http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/guidelines/ .

The revision applies to Sections 2.1, 2.2.2, 3.1, and 3.2.4 only:

  • To support the orderly transmission and ingest of digital objects, the CDL recommends the inclusion of checksum (MD5, SHA-1, or CRC32) and byte size values in the METS File <file> element.  Note that this information is preferred, but not required.
  • The subheadings within Sections 2.1 and 3.1 have been relabeled, and are now consistently based on METS element names.

Please contact the CDL at oacops@ucop.edu if you have any questions.

A Fond Farewell to Robin Chandler

Thursday, November 8th, 2007 | Category: Collection Development, Digital Special Collections

By Ivy Anderson, Director of CDL Collection Development & Management

It is with much regret that we announce that Robin Chandler will be leaving the California Digital Library on November 30th to accept an appointment as Digital Library Program Manager at UC San Diego.

Robin has been a creative force at the CDL since her arrival in 2000.  Under her leadership as Director of Built Content, CDL cemented its reputation as a nexus of cultural heritage digital archives for the state of California.  Projects that owe their existence and/or development to Robin include the Online Archive of California, CalCultures, the Local History Digital Resources Project, and the American West virtual collection.  Most recently as Director of Data Acquisitions, Robin’s work at CDL has been synonymous with mass digitization.  Due to the efforts of Robin and her team working in close collaboration with campus libraries across UC, a robust infrastructure has been put into place through which more than half a million volumes from University of California collections have been digitized in partnership with the Open Content Alliance, Google, and Microsoft.

The CDL wishes Robin well as she explores new challenges as a valued colleague and collaborative partner in digital library development at UC.

Organization of CDL Data Acquisitions Activities Effective December 1st

In preparing for Robin’s departure, we have given considerable thought to how best to organize the diverse responsibilities currently performed by Robin’s unit within the CDL.  These activities generally fall into two areas:

  • Data consultancy and ingest for CDL digital collections, including OAC, Calisphere, and the Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP)
  • Mass digitization project coordination and partner relations

Staff contacts for these activities will continue unchanged, ensuring a high level of continuity for UC colleagues and other institutional partners.  Beginning December 1st , overall responsibility for these areas will be organized as follows:

  • The Data Consultancy unit, including OAC and LHDRP, will report to the CDL’s Digital Special Collections Program, directed by Rosalie Lack.  Staff within this unit include:
    • Adrian Turner, Data Consultant, LHDRP
    • Gabriela Montoya, Built Content Operations Technician
    • Data Consultant (currently vacant)
  • Mass Digitization will reside within the CDL Collections Program, directed by Ivy Anderson.  Staff within this unit include:
    • Heather Christenson, Mass Digitization Project Manager
    • Ann Jensen, Projects Liaison
    • Paul Fogel, Technical Lead

Colleagues both within and outside of UC should continue to interact with the staff in these units as you do currently.  As we approach Robin’s departure date, some leadership roles and responsibilities will shift to accommodate changes in reporting.  Beginning December 1st, questions and concerns relating to overall policy and program management can be directed respectively to Rosalie Lack for data consultancy and Ivy Anderson for mass digitization activities.

We are confident that this alignment will enable the CDL to maintain a high level of service and momentum in these strategically vital activities.  Please contact Ivy Anderson (ivy.anderson@ucop.edu) or Rosalie Lack (rosalie.lack@ucop.edu) with any questions.

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