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Sharing Canada’s Documentary Heritage: An update and discussion of theNational Heritage Digitization Strategy

OLA SUPER CONFERENCEFEBRUARY 2, 2016TORONTO, ON

Who are we?

Larry AlfordMember, NHDS Steering CommitteeChief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries

Paul DurandMember, NHDS Steering Committee

Specialist, Digital Collections ManagementCanadian Museum of History

Caitlin HorrallCorporate Secretary, NHDS Secretariat

Library and Archives Canada

Michael MoosbergerMember, NHDS Steering Committee

University Archivist & Assoc. University Librarian

Research and Scholarly CommunicationDalhousie University

Sandra SinghChair, NHDS Steering CommitteeChief Librarian, Vancouver Public Library

AgendaBrief introduction

Sample digitization work across the country◦ Building the Digital Library: Digitization at the University of Toronto Libraries

◦ Gold Nuggets to Totem Poles, Artifact Digitization at the Canadian Museum of History

◦ 15 Years of Dalhousie University Libraries' Digitization Initiatives: The Good, the Bad and the Occasionally Ugly

◦ Digitization at Vancouver Public Library

Presentation of action plan and discussion

Building the Digital Library:Digitization at the

University of Toronto Libraries

Larry Alford, Chief Librarian

University of Toronto

National Heritage Digitization Strategy

February 2, 2017

Digitization at UofT

• Mass digitization• Special collections digitization • Preservation• Access• Future directions

University of Toronto Libraries

• 44 libraries on 3 campuses

• 14+ million volumes

• 30,000 linear metres of archival materials

• Millions of e-resources

• 1.5 petabyte data capacity

• Serving 107,000 FTE users

Why do we digitize?

James Wolfe’s Letters

• Early special collection digitization: late 1990s

• Mass digitization:2004 – present

• Large scale special collection digitization:2009 – present

• Media Digitization:2015 - present

Digitization timeline

Early digitization

From the Wenceslas Hollar and Barren Lands Digital Collections

Lessons learned

From the Discovery and Early Development of Insulin Collection

Mass digitization

Digitization at Internet Archive Canada

Mass digitization: what went in?

• Books:– not too big and not too small:

3”x3” to 11”x17”

– not too old and not too new:6% rejected for fragility and damage; 1922 cut-off

• Metadata– MARC records or spreadsheet

From the Fisher Internet Archive Collection

Special collections digitization II

Special collections digitization

Manuscript from the Friedberg Collection, Fisher

Manuscript: Chronique Du Normandy, J. Paul Getty MuseumFrom the French Renaissance Paleography site

Knitting the digital library together

Media digitization

Preserving the born digital

Infrastructure

Accessibility

Social Media

• User focused and driven• Digital scholarship • Linked Data

Future directions

Thank you

Larry Alford

[email protected]

Gold Nuggets to Totem Poles.Artifact Digitization at the Canadian Museum of History

Paul DurandSpécialiste, Gestion des collections numériques

Musée canadien de l’histoire

Specialist, Digital Collections Management

Canadian Museum of History

February 2, 2017

• Crown Corporation

• Located in Gatineau since 1989

• Corporation includes: Canadian War

Museum, Canadian Children’s Museum

and Virtual Museum of Canada

• Approximately 1.5 million visitors a year to

CMH

Canadian Museum of History

• History, Folklore, Postal, Archeology,

Ethnology, Living History

• Approximately 4 million artifacts

• Approximately 3 million + archival objects– Historical, Research and Institutional

• Artifact and archives collections are

inseparable

Collections

• Video disk & television viewer 1980s

• 1993 Kodak partnership

• Artifacts were photographed on

35mm slides then scanned.

• Kodak proprietary hardware,

software and storage mediums

• Allowed for digitization

of any 35mm

• By 2003 shift to digital cameras,

TIFF format and archival CDs

Early Digitization

• 4000 artifacts a year (8000+ images)

• 1000+ of archival objects digitized

• Digitizing analogue photo

documentation

• New archival digitization program

• Vendor supplied photography

• IN-OUT artifact driven

• Search the Collections (Emu)

• Digitization Standards for the

Canadian Museum of Civilization

Corporation *http://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/resource-centre/digitization-standards/#tabs

Current Digitization

http://www.historymuseum.ca/collections/

http://www.historymuseum.ca/learn/resource-centre/digitization-standards/#tabs

Artifact Digitization Challenges

Physical Objects

Physical Exhibits

Physical Spaces

Physical

Museum Experience

Digitization of 3D objects has different

intent, limitations and outcome than 2D• Artifact digitization creates a record not a digital version

• Intent is often for visual cataloguing & object management tool

• Artifact photography can have many outcomes

Artifact Challenge

Variety Challenge

Size and shape

Variety Challenge

Material

Variety Challenge

Labour

Variety Challenge

Hazardous materials-asbestos

-formaldehyde

-medicine

-radioactive

-mercury

-explosives/firearms

Variety Challenge

Fragility

and shape

…and mercury

Variety Chalenge

Human manipulation is ALWAYS required

• Access focused

• Metadata & linked open data

• 3D, VR and new technologies

– Allow the blind to experience objects

– Recreate objects and pieces

– Use 3D scans for gaming

• Increase output (workflows, standards and technology)

Future Digitization

• Program over project

• Standards

– Written and explicit standards

– Be systematic

– Quality Control

• Like with like (size & material)

• Iteration of standards, workflows, tools…

Our Lessons

Thank You!

42

The Good, the Bad and the Occasionally Ugly.

15 YEARS OF DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES’ DIGITIZATION INITIATIVES:

Michael Moosberger

Associate University Librarian Research and Scholarly Communications

and Dalhousie University Archivist

2 February 2017

42

EARLY DAYS•Started in 2002 with projects funded by Industry Canada’s Digital Collections

Program - Waldren Photographic Studio glass plate negatives

•No standards, images mounted on Libraries’ website – no migration

strategy in place

•Started using other federal, provincial and private funding to build first thematic

digital collections – The Buildings of Dalhousie, Nova Scotia Theatre History,

History of Medicine at Dal, historical medical publications and other items

•Began building in-house expertise, internal oversight and in-house

standards but still no migration strategy

•Participated in Our Roots – Canada’s Local Histories Online Project

(Black Nova Scotia History) – 1st multi-institution collaboration

•University announces new CMS for website

•Assessment of all Libraries digital content undertaken – many digitized

collections cannot be migrated and are abandoned with digital objects and

basic metadata placed in DalSpace, the University’s institutional repository

•Began to look at long term requirements for digitized materials including

long term preservation and ability to migrate them

Michael Moosberger Associate University Librarian Research and Scholarly Communications

and Dalhousie University Archivist 2 February 201743

EARLY DAYS



PROCEEDINGS OF THE NOVA SCOTIA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

• Project started to save fragile volumes and increase accessibility. Also served as a pilot project

for the DalSpace repository. Volumes 1 - 41 (1863 – 2001) – approx. 16,696 pages digitized.

http://dal.ca.libguides.com/nsis_project

• Digitization done primarily by grad. student interns from the Dal SIM – older volumes scanned

using the cradle book scanner with volumes with multiple copies being cut and processed

using a sheet feeder.

• April 2011 - NSIS provided Libraries $2205 for additional student hours to complete the

digitization of the first 100 years of the journal in time for the NSIS 150th anniversary.

• Scans saved on Libraries’ DigiServer as well as on gold DVDs. Individual pages were

"cleaned" (using Photoshop), and then the pages were compiled into individual articles before

being converted to pdfs

• Modern volumes (2002-2015) and current issues now available through Libraries’ OJS as well

as DalSpace. OJS now the NSIS’ publishing platform

• Lessons Learned

• Initial aspirations (clean, easy-to-read articles; fulsome and relevant metadata) were

greater than what was reasonable to achieve given the time and financial restrictions.

• Should have scanned pages and left them as they were rather than doing extensive and

time-consuming cleanup on them



http://dal.ca.libguides.com/nsis_project

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NOVA SCOTIA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE



THE ROYAL ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE OF CANADA (RAIC)

• Conceived in 2011 as a joint venture between the RAIC and the newly formed Sexton Digital with digitization

starting in February 2012 and continuing today

• Of the 594 issues of the RAIC journals published from 1924-1973 (five title changes throughout its 49 years of

publication), 243 have been digitized and are accessible on the project website. Four individuals working

part-time on the project (2 library staff, 2 external)

• $25,000 grant received from the Canada Council in 2012. RAIC has contributed $15,000

• Lessons Learned:

• Project over-commitment - no clear notion by Sexton Library of how much work and resources really

involved – asked RAIC what they wanted instead of telling them what was feasible?

• Original standards unrealistic - at current staffing levels would take years and it has

• Planning also neglected a realistic consideration of how much server space would be required

• Project did not use existing Library system standards so minimum project support was provided. Journal

digitization projects should all feed into DalSpace. RAIC issues can't be made discoverable in Primo until

the entire collection is migrated into DalSpace - big problem.



THE ROYAL ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE OF CANADA (RAIC)



THE ARCHIVE OF ELISABETH MANN BORGESE• Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Killam Fellow at Dalhousie University who was

instrumental in the 1982 adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of

the Sea and its entry into force in 1994

• $100,000 gift for project from one of Elisabeth’s former students

• 126,443 pages of textual records, 700 photographs and 2 audio files digitized from

six series and linked to archival descriptions in AtoM holdings database -

http://findingaids.library.dal.ca/elisabeth-mann-borgese-fonds

• Lessons Learned

• Automating workflows – compilation of PDF’s.

• Importance of documenting processes

• Rights management

• Access and Preservation in Archival Mass Digitization Projects by John Yolkowski

and Krista Jamieson - https://practicaltechnologyforarchives.org/issue7_yolkowski/



http://findingaids.library.dal.ca/elisabeth-mann-borgese-fonds

https://practicaltechnologyforarchives.org/issue7_yolkowski/

THE ARCHIVE OF ELISABETH MANN BORGESE



THE DALHOUSIE GAZETTE• Oldest student newspaper in Canada – 25 January 1869

• Condition of the originals and their continued use made

digitization a priority

• Contracted with an external vendor to do the actual digitization

while Archives staff prepared the originals

• Scanned issues of surviving holdings from volume 1. no.1 (1869)

to volume 145: no.23 (2013) - placed in DalSpace

• Added to CARL’s Student Voice portal project -

http://sve.canadiana.ca/

• Lessons Learned

• Preparation time always takes longer than original estimates

• Test vendor’s capability to fulfill all aspects of contract

• Be prepared for more post-production work than anticipated



http://sve.canadiana.ca/

THE DALHOUSIE GAZETTE



DALHOUSIE 200TH ANNIVERSARY PROJECTS - 2018• Started digitizing material anticipated to be in high demand for anniversary as early

as 2013

• University Yearbooks, Calendars, Photographs

• Undertook scanning for Dal Originals Oral History Project and Historic Timeline on

200th anniversary website: https://dal200.ca/

• Will start digitizing material for use in “Today in Dal History” social media initiative in

Summer 2017 with rollout starting January 2018

• Adding new digitized content to “The Lives of Dalhousie” E-Book edition

• Lessons Learned:

• Starting 5 years early wasn’t enough time

• Leverage as many additional library and university resources as possible

• Use these opportunities to promote holdings and staff expertise

• Seeing increases in digitization requests and new acquisition enquiries



https://dal200.ca/

DALHOUSIE 200TH ANNIVERSARY PROJECTS - 2018



DIGITAL REFORMATTING• Obsolete formatted material with the highest risk of deterioration and loss within entire Libraries’ holdings –

over 16,000 items of original audio, video and film in over 20 different formats

• Process begun to identify and re-format material to industry standard digital files

• External vendor doing digitization and operating/endowment funds used to cover costs

• Still looking at ideal storage/delivery solutions – LTO Tape or Cloud based???

• Also contending with obsolete or soon to be obsolete digital formats – est. 325TB of data on 2,914 obsolete

media carriers – lots of floppy disks

• Digital Archives Collections Assessment completed December 2016 –

http://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/72663

• Building out digital preservation capabilities – FRED digital forensics machine and ARCHIVEMATICA digital

preservation software while investigating other software tools like BitCurator as well

• Trying to build out limited in-house capabilities for playback and transfer of certain audiovisual formats, as

we're hampered by our inability to view even relatively recent digital video tapes



http://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/72663

DIGITIZATION CENTRE EQUIPMENT



THANK YOU! QUESTIONS?



Sandra Singh, Chief [email protected] 14, 2016

DigitizationVancouver Public Library

About Vancouver

First Peoples: Three Coast Salish First NationsIncorporated as city in 1886

115 square km / 605,000 people (2011)52% residents w/ first language other than English

Economy: Port Metro Vancouver, HQs for resource industry companies

Tech and digital sectorFilm and television industry

Biggest challenges:Housing affordability; Climate change

About VPL (2015)

21 branches, including Central Library6.8 million in-person visits

6.4 million digital visits257,832 active cardholders (1 year)

74,063 only used tech and digital resources9.4 million collection items used (physical and digital)

9,700 free programs277,000 program attendees

Digitization Focus (current)

Subject focus

Approaches

Local history and heritage (Library owned)

Digitization of library-owned analogue collections

Digitization of community-owned analogue items

Creation of born digital items of historical or heritage interest

Digitization of library owned analogue

Three main projects

BC City Directories (1860-1955)

Select photograph collections

BC Saturday Sunset (1907-1915)

Digitization of library owned analogueBC City Directories (1860-1955)

Co-operative project with analogue assets coming from

VPL Special Collections

UBC Rare Books and Special Collections

CoV Archives

http://www.vpl.ca/bccd/index.php

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs

Select historical photo collections have been digitized since 2000

36,000 images digitized out of a collection of 200,000

http://www.vpl.ca/find/details/historical_photographs_of_bc_and_yukon

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs: The Leonard Frank Collectionhttp://www.vpl.ca/frank/overview.html

Sikh men and boy onboard the Komagata Maru (VPL 6231)

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs: CP Railway, 1880s-1950shttp://www.vpl.ca/cpr/index.html

C.P.R. Train with Locomotive No. 564 and engineers (VPL 38724)

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs: Artray, 1940s-1950s Vancouver

Early in 1994, a collection of approximately 11,000 photographs from Artray Limited Photographers was donated to Vancouver Public Library.

http://www.vpl.ca/artray/index.html

'Happy Birthday Aristocratics' - restaurant with neon sign (VPL 816691)

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs: Madeline Gunterman, 1880s-1920s BChttp://www.vpl.ca/gunterman/overview.html

Women ice skating at Beaton (VPL 2346)

Digitization of library owned analogueHistorical Photographs: Other significant collections

Philip Timms, 1900s-1910s Vancouverhttp://www.vpl.ca/timms_golden/biography.htmlhttp://www.vpl.ca/timms_lens/overview.html

The Province Newspaper, 1940s-1960s British Columbia Dominion Photo Co., 1910s-1950s Vancouver Croton Studio, 1950s-1978 New Westminster Daniel O’Neill, 1977-1983 Vancouver

Digitization of library owned analogueBC Saturday Sunset (1860-1955)http://newspapers.lib.sfu.ca/newspaper-categories/british-columbia-canada

•BC Saturday Sunset is one of the few completely digitized early BC newspapers available

BC Saturday Sunset is one of the few completely digitized early BC newspapers available

The digitization project was begun in 2010 with funding support from Barber Digitization Program

SFU hosts the content in their digital repository

Digitization of community owned analogueCarnegie Stories (1860-1955)http://thisvancouver.vpl.ca/islandora/object/islandora:carnegie_stories


Early 1980s, 43 interviews with people living in DTES Limited content worked into book “Hastings and Main”; most not Audio-tapes held at Carnegie Centre for years Staff worked with interviewer and Carnegie Community Centre

Association (copyright owner of book) on this project. Digital Services staff digitized the cassettes and cleaned up the resulting

audio using equipment and software in the Inspiration Lab. All usable audio is now available on This Vancouver – 43 interviews in

total.

Digitization of community owned analogueExpo Retro and Hollywood Northhttp://thisvancouver.vpl.ca/islandora/object/islandora:expo_retro_collection


Community contributed projects that run in conjunction with digitization skills sessions in the Inspiration Lab.

Expo Retro: a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Expo 86. Collection of 91 digitized photos and 13 stories recorded at “Expo Minute” sessions in the lab

Hollywood North: Community’s experience with the film industry in Vancouver

Born DigitalWest End Storieshttp://thisvancouver.vpl.ca/islandora/object/islandora:west_end_stories


Initiated by West End Memories Group – memories of Seniors who grew up in and around the West End through the last century.

Big learning curve for staff 38 stories with diverse topics

Born DigitalChinatown Storieshttp://thisvancouver.vpl.ca/islandora/object/islandora:chinatown_stories


Project was brought to us by journalist Peg Fong, who had an offer of funding to create a “different look” at Chinatown history.

Our focus for this project was collecting memories of the businesses and buildings in Chinatown that are being lost as the area gentrifies.

As we gathered more stories, themes emerged – food, family life, work, education.

Includes 45 stories in English and Cantonese (with translation).

Repurposing Content•BC Saturday Sunset is one of the few completely digitized early BC newspapers available

West End Stories Jane’s Walk

Explore This Vancouver app

Issues to Consider Moving Forward•BC Saturday Sunset is one of the few completely digitized early BC newspapers available

Unified repository for all of our digitized or born digital collections Fragmented environment. Should we be doing this alone or should we be seeking to work with

the Archives and Museum of Vancouver on a shared platform? If us alone, do we need to own it or would we be comfortable with

being a tenant on someone else’s server. For some projects – e.g., WMM Quilt – this could be a show stopper for the community.

Governance of Digital History and Culture Currently have two staff teams in very different units. Need to start thinking about governance and coordination of effort. Want to be sure we are finding the right balance amongst our

commitments to digitizing existing historical assets and to co-creation of new content with community.


Thank you.

What is the NHDS?Announced in June 2016.

Seeks to establish a coordinated approach to the digitization of Canadian memory institutions’ collections. Includes access, discovery and preservation.

Covers published and unpublished analogue material of national, regional, and local significance. Draws from the collections of archives, libraries, museums, galleries, associations, and other memory institutions

Strategy objectives

Focus efforts

Identify standards

Share knowledge

and experience

Protect documentary heritage most

at risk

Avoid duplication

Explore funding

opportunities

Progress to dateFoundational Assembly held in October to discuss collaborative digital strategies and establish a National Steering Committee.

Steering Committee formed – 19 leaders from libraries, archives, museums, government, cultural organizations and not-for-profit sector. Chaired by Sandra Singh, Chief Librarian of the Vancouver Public Library.

Secretariat established by Library and Archives Canada to support Steering Committee.

Three-year action plan drafted. Steering Committee met Feb. 1st, 2017 to develop specific initiatives to advance action plan. Four focus areas:

Community

Engagement

Technical

Infrastructure

Organizational

Capacity

Content and

Scope

Action plan – Content and scopeCollective effort will ensure projects are prioritized and managed effectively. Attention will be paid to adopt Canada-wide approaches that ensure collections represent the diversity of the country.

Activities• Define a content strategy that considers all media types and formats. • Build on existing inventories of digitization projects to identify opportunities, strengths, gaps, and

areas of expertise.• Identify and prioritize projects that are of mutual benefit and interest.• Create a baseline of statistical data to better understand the scope of Canada’s digital heritage.

View the full action plan at: cnhds.wordpress.com

Content and

Scope

Action plan – Technical infrastructure Metadata and technology will form the backbone of the NHDS discovery framework. The NHDS will help institutions share their collections by developing standards and taking advantage of emerging technologies to create value for end-users.

Activities• Define and develop a discovery mechanism.• Research and develop future requirements for metadata standards.• Research and develop end-user policies (e.g. Privacy, Accessibility, Official Languages etc.).• Research and develop best practices for infrastructure.• Develop strategies to release data as open information and examine models for re-use.• Research and communicate best practices for file formats for access and preservation.• Recommend policies and best practices for identifying the copyright status of digitized works,

through licensing (e.g., http://rightsstatements.org/en).

Technical

Infrastructure


Action plan – Community engagementThe Steering Committee will develop common tools and approaches and engage the community in its work, looking to best practices such as the DPLA and Europeana. The partnership community is broadly defined and the potential audience is unlimited.

Community

Engagement

Digitization Community Activities• Define an operating model, including establishing working groups; and identifying best practices,

shared processes, and tools.• Create best practices and tools to share and investigate training opportunities. • Develop approaches to help under-represented communities participate in NHDS.

End-user Community Activities• Develop a communications plan to engage interested stakeholders.

International Community Activities• Establish contact with international counterparts to discuss common approaches.


Action plan – Organizational capacity Establishing systems, policies, and procedures will build capacity and contribute to the sustainability of our efforts. Sustainability will be advanced by establishing sound governance and developing a diversified funding model.

Funding Activities• Develop a funding model. • Promote existing funding opportunities.

Governance Activities• Develop a governance model for the Steering committee.• Develop benchmarks and an evaluation framework.• Identify risks and risk responses.


Organizational

Capacity

Action plan – Summary and discussion

• Define content strategy

• Build inventory of projects to find gaps and prioritize

• Gather baseline statistics

• Define and develop discovery mechanism

• Develop metadata standards

• Develop policies and best practices

• Define operating model

• Create and share best practices and tools

• Identify and support under-represented communities

• Establish contacts and develop communications plan

• Develop funding model and promote funding opportunities

• Define governance model

• Develop evaluation framework


Question: What are your initial thoughts about the action plan?(What is missing? What do you find particularly interesting and exciting? How can you see your organization participating?)

Next stepsSteering Committee gathering feedback from broader community.

Sub-committees to be formed around certain themes. Community will be invited to participate.

Post comments to: cnhds.wordpress.com

OR

Send comments to:

[email protected] or [email protected]

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