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Project Venod: Processing Non-OCRable Documents

December 5, 2010

Lothar Meyer-Lerbs
Research Assistant
Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany, Institute for Print & Media Technology

How can historic document scans be automatically coded and processed? What options are available if optical character recognition (OCR) is not possible? One answer is given by the Venod system. A document-specific font is created in a vector format (SVG) and the document is re-typeset with these fonts, creating a scalable, compressed rendering with special attention to all symbols printed on the pages. An XML output format allows the automatic conversion to different media, preserving all textual details. Some of the challenges and future possibilities of this method will be addressed in this session.

http://www.venod.de.vu/

Handout (PDF)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Digital Curation, Metadata
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Public Wow: Artistically Demonstrating the Value of Libraries by Making the Invisible Visible

December 5, 2010

Nathan Lambert
Chief Technology Officer
Case Western Reserve University

Timothy Robson
Deputy Director
Case Western Reserve University

The Public WOW interface can be thought of as an artistic expression of real-time library activity at Case Western Reserve University. In its most primitive form, it is a fun and interesting look at otherwise mundane statistics. With the help of Optiem LLC and, specifically, co-founder Clyde Miles, a concept similar to a stock ticker was created highlighting the idea that library usage is no single activity, transaction, location or person. Libraries are being used all times of day in myriad ways. Library usage is not just people sitting in chairs in Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) or other buildings on campus. The University’s customers are using the institution’s Web site services all over the globe. It is also people conducting searches in the school’s databases and catalog, it is customers using the University’s Web site, it is people walking in and out of KSL, as well as people transacting materials at the circulation desks.

In an industry that is challenged to constantly demonstrate its value proposition to its users, libraries have traditionally struggled with raising awareness of the many ways people use their services. It is hoped that this captivating display of perpetual real-time activity will spark a series of similar expressions through the library community and beyond into other customer service spaces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRRipVqST6c&feature=player_embedded
http://library.case.edu/ksl/librarystats.aspx
http://www.optiem.com/

Handout (PDF)
Handout 2 (PDF)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, User Services
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Reimagining IT at Cornell University

December 5, 2010

Reimagining IT at Cornell University

Dean Krafft
Chief Technology Strategist
Cornell University

In the summer of 2009, in response to the financial crisis, Cornell University began a broad review of a number of functional areas of the university, including information technology. Over a one-year period from the summer of 2009 through the summer of 2010 there was an extensive analysis and review of information technology (IT) at Cornell, culminating in an IT vision document whose recommendations have been adopted by the President and Provost. Implementation of those recommendations has now begun. The talk will present the new model for campus IT embodied in these recommendations, looking both at the broad impact of the model on Cornell as a whole and at the specifics of its implementation within the Cornell University Library. The talk will also cover some of the analysis and inputs that went into the review and its recommendations, and it will provide details on the IT governance and service structures that are currently being put in place. While Cornell is still early in the implementation process, the new model has the potential to dramatically improve the efficient and effective delivery of administrative and academic IT services on campus. At the same time, the strategy is not without risks, and it is resulting in significant organizational, cultural, and operational changes in the provision of IT services at the University.

http://www.cornell.edu/reimagining/it-review.cfm
http://www.cornell.edu/reimagining/docs/20100512_info_tech_vision.pdf

Presentation (PDF)

Handout (MS Word)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, User Services
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Reinventing Dissertation and Thesis Publishing: Driving Efficiency and Lower Costs by Harnessing Innovation

December 5, 2010

Austin McLean
Director, Scholarly Communication and Dissertation Publishing
ProQuest

This fall, for the first time in its 71 year history, the ProQuest / UMI Dissertation Publishing service did not charge authors or universities a publishing fee for e-submissions of master’s theses or PhD dissertations. This presentation offers a case study of ProQuest’s leveraging of cutting edge digital publishing technologies in order to lower costs and pass on those savings to customers. The presentation will also provide results from a recent survey conducted by ProQuest about perceptions of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), including the need to clarify issues related to copyright registration and dissertations. This program continues CNI’s active participation in the ETD movement, which has been ongoing since the early 1990s.

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETDs)
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SBE 2020: Future Research in the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences

December 5, 2010

Myron Gutmann
Assistant Director
National Science Foundation

Amy Friedlander
Senior Advisor, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
National Science Foundation

The Directorate for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) at the National Science Foundation is undertaking an activity called SBE 2020, through which ideas about the future of the SBE sciences are being gathered. The goal is to have the community provide guidance about big scientific ideas, opportunities to build capacity, and scientific infrastructure needs and possibilities over the next decade. The first steps have included a request for white papers that propose ideas for the SBE sciences for 2020. The papers have now been received and analysis and synthesis of suggestions is underway. This project briefing will include a description of the white papers received, a preliminary synthesis of their content, and plans for making the papers, and analysis of them, available to the scientific and policy communities.

http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Cyberinfrastructure, E-Science
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Seizing the Moment: Jazz Discography and Digital Communications

December 5, 2010

Seizing the Moment:
Jazz Discography and Digital Communications

Tad Shull
Editor, Jazz Studies Online
Columbia University

The history of jazz resonates in its recordings: they capture the act of musical creation in real time. A huge body of reference works on jazz recordings, the product of seventy years’ labor by jazz discographers, in turn documents this legacy of improvised performance. The discographies now present the field of jazz studies with an untapped source of knowledge about jazz history.

The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has begun to design and test a Web-based database application that can preserve, enhance, and provide public access to this store of data on jazz recordings. The application, J-DISC, will become available on Jazz Studies Online, an open access Web site managed by the Center, by May 2012. J-DISC will enable researchers, educators, and students to mine a wealth of existing and new data for insights on improvisation, artists’ careers, changes in jazz styles, the recording industry, and many other topics. The database application will also be collaborative, to an extent never possible in print or offline jazz discographies. It will allow discographic experts to edit and comment on the data and its sources, share new information as it becomes available, and exchange ideas about related research issues. Leading representatives from the field are now collaborating with the Center on the design of the editorial functions of J-DISC.

This project briefing will include a discussion of the challenges in documenting this fluid, evanescent art form with the accuracy it deserves, and the potential for collaborative editorship and supporting technology to achieve the required precision and scholarly credibility.

http://jazzstudiesonline.org/
http://www.jazz.columbia.edu/

Handout (MS Word)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Digital Preservation, Information Access & Retrieval, Special Collections
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Sherwood Archive Project: Preserving Private Records of Public Interest

December 5, 2010

Sam Meister
Digital Archivist
Consultant

David Kirsch
Associate Professor
University of Maryland

Since 2008, the Sherwood Archive Project has investigated the potential for collecting and preserving the records of failed businesses. This investigation is based on the collaboration with Sherwood Partners, Inc., a consulting firm based in Mountain View, CA, that offers a “private workout” service to failing companies as an alternative to formal public bankruptcy. During this service all assets of a failing company are assigned over to Sherwood, including all paper and digital records.

In the beginning phases of the project, collaborators from the University of Maryland worked with Sherwood to learn about how they were collecting and managing these records, and then, based on those findings, developed new strategies to embed long-term preservation mechanisms into Sherwood’s existing business processes. In the next phases of the project, the goal is to establish a partnership between Sherwood and an external repository that will take ownership of, preserve, and provide access to these records into the future. This project briefing will report on outputs of the project to date and next steps, including the development and implementation of a workflow for the ongoing transfer of paper and digital records between Sherwood and an external repository.

Handout (MS word)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Digital Preservation, Information Access & Retrieval, Special Collections
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University Publishing Initiatives

December 5, 2010

University Publishing Initiatives

 

David Ruddy
Director, Scholarly Communications Services
Cornell University

Mira Waller
Project Euclid Manager
Duke University Press

Maria Bonn
Associate University Librarian for Publishing
University of Michigan

Project Euclid: Crossing Boundaries (Ruddy, Waller)

Beginning in 2000, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Cornell University Library initiated a not-for-profit publishing program to help small and independent publishers of math and statistics serial literature get online. Since that time, Project Euclid has grown from six journals to over 60, it distributes monographs and conference proceedings in addition to journals, and it provides access to hundreds of subscribing libraries and individuals worldwide. The project has developed a business model that succeeds in covering its own costs while at the same time allowing it to provide open access to over 70% of its content. A significant factor in the success of Project Euclid has been its joint operation since 2008 by the Cornell University Library and Duke University Press. While a cross-organizational and cross-institutional collaboration presents challenges, it also greatly expands core competencies and offers many creative opportunities. This project briefing will give some background on Euclid, but will focus primarily on the Library/Press collaboration and lessons learned in the joint operation of a not-for-profit, academic online publishing service.

Handout (PDF)

 

MPublishing: Scholarly Publishing Strategy and Infrastructure at U. Michigan Library (Bonn)

Technological opportunities, shifts in academic attitudes about acceptable modes of scholarly communication, and economic constraints are all putting considerable pressure on scholarly publishing. These pressures create an important moment for universities to rethink and reshape their publishing infrastructure and overall scholarly publishing strategy. At the University of Michigan, several areas of scholarly publishing activity have been consolidated into MPublishing, a division of the University Library. This presentation will report on MPublishing, a year into its development, and describe its goals and strategies for building a cohesive scholarly publishing program through publication of content, through development of services and through advocacy and education.

 

http://projecteuclid.org
http://lib.umich.edu/mpublishing

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Publishing, Scholarly Communication
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Updates from the National Library of Medicine (NLM): MedlinePlus Connect & JATS (NLM DTDs)

December 5, 2010

Naomi Miller
Manager, Consumer Health Information
National Library of Medicine

Jeffrey Beck
Technical Information Specialist,
National Center for Biotechnology Information
National Library of Medicine

 

MedlinePlus Connect (Miller)

MedlinePlus Connect is a service that links diagnoses in an electronic health record to information from MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) consumer health Web site. MedlinePlus Connect allows health information systems to use ICD-9-CM or SNOMED CT codes to easily link to the corresponding MedlinePlus health topic page. Large mapping files enable this process. This briefing will describe the infrastructure of the service, the process of creating the mappings, vocabulary issues, and research questions for the future.

Handout (PDF)

Update on the NLM Journal Article Tag Suite (the NLM DTDs)
(Beck)

The NLM DTDs have had a wide acceptance since their 2003 release. This session will include discussion of the recent Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) Conference, the first user group meeting for the NLM DTDs, held on November 1-2, 2010, on the campus of the National Institutes of Health. It will also include information regarding NLM’s work with the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) to submit version 3.1 of the DTDs as a NISO Standard.

http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov
http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/jats-con/
http://www.niso.org/workrooms/journalmarkup

Presentation (PowerPoint)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, E-Science, Information Access & Retrieval, Metadata
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Using Institutional Repositories and Multichannel On-demand Streaming Media for Effective Teaching and Learning

December 5, 2010

Vinod Chachra
President & Chief Executive Officer
VTLS Inc.

One year ago, the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) embarked on a program (now called VCOM-TV) to create an effective teaching and learning environment for their students. Within a year, the content increased ten times and usage increased 800 times. More than 1000 different educational lectures are now available. An institutional repository is used to store and make available the lectures. The program uses a multichannel video recording of the lecture: one channel shows the professor and the other shows a PowerPoint or other content such as recordings of lab experiments or operating theater activities. These channels are synchronized, allowing students to “jump” around in the content from either channel as required. In addition to being a consistent teaching tool, the system is an effective learning tool in that it allows students to navigate and review small portions of a lecture from anywhere in the world using a standard browser.

This presentation will discuss the creation of the system (based on VITAL and Fedora) and the delivery mechanism (based on Cloud Computing). If time permits, there will be a demonstration of the the operation of creating and delivering content.

http://vcomtv.vtls.com/vital/access/manager/Index

Handout (MS Word)

Presentation (PowerPoint)

Filed Under: CNI Fall 2010 Project Briefings, Repositories, Teaching & Learning
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