Review #5: Leslie Johnston on building a Fedora repositor for the UVa
I have finally mulled over the concept of Fedora repositories enough to actually seek out more information, after the whirlwind introuduction about a month ago by Thorn Staples. For this reason, I was pleased to see that the newest issue of D-Lib Magazine has an article on the University of Virginia's Fedora project.
Leslie Johnston seeks to explain the workflows process that the University of Virginia digital library program undertook in order to achieve this effort. She begins with a description of the top priorities. These formats, since as she points out the collection was divided up into formats, were those that absolutely had to exist in the Fedora repository if it were to be deemed a success. These were: images, texts, and EAD finding aids, all of which existed solely in the digital realm. What's interesting is that while the need for a digital image was the primary impetus for the program (there was none prior to the Fedora collection), the priority on texts and finding aids was made not because of an overwhelming need being vocalized by users but rather because the library itself needed a place to put its legacy digital holdings as well as a place to put EAD finding aids transformed from 1.0 to 2002. The priorities seem to have been chosen based on a mix of overwheming user need and lirbary need.
The next step, and this was a reiterative process throughout the entire development of the Fedora repository, was to illicit feedback and analysis about the collection itself that would go into the repository. Before they could do anything, they had to know exactly what was needed and what would go into the repository so that they could sculpt the repository around the collection that it would house. It's like building a new house just for you exactly to suit and fit your every whim and need rather than merely rehabbing an older house to the best of your ability. This thought appears over and over throughout this essay: the idea that the reason they used Fedora was so that they might create a digital repository system from the beginning to suit precisely the needs of their institution.
The analysis process took the shape of deciding how each format type would be displayed to the user and what programs would be required to make these displays. Since Fedora consists of three elements (metadata, data stream, and behaviors) it is imperative that the desired behavior be understood before beginning the development process, otherwise a system might get created that does not at all fit the needs of the institution's users. As Ms. Johnston makes explicit in her conclusion, the only way to ensure that this does not happen is continual feedback eliciting from the users of the system (both other staff and professionals as well as clients).
She describes the feedback about the prototype program (what she labels phase 1) as well as the first publically available version (what she labels phase 2). In both cases, the primary evaluators were librarians in the University of Virginia system (for phase 1) and faculty in the arts and humanities academic disciplines. The feedback during both phases caused the team to go back to the drawing board and/or seek out means to refine the system to better suit the needs of the users.
However, I was most interested in the best practices guidelines that the UVa Fedora team set out for implementing TEI records into the repository. Ms. Johnston explains how they broke the TEI collection into three $quot;content models$quot; that they then used to determine the behaviors that would be elicited from the EAD datastreams. These models were: 1) GenText, 2) Book, 3) PageBook. Each presents the relationship between the marked up text and the scanned image of the page, which in the Fedora repository would be displayed side-by-side. The TEI records were percieved therefore as merely related to the page images and not complete unto themselves. However, the page image itself is not complete without the TEI record. The two, the TEI record and the page image, complement one another and provide not necessarily higher functionality but best functionality for the user.
In her conclusion, Ms. Johnston emphasizes the importance of discussion with the user base of the system for the success of the University of Virignia Fedora repository. She breaks the process into 4 parts: 2 phases of development broken apart by 2 phases of discussion with users.
The Fedora repository, however, is no exception as an example of digital repository programs. Regardless of the architecture used, it is always wise to continually seek evaluation and analysis of the project at every step.
Leslie Johnston seeks to explain the workflows process that the University of Virginia digital library program undertook in order to achieve this effort. She begins with a description of the top priorities. These formats, since as she points out the collection was divided up into formats, were those that absolutely had to exist in the Fedora repository if it were to be deemed a success. These were: images, texts, and EAD finding aids, all of which existed solely in the digital realm. What's interesting is that while the need for a digital image was the primary impetus for the program (there was none prior to the Fedora collection), the priority on texts and finding aids was made not because of an overwhelming need being vocalized by users but rather because the library itself needed a place to put its legacy digital holdings as well as a place to put EAD finding aids transformed from 1.0 to 2002. The priorities seem to have been chosen based on a mix of overwheming user need and lirbary need.
The next step, and this was a reiterative process throughout the entire development of the Fedora repository, was to illicit feedback and analysis about the collection itself that would go into the repository. Before they could do anything, they had to know exactly what was needed and what would go into the repository so that they could sculpt the repository around the collection that it would house. It's like building a new house just for you exactly to suit and fit your every whim and need rather than merely rehabbing an older house to the best of your ability. This thought appears over and over throughout this essay: the idea that the reason they used Fedora was so that they might create a digital repository system from the beginning to suit precisely the needs of their institution.
The analysis process took the shape of deciding how each format type would be displayed to the user and what programs would be required to make these displays. Since Fedora consists of three elements (metadata, data stream, and behaviors) it is imperative that the desired behavior be understood before beginning the development process, otherwise a system might get created that does not at all fit the needs of the institution's users. As Ms. Johnston makes explicit in her conclusion, the only way to ensure that this does not happen is continual feedback eliciting from the users of the system (both other staff and professionals as well as clients).
She describes the feedback about the prototype program (what she labels phase 1) as well as the first publically available version (what she labels phase 2). In both cases, the primary evaluators were librarians in the University of Virginia system (for phase 1) and faculty in the arts and humanities academic disciplines. The feedback during both phases caused the team to go back to the drawing board and/or seek out means to refine the system to better suit the needs of the users.
However, I was most interested in the best practices guidelines that the UVa Fedora team set out for implementing TEI records into the repository. Ms. Johnston explains how they broke the TEI collection into three $quot;content models$quot; that they then used to determine the behaviors that would be elicited from the EAD datastreams. These models were: 1) GenText, 2) Book, 3) PageBook. Each presents the relationship between the marked up text and the scanned image of the page, which in the Fedora repository would be displayed side-by-side. The TEI records were percieved therefore as merely related to the page images and not complete unto themselves. However, the page image itself is not complete without the TEI record. The two, the TEI record and the page image, complement one another and provide not necessarily higher functionality but best functionality for the user.
In her conclusion, Ms. Johnston emphasizes the importance of discussion with the user base of the system for the success of the University of Virignia Fedora repository. She breaks the process into 4 parts: 2 phases of development broken apart by 2 phases of discussion with users.
The Fedora repository, however, is no exception as an example of digital repository programs. Regardless of the architecture used, it is always wise to continually seek evaluation and analysis of the project at every step.
posted by Tyler at 12:49 PM
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