Archives and Special Collections at WCSU
The mission of the Archives and Special Collections Department is to collect, organize, make accessible, and preserve the records and artifacts documenting the history of Western Connecticut State University, the publications of staff and faculty, and the activities and achievements of its officers, faculty, students, alumni and benefactors. The Archives Collection includes official records and manuscripts, university publications, audio recordings, and photographs relating to the history of the University.
The Digital Archive Project
The purpose of all library and archives collections is not only to build and preserve a collection of valuable materials but to make those materials accessible. The intent of this project is to expand access to these materials by making them available though the web.
Project Goals
- Create digital representations of archive materials through both digital scanning and digital photography;
- Create Dublin Core meta-data for these materials to facilitate organization of these materials and so that they will be search-able and accessible by intelligent information discovery tools.
- Create interactive web-based access to these collections.
Project Personnel
This is a joint project by the library's Archives and Special Collections department and the library's Systems department.
Archives
- Meg Moughan, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian will focus on selecting appropriate materials for the project and manage the every day work flow. Meg will also help assure that any materials created by the project will conform to the national library and archive standards for digital content and exchange.
- Mary Rieke, Archives Assistant and Lloyd Williams, Graduate Assistant will be responsible for developing the work flow of the project and producing the digital assets. If and when student workers are made available to the project Mary and Lloyd will provide training and supervision. May and Lloyd will also be responsible for establishing a system of quality control assuring that all output meets the project requirements.
Systems
- Veronica Kenausis, Systems Librarian will manage the technical details of the project including system design, hardware acquisition and maintenance and work with other team members in designing web pages for searching and displaying the projects digital assets.
- Brian Kennison, Library Systems, is responsible for database creation and programming. Brian will work with other members of the team to design and creating web base search forms and displays. Brian will also be responsible for create programs that allow the project's meta-data records to be exchanged with other systems using Dublin Core RDF records, XML, and MARC.
Project Budget
Personnel Budget
All personnel involved in the project are incorporating the tasks involved in this project into their current work responsibilities. At this time there is no personnel budget.
Equipment Budget
This project will require the purchase of two workstations, a scanner, and an external drive for media storage.
| Quantity | Item | Specifications | Item Cost | Line Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Apple Power Mac G4 | 1GHz PowerPC? G4 | $1,499.00 | $2,998.00 |
| 1MB L3 cache | ||||
| 256MB DDR266 SDRAM | ||||
| 60GB Ultra ATA/100 | ||||
| Combo drive | ||||
| NVIDIA GeForce4? MX | ||||
| 64MB DDR video memory | ||||
| FireWire? 800 | ||||
| 56K internal modem | ||||
| Bluetooth Ready | ||||
| 2 | 17" Studio Display | 17" diagonal viewable image size | $699.00 | $1,398.00 |
| 1280 x 1024 optimal resolution | ||||
| 16.7 million colors | ||||
| 17.3 x 17.6 x 6.9-9.8 inches | ||||
| 14.6 pounds | ||||
| Two USB ports | ||||
| Apple Display Connector | ||||
| 1 | Ultra SCSI PCI | SCSI interface card | $49.00 | $49.00 |
| 2 | 512 Memory Upgrade | DIMM | $100.00 | $200.00 |
| 1 | LaCie? d2 120GB FireWire? Drive | Interface: FireWire? | $229.00 | $229.00 |
| Rotational speed: 7200 RPM | ||||
| Interface transfer rate: 400 Mbits/s | ||||
| Max sustained transfer rate: 35 MB/s | ||||
| Average seek time (write): 10 ms | ||||
| Buffer: 2 MB | ||||
| 1 | Epson 1680 Scanner Special Edition | 1600 x 3200 dpi | $799.00 | $799.00 |
| 48-bit | ||||
| USB - SCSI | ||||
| TOTAL | $5,673.00 |
Conclusion
This project while increasing access to Special Collections and Archive materials will also help the library in learning to create, manage, and support digital materials of all kinds. The management of digital assets is an area that will become increasingly important for the library and the university.
2003/06/03 19:50 EST
Veronica the equipment list for the video project is located here
2003/06/04 12:44 EST
Brian and Veronica,
I think this looks great. I would just make one addition under the Purpose of Archives and Special Collections statement. This should become the first paragraph of the mission statement. Other than that, it looks very good. Thanks Brian!
-Meg
Moved Previous Comments --brian, 2003/06/18 06:30 EST
I created a new page ExamplePhotoArchives and moved Meg's post there. My thinking is that we may (should) collect
lots of examples that will help inform us. It will also help other people (both inside and outside of the library) to see examples
of other photo archives. Keep them coming Meg!
new scanner --brian, Thu, 15 Sep 2005 14:43:24 -0400 reply
Panasonic-S7065C, Canon 7080C, and the Fujitsui 5750C with Kofax's VRS installed? Reliability or maintenance issues (shipping to mfg), ease of installation, any pluses or minuses you can provide is appreciated. No vendors please.