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On January 25 2001, HATII interviewed Richard Rinehart, Director of Digital Media and Guenter Waibel, Digital Media Developer, from the Museums and Online Archive of California. The Berkeley Art Museums and Pacific Film Archive is one of a number of organizations that undertakes digitization projects, to then have that material stored by MOAC. The main incentives for digitization are issues of distribution and extended access to the unique materials contained in various institutions throughout California.
This report discusses the Museums and Online Archive of California with particular reference to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. BAMPFA is the driving force behind MOAC due to the involvement of the Director of Digital media at BAMPFA as general MOAC project manager.
The collection at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive was already cataloged and MOAC chose materials to digitize from sub collections. The main priorities for choosing the materials are access, logistics and research. This is a three way process with the digitization team, the curators from the museum and the collection managers deciding which collection will be digitized. Aspects such as copyright, accessibility and research demand are taken into account, as are physical properties for digesting. This process is not formalized.
An example of this process is provided by the Cha collection, currently being digitized. The curator recognized this collection as important and distinctive material for research. The collection is mainly on small paper and photographs so there is no difficulty with physically moving it around the museum, a concern of the collections manager. And, as such, it was simple to digitize as there were no intermediaries and it could be done on the flatbed scanner. This sub-collection therefore met the requirements of all three parties in the museum and is now being digitized. More technically complex materials, such as Chinese scrolls, await technical developments before they can begin to digitize.
Project management is simpler with sub-collections as they are a discrete section and often funding can be targeted at sub-grants for specific collections.
The selection criteria include historical and cultural value, research significance and preservation against content loss. The criteria will change depending on the variables of collection management and new technologies.
MOAC is a consortium project and thus collaborates with other museums and libraries listed below to ensure that the digital versions are accessible through the online database. Different projects will have different levels of co-operation, including local, national, regional and international. Partners include the Tate and the National Gallery of Canada in a conceptual art project. Collaboration can be difficult to establish but is well worthwhile in terms of scope and funding. Collaboration also assists with technical expertise across the various projects and institutions involved. MOAC enables smaller projects to act independently and make their own decisions while still being part of the larger project. This modularized view enables the projects to be self-supporting, while following the technical requirements for MOAC using the database tool that has been specially designed for it.
The institutions involved in MOAC are:
Digitization has been ongoing within BAMFA since 1994, with the main purposes being research, preservation, public and widening access, and teaching and learning. MOAC has a web page offering project descriptions as well as technical standards and papers on imaging and tools.
The type of materials varies from project to project and is typical of museum collections – artifacts, paper based documents, original artworks, photographs, etc. Due to copyright issues, the nature of BAMPFA means that while some film is digitized, it mainly consists of video of artists discussing works, rather than actual creative films,
MOAC uses standards where possible for representing and describing content: CIMI, JPEG, MPEG, SGML, XML, MARC, Dublin core, EAD, CDWA. EAD is the main standard used and the database they have designed enables the data to be output in EAD format for use on the online systems. This approach allows sub-projects to be independent of each other whilst still adhering to the technical specifications for metadata and finding aids. The virtual museum that MOAC represents can function because of these standards and create a standard access area, with diverse collections from museums in disparate geographical locations.
Standards for data values include AAT and LC subject headings.
MOAC believes that standards should be used from the beginning and as much as possible though museums should be able to adopt as much as is practical for their purpose. The standards ensure long- term legacy data while in the short-term enabling projects to create the resources. The reason for the use of many different standards is that there are theoretically ideal standards but no commonly available tool that is affordable and functional for all projects; hence the creation of the MOAC database.
The digital media department in BAMPFA is part of BAMPFA’s administration department. The department is now closely aligned to the photography and collections departments and is integrated into the overall structure of the museum through this collaboration.
The museum is in the process of constructing a whole new building for the collections and a digital imaging lab is being planned from the start, as well as workstations in the exhibition rooms. This foresight is due to the collaboration and integral role the department has created for itself.
There is a sub-board of museum trustees who have a responsibility for the digital media department and assist in the support and advancement of the work it does.
MOAC’s project management is intensive since it co-ordinates the digitization of resources in eleven museums. It uses project management software to assist in this task. The funder does not impose project management structures, so the level of management often depends on the project. BAMPFA is currently involved in four projects, including MOAC. These projects may be led from the front with advice but the project management is fully self-determined.
As with many projects, the actual digitization is both carried out in-house and out-sourced. BAMPFA outsources materials where capability is an issue, for example it out-sources 16mm film to Mini DVD. The current director bought the in-house resources when the digital media department was established. They have flatbed scanners, slide scanners and a BetterLight high-end digital camera. Very detailed specifications are employed for data capture on format and resolution, for example. MOAC partners use grayscales and color charts for data capture.
The digital media center in BAMPFA has four staff – one director, one digitizer, one technical support worker and one webmaster. As is common in these projects, the staff came from a variety of humanities backgrounds with an IT interest and associated skills.
Training is important, as the center relies on current staff for a large output and staff must be able to respond to new technology advances. They now have a budget that enables everyone to attend at least one conference a year, in order to appreciate new developments.
Training is carried out on site and through learning on the job as well as courses, internal and external.
The collections in BAMPFA are partly in copyright and partly owned by the museum. The catalog does contain this information. Material in copyright is digitized but may not be mounted online for public access. Due to the contemporary nature of the museum collections, much of the material that is not owned by the museum is the copyright of artists who are still living or have a sympathetic estate and often grant permission. Material that is digitized but where there is no owner’s agreement is created under license to the copyright holder. However, the copyright situation is a criterion for selection of material in the first instance.
BAMPFA and MOAC’s preservation strategy has been developed from the experiences of other partners in the Californian Digital Library. They use fixed media CD as storage and are exploring DVD. The aim is to replace and migrate to ensure longevity. The CDs are physically stored in the building, two copies for redundancy. They eventually hope to store both on and off-site, particularly because of the geographical location of the museum. The database enables access to the CDs by an index number. The backup run by UC Berkeley automatically supports the database, meaning that they do rely on campus support. The access materials on Sunsite are stored in servers online but they are in JPEG low-resolution format and not appropriate for long term preservation. This is established by storing the images on CD as uncompressed TIFF. They are looking at QuickTime, DV, and MPEG7 for audio and video as a possible format for storage. The metadata on the CD is minimal; there is a list of names and files, and the catalog must be consulted to match the file with the metadata. The file name is a type of metadata, in that there is an institution acronym and a physical collection number. However, this is a point of contention and may be revisited.
The Digital Assets Management Database (DAMD) was developed by the digital media developer and is based on File Maker Pro. The database allows the cataloging of the digital materials with links to the main catalog that the museum has for its collections. The database was designed with museum needs in mind, so the structure and content holders (i.e. the records and fields of a database) allow easy cataloging of museum material. The main aspect of the database is that it enables the data to be output (at the click of one button) to EAD and MOA2 XML files, in accordance with MOAC specifications. The most important aspect is that it is platform-independent and is flexible enough to be used by all MOAC partners, regardless of specific project features. The EAD XML file acts as the finding aid to the images and is in accordance with the finding aids developed for the Californian Digital Library.
The metadata attached to the images ensure that the image catalog and the main catalog can communicate. There is a controlled vocabulary within DAMD, but it was created in-house. They do not record information about the original object, just the link to the main catalog. Both catalogs are written in File Maker and the link is in the relationship. They record information about the digital object, the digitization process, technical details, staffing details and administrative information. The metadata is created by the digitizer in the center, and the metadata elements are approved by the MOAC committee for the MOAC partners to use with the DAMD. In turn, these elements are a subset of the CDL specifications:
“There are currently 20 required metadata elements, two of which need to be manually input for each object. The other elements would normally be automatically generated or inherited from ‘default’ fields set in digitization management software.”[6]
It is the specification of these standards as subsets of overarching specifications that ensures that the material produced by individual museums and MOAC are interoperable and readily available for the CDL access system.
MOAC has specifications for image capture that all partners adhere to, which are once again based on specifications from the CDL. The following table is taken from http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ moac/moacfullspecs.html#ImageSpecs
|
Resolution |
Format |
Bit-Depth |
Gamma |
|
|
Master Image |
3000 pixels at least longest edge(no matter source size) |
TIFF (no compression) |
24 bit color for color sources 8 bit grayscale for b/w sources |
2.2 |
|
Intermediaries |
Anything over 150 pixels longest edge |
Optional. JPEG, QTVR, Flashpix |
24 bit color for color sources 8 bit grayscale for b/w sources |
2.2 |
|
Thumbnail Image |
150 pixels exactly longest edge |
JPEG (JFIF) |
24 bit color for color sources 8 bit grayscale for b/w sources |
2.2 |
These specifications allow all projects to meet the minimum criteria set out by CDL and MOAC and ensure the interoperability of the materials.
Images are stored as TIFF and displayed as JPEG in thumbnail and larger format. The aim of the compression is to improve access and decrease storage, and while not a major influence, theft was an argument used for compression. A little image processing is done after scan time, cropping, resizing and unsharp mask in PhotoShop.
As discussed before, BAMPFA is digitizing video, mainly films of artists talking about their work, for long-term research and not merely for temporary exhibits. The digital video objects are all held in the database as items identified. They use DV/QuickTime for capture and are exploring this format as well as MPEG7 for storage.
Almost no quality control is carried out. There are procedures on creating the images and as the files are saved with the occasional re-check of the images. However, for the most part, the digitizer carries out quality control at the time of scanning.
Access to the materials is at various levels: internally through the DAMD and externally through the BAMPFA's own webserver, and the Online Archive of California central server using DynaWeb. The EAD XML format enables MOAC and its partners to format their material so that it can be mounted immediately on the Online Archive of California central server. DynaWeb makes SGML files HTML compatible, and which can thus be viewed on the web. The advent of XML and the possibilities for web delivery are being explored but DynaWeb is currently the preferred access option. The finding aids produced from DAMD provide the key to accessing the digital objects, as do the specifications set down by the various levels of the CDL.
The digital media center at BAMPFA has an annual budget of $190,000 but this includes the technical operations budget, i.e. providing IT facilities for the whole museum. Special Project funding comes mainly from US federal funding, and one staff member is on “soft money”. They have had endowments and corporate sponsorship. Without a doubt, using standards has saved money and ensured the success of the project – not just community standards, but the specifications set out by CDL and MOAC.
MOAC represents a new direction in collaborative projects, having as its objective every museum in the state sharing their resources and collections. The broad thinking behind this has led to the creation of guidelines, the adoption of standards and the creation of tools to enable the vision to succeed. As part of the OAC, they have experience and understanding of the practices and processes required to create and develop a digital imaging project.
The database purpose-built to output EAD is significant as it highlights the problems associated with moving the images from the internal catalog to web based access. Prior to this database, the information had to be extracted, often by hand, to establish the data required for the EAD finding aids. Such tools are crucial for collaborative projects to ensure that the relevant material is recorded and extracted.
The guidelines that MOAC has developed also assist in ensuring that every museum which becomes a partner has the minimum standards required to create the quality of digital images that MOAC prescribes.
While the mechanisms are in place to facilitate the recording of metadata to ensure the longevity of images, the quality control and storage strategy are not formalized, thus leaving the possibility of errors and disasters. Staffing is also a concern. MOAC is managing with a small core staff but larger resources would enable formalized quality control thereby ensuring the longevity of quality images.