Picturesque Church and

Monastery Buildings in Bulgaria

Digital collection developed by:

Marina Georgieva

Collection URL:

http://cdm15851.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/coll

ection/p15851coll105

April 2015

Digital collection creation

Scenario

Scenario

• Bulgarian Cultural Heritage Institute: a

fictitious organization that develops and hosts

the collection

• Project purpose: promotion of Bulgarian

Cultural Heritage Sites as the ultimate goal is

to attract tourist from all over the world

• Project scope: Religious Heritage Sites in

Bulgaria from the period 5th through 19th

century.

• Religious heritage sites is subdivision of

Bulgarian Cultural Heritage Sites that focus

on church and monastery buildings with

architectural value

A view from the HOME page of the collection

Digital collection creation

Project realization

Project realization steps

• Deciding on the project scope in the context of the

scenario outlined in slide 2

• Gathering resources from organizations and

individuals (donations and permissions of use) – URLs

– Photographs

– Films

– Books

• Creating resources especially for the collection – Pamphlets with slides

– Audio recordings

– Video recordings

• Processing the analog resources

– Scanning photographs at 600 dpi | saving them in JPG

– Scanning books at 300 dpi | saving them in PDF

• Processing the digital resources – Generating various formats of the audio-visual resources

– Retouching photographs in Photoshop when necessary

(adjusting contrast, brightness, color; cropping, removing logos

etc.)

• Developing metadata application profile (see slide

4 for details)

• Developing metadata template in CONTENTdm

based on the metadata application profile (see slide

5 for details)

• Organizing the digital collection for access – Searching features | customized Quick View

– Suggested topics | facets | customized browsing

• Creating identity for the digital collection (see slides

12÷14 for details)

• Creating About and Help section (see slide 15 for

details)

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: METADATA

Page 1 from the MAP developed to meet the needs of the collection

Metadata Application Profile

• Important for developing local element set

• Facilitates the metadata creation

• Provides vital information for the metadata input – Element name that’s displayed in the public interface

– Concise definition explaining the element scope

– Obligation of elements [Mandatory vs. Required vs. Optional]

– Occurrence of elements [Repeatable vs. Non-repeatable]

– Encoding schemes used with the various elements (TGN | TGM |

LCSH | AAT | ISO 6709 | W3CDTF, etc.)

– Mapping to the most appropriate Dublin Core element for data

interchange and OAI-PMH contribution

– Detailed input guidelines for clarity and examples for illustration of

correct metadata creation and consistency

• Promotes consistency of the collection metadata in

the long-run by giving specific rules, instructions and

examples for the metadata creators

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: METADATA

Part of CONTENTdm Metadata Fields based on MAP

CONTENTdm Metadata Fields

• Entirely organized on the MAP (slide 4)

• Consists of a local metadata element set featuring 25

elements, 12 of each are mandatory.

• Mandatory elements cannot be skipped during the

process of entering metadata, because they provide

vital information for the record

• The element Description is a Full Text Search

elements that facilitates the users in locating a

resource

• The elements are arranged in a way that provides

the most significant information for the resource first

and anything less important comes towards the end

• Regardless the optional character of some elements,

I strive for rich and descriptive metadata records

by doing my best to fill all the fields

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: METADATA

Specific Metadata Fields

• Purpose: to facilitate the potential tourists who plan

a trip to Bulgaria by giving them important information

about the name and the location of the historical site

• Fields with metadata in Bulgarian – Purpose: to give the users the exact spelling of the names as they

appear in highway signs and road/online maps. Additionally in the

location element the ZIP code and the county are provided for

convenience

– Fields:

• Church/Monastery Name

• Church/Monastery Location (LAF)

• Geographic Coordinates field is intended to

disambiguate the exact location of the

historical site for buildings with very similar

names or located in the same county

Specific metadata fields circled in red

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: BROWSING

Browsing functionalities

• Buttons that promote browsing: Browse All | Audio |

Video | Books | Photographs | Monastery Guides – Browse All provides access to all the items hosted in the

collection. The user can further narrow the results by applying

facets (see video tutorials at the end of the presentation)

– Audio | Video | Books | Photographs | Monastery Guides

buttons provide quick access and enable the users to browse in

the different categories. These buttons basically sort out the

resources according to their format and are convenient for the

user instead of having him to perform a format search himself

• Facets – Located in the left navigation menu

– Time-saving and effortless browse result refinement

– Narrow your search by: allows the users to further refine the

browsing/searching by applying different filters

– Browse suggested topics: conveniently lists how many resources

are hosted in each of the subcategories and facilitates the user to

quickly switch to browsing a specific type of church/monastery

Buttons that promote browsing

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Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: BROWSING

Home screen browsing

• Home screen browsing allows the

users to quickly jump into the

collection without any initial

frustration how to get started

• Browse these suggested topics

(located below the collection

description) conveniently lists the

categories and the number of

resources in each of them. Users

can quickly access any of them by

following the links

• Recent additions allows the

returning users to browse what has

been recently uploaded to the

collection without the need to

browse through all the items

Home screen browsing:

Browse suggested topics (bottom) | Recent additions (right)

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: SEARCHING

Basic search

• This is the most intuitive search type. Users simply

need to type a keyword in the search box under the

navigation bar

• Basic search type searches for match of the entered

query within all the fields of the resources

• It usually has high recall

• Users can further narrow the search results by

applying facets available on the left

Full text search

• Very convenient feature that enables the users to

search within the description field of each resource

• Full text search box is located above the resource

description right below the title of the item

• Great for items that provide transcript of the

audio/video

Basic search box below the navigation bar

Facets for search refinement

Full text search in description field

Digital collection creation

Organizing the collection for access: SEARCHING

Advanced search

• This is the most precise type of search

• The default advanced search searches within the

Church/Monastery Type (AAT)

• Enables users to search in a specific field

• Enables users to search in multiple fields

simultaneously

• Enables users to search by keywords and exact

phrases

• Enables users to exclude a word or a phrase

from their search

• Supports Boolean operators search [AND | OR]

• This all is achieved by selecting various options

from the dropdown menus

• For demonstration please check the video

tutorials

Advanced search: Top: Select search mode | Middle: Select search

field | Bottom: Search in 2 fields with applied Boolean operator

Digital collection creation

Evaluating search/browse results: QUICK VIEW

Quick View

• Great tool for users to quickly and easily assess

the usefulness of the search/browse results

• Blue color of Quick view box makes it easily

distinguishable

• Quick view enables users to quickly access: – Resource title

– Resource collection

– Church/Monastery name in Bulgarian

– Church/Monastery location encoded in TGN format

– Church/Monastery type encoded in AAT format

• Quick view is activated by hovering over the

resource image or the resource title

• Quick view works equally well in search mode

and in browse mode

• Quick view works equally well in both Thumbnail

and Grid display options

Quick view helps item assessment

Digital collection creation

Designing the interface: OVERVIEW

Home page layout • Distinguishable

• Stylish

• Easy to remember

• Bright colors to attract

attentions

• Customized logo for

adding identity

• Customized image collage

with some featured

buildings that represent the

collection

• Brief collection

description

• Customized Recent

additions menu

Digital collection creation

Designing the interface: ADDING IDENTITY

Logo • The specially designed logo

adds identity to the collection

and makes it stand out from

similar collection – The tricolor background represents

the Bulgarian flag

– The figures of the 2 saints to the left

represent prominent Bulgarian

brothers who created the Cyrillic

alphabet in the distant 9th century

– The color graphic to the right features

the notable Rila Monastery – a symbol

of Bulgaria

Image Collage • Represents the collection

• Intrigues users to explore it

• Displays prominent historic

buildings with architectural value

The logo of the collection

The image collage represents collection

Digital collection creation

Designing the interface: INTERFACE CONFIGURATION

Custom interface configurations • Add additional identity to the collection

• Facilitate navigation through the collection

• Emphasize on the important elements

Applied configurations • Adjusted appearance of the text [changing font style | font size | font color]

• Adjusted appearance of the result page [selected display option Grid view]

• Customized Image viewer [blue background | zoom levels]

• Customized PDF viewing option [PDF can be opened as a link]

• Enabled user-generated content [rating | tagging | comments | sharing]

• Enabled output options [print | download | save | share | email]

Digital collection creation

ABOUT US | HELP sections

About us • Provides important information for the users

• Introduces the digital initiative and the project

• Has the following subsections:

– Collection scope

– The project and the audience

– Collection policy

– Recommendations

• Linguistic skills

• Software

– Support us

– Credits

– Copyrights and permissions

– Contact information

Help • Supplements the general CONTENTdm help

section

• Written in plain language without any terminology

• Aims to disambiguate any confusion

• Aims to provide answers to FAQ

• Provides video tutorials and demonstrations

• Has the following subsections:

– Format | Playing media | Online Streaming

– Downloading | Viewing resources

– Permanent links to items

– Users’ contribution

– Quick view

– Language | Abbreviations

– Copyrights and permissions

Digital collection creation

ABOUT US | HELP screenshots

Help section (p. 1)

About us section (partial view)

Digital collection creation

Visual aids

Video tutorials • Important part of the help section

• Demonstrate the users how to navigate |

search | browse the collection

• Introduce tips and tricks for efficient search

• Great for novice users

• Appropriate for expert users who need a quick

refresher

• Great for users who access the digital collection

outside the business hours and cannot get help

over the phone

• Quick starter that saves time and frustration

Links to video tutorials • Intro | Navigation

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R5EPxMBeE

I&feature=youtu.be

• Exploring collection

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81q9ya1tOmA

&feature=youtu.be

• Searching collection

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad54syMA4sc

&feature=youtu.be

• About | Help

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-

t4D2rf30yc&feature=youtu.be

Digital collection evaluation

Criteria

Evaluation criteria • The outlined criteria are from users’ perspective

• During the development of the collection these criteria were taken under consideration for achieving the

ultimate goal of the project: informative and interesting digital library that not only attracts users to search

for resources but also encourages users to actively participate in the development by donating items

or providing permission of use. Additionally the digital library is a mini-social network where users can

actively share thought and insights for various resources.

• Criteria:

– Interface usability [search | browse | navigation]

– IR efficiency and effectiveness

– Information organization

– User satisfaction

– Aesthetic appearance

Interface usability

[search | browse | navigation] • The collection promotes easy navigation by variety of

navigation buttons and quick links. All navigation

elements are in legible font style, visible font color and

appropriate size

• The collection supports excellent search functionality by

providing basic and advanced search supplemented by

full text search in the Description field. Moreover, the

search results can be further refined which promotes high

precision

• Browsing is very intuitive: users can browse from the

home page or anytime when they are reviewing the

results – by accessing the browse by topic option of the

left side of the screen

IR efficiency and effectiveness

• These are a result of the combined efforts of the

interface usability and the information organization

• In Picturesque Church and Monastery Buildings

in Bulgaria IR efficiency and effectiveness is made

possible by the rich and well-structured metadata in

the records as well as opulence of search and browse

features

Digital collection evaluation

Applying evaluation criteria

Digital collection evaluation

Applying evaluation criteria

Information organization

• Knowing the crucial effect of well-structured and consistent

information organization in any digital library, when designing

Picturesque Church and Monastery Buildings in Bulgaria,

I made my best efforts to meet this important criterion that is

tightly interrelated with IR efficiency and effectiveness

• Controlled vocabularies are used in 10 of the fields to

ensure ultimate organization of the data

• List with controlled vocabularies – TGN = Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

– LAF = Local Authority File specially developed for this project

– AAT = Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus

– TGM = Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

– LCSH = Library of Congress Subject Headings

– ISO 6709 = Geographic coordinates

– W3CDTF = W3C Data and Time Format

– IMT = Internet Media Type

– DMCIType = Dublin Core Type of Resource

– ISO 639-2 = Library of Congress Language Codes

Aesthetic appearance

• All efforts have been done to make the digital

collection visually compelling with aesthetically

pleasing and stylish design

User satisfaction

• By allowing to users to actively express opinion and

comments and provide feedback we can judge about

their satisfaction

• Checking the statistics of the website (number of

viewing, downloading, printing items) also provides

vital information about users’ satisfaction

• I will be happy to have your feedback because there

is always room for improvement!

The end

Thank you for your time!

I hope you have enjoyed the collection!

Your feedback is highly appreciated!

Picturesque Church and Monastery Buildings in Bulgaria URL:

http://cdm15851.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15851coll105

Copyright 2015 Marina Georgieva