Visualizing Brooklyn The Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website

Tula Giannini, PhD, MLS, MM, Dean & ProfessorPratt Institute, School of Information & Library Science

EVA Conference- London, July 29, 2013

Project CHART Cultural Heritage, Access Research & Technology

Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

The Partners – building relationships

Left - Brooklyn Public Library

Right – Pratt, 14th St. Manhattan

Pratt Manhattan Brooklyn Historical Society Brooklyn Museum

Established in 1887, the year Pratt was founded, Pratt-SILS is the oldest LIS school in the US and the only one headquartered in Manhattan and has been continually accredited since ALA accreditation began in 1924.

Founded 1863, BHS is a museum, library, archive and educational center housing materials on Brooklyn History. BHS hosts over 9,000 members of the general public and programming for some 70,000 public school students and teachers annually.

At 560,000 square feet, the Brooklyn Museum holds NYC’s 2nd largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works. Founded in 1895, the Beaux-Arts building, designed by McKim, Mead and White, was planned to be the largest art museum in the world.

Central Library of the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) opened 1941. BPL is the fifth largest public library system in the US. In Fiscal Year 2009, BPL had the highest program attendance of any public library system in the United States.

An agency of the US government established in 1996, the IMLS is the main source of federal support for libraries and museums in the US of about $260,000,000 per year. Its mission is to "create strong libraries and museums that connect people with information and ideas.

Four IMLS grants to Pratt-SILS designed by Tula Giannini, principal investigator2005-2015 and PULSE, BPL partnering with Pratt, 2004-2007

Total - $3,307,812.00

Start and End Dates- Pratt Partners

Project Name and Logo

IMLS Award Number of Students and Focus

Student Support and Project Activities –

8/1/2004 - 7/31/2007IMLS Grant to BPL in collaboration with Pratt-SILSBrooklyn Public Library (BPL)

Public Urban Library Service Education

$536,890.00 21Preparing MSLIS students for careers in public urban libraries

-Fulltime urban librarian training positions at BPL-Tuition scholarships for the new urban public library curriculum-Workshops and seminars to enhance student learning

Start & End Dates- Pratt Partners

Project Name and Logo

IMLS Award Number of Students and Focus

Student Support and Project Activities –

1. 8/1/2005- 7/31/2008 Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS)

GATEWAI Graduate Archives Training & Education, Work and Information

$591,206.00 30Physical organization of archival collections – Creating digital inventories using EAD

-Tuition Scholarships for Advanced Certificate in Archives (4, 3-credit courses)-Practicum Stipends-Study Materials-Laptop Computers-Practice-based research

2. 8/1/2008 – 7/31/2011 Brooklyn Museum Libraries & Archives (BM)

M-LEAD-1

$946,325.00 $190,000.00 supplemental funding for an additional 24 students & 10 LIS faculty for international study

30Cataloging, metadata, digitization of museum library & archives collections – Copyright work for permissionsDevelop museum libraries certificate

-Tuition scholarships for the 12-credit museum libraries certificate- Practicum stipends for internships at BM libraries, archives and digital collections- Funds for conference attendance by project staff and students- Project seminars and workshops- Funds for study materials

Start & End Dates- Pratt Partners

Project Name and Logo

IMLS Award Number of Students and Focus

Student Support and Project Activities –

3. 8/1/2010 – 7/31/2013 BHS, BPL, BM

Digitization goal – 5,000 images, to date about 4,500

Project CHARTCultural Heritage Access Research & Technologyhttp://brooklynvisualheritage.org

$971,404.00 18-Cataloging, metadata and digitization of Brooklyn historical photography - Website- Developing curriculum for Digital Management Concentration

-Tuition scholarships for the 18-credit Digital Management for Cultural Heritage Program, six 3-credit courses (18-credits)- 2-semester practicum/ internship stipends (fall & spring)- Conference travel- Workshops & seminarsResearch on the 3 institution Web portal for Brooklyn Visual Heritage

4. 7/31/2012 – 8/1/2015BM, Frick Reference Library, NYARC (NY Resources Consortium)

M-LEAD-TWO Technology - WebOnline

$261,987 15Cataloging, metadata & digitization of collections

- Tuition scholarships and stipends for 2-semester practicum/ internships- ARLIS and ALA student memberships- Cataloging for Arcade - Digitization and metadata for collections, creating linked data

2. PRATT – New Curriculum, Research, Technology & Pedagogy – Digital Management for Cultural Heritage

3. Issues and Challenges

1. Project CHART Demonstrationhttp://brooklynvisualheritage.org

Project Activities

Education@Pratt-SILS • Students undertake the new program• Students carry-out 2-semester

Internships with stipend at partner institutions

• Example of a student project:• http://www.thisismattmiller.com/practicum/

Brooklyn Visual Heritage.org • Project CHART creates BVH website - a

new digital resource of historical photography

• Free public access using the open access platform - Drupal

12 new courses for CHART- e.g.:• Cultural Heritage Description

& Access• Programming for Cultural

Heritage•Digital Preservation & Curation•Information Visualization•Museums and the Network•Projects in Linked Open Data

BHS-Coney Island Boardwalk, Children - 1984

Project Outcomes and Impact• Education & Students• 18 students graduated with

their MSLIS• 90% of CHART graduates gained

professional positions • Images continue to be added BM – Lantern slide – Pratt Institute-1899

• Brooklyn Visual Heritage

BPL – Children at Dodger parade - 1949 • Work on social media in

progress• Digitized over 12,000 historic

photographs of Brooklyn

Brooklyn Visual Heritage – A work in Progress

Student project using GISPratt Institute Gateway features BVH images

Photo left: The first trolley car in Brooklyn was run in 1891. The first trolley car in Brooklyn was run in 1891.

BVH page with metadata

A Research Core Cultural Informatics Lab

http://research.prattsils.orgClassrooms designed for a research/

project pedagogy

Faculty and Student

Research

Student Showcase

Practicum/Internships

Explore alternative ways to explore images by location

Some options include:

• The implementation of an interactive map

• The development of a secondary navigation

system featuring neighborhoods

In order to address confusion about neighborhood

boundaries over time, we recommend exploring

the following options:

• Geotags

• Links to other relevant neighborhoods on

image pages

• A guide outlining the historical change of

neighborhoods

• Visual tools, such as maps or

timelines, that depict how

neighborhoods have changed over

time

Usability Test and Report

Testing done by Prof. Craig Macdonald and CHART students

Right – Recommendation 9 of 17.

Work in Progress on use of visualization

Many of usability test recommendations have been implemented.

Digital Convergence & Commonalities Across Libraries, Archives and Museums

Increasingly we see the world and ourselves as well in digital images - our digital self and reflections now seem real, or more so, as the space between real and digital blurs in our imagination and in reality.

Thank yougiannini@pratt.edu

www.brooklynvisualheritage.org