Waypoints A Digital Archive of U.S. Coast Guard History Final Project Presentation Ken Langford.
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Transcript of Waypoints A Digital Archive of U.S. Coast Guard History Final Project Presentation Ken Langford.
Waypoints A Digital Archive of U.S. Coast Guard History
Final Project PresentationKen Langford
U.S. Coast Guard Historical Archive
Maintained by U.S. Coast Guard historians office in Washington, D.C.
Donated materials from donors/donor groups; materials collected by USCG historians
Size of collection ~200K artifacts (depends on who you ask)
Diverse Collection of Artifacts Physical artifacts
(e.g., lighthouse lenses, artistic works)
Historical files (e.g., case documents of the Titanic sinking)
Photographic images
Current Storage Solution
Current Access Method (paper)
Current Access Method (digital)
Flow Model
The Solution: Waypoints Administrative interface
Capture information on artifacts in a structured, consistent way
Add U.S. Coast Guard-specific metadata to enrich collection
Public interface Access entire collection online Promote exploration of underutilized
(public) materials
Conceptual Design: Usage Info Administrative interface
Users: historians, record keepers Needs: uncomplicated, fast input Tasks: record input, metadata creation,
retrieve data
Public interface Users: USCG retirees, historians, public Needs: support content retrieval Tasks: subject browse, keyword search
Conceptual Design: Data
Entities Artifact
Photograph, historic document, physical artifact, video, oral history, artwork
Creator Donor Collection Historian Historian Review
Conceptual Design: Metadata Year Person Thing Event Mission Unit Organization Location
Faceted (hierarchal) Metadata
ArtifactID
Artifact
User
UserID
Donor
Creator
Collection
HistorianReview
Historian
OralHistory
PhysicalArtifact
Video
HistoricDocument
Artwork
CreatorID
DonorID
CollectionID
HistorianReveiwID
HistorianID
ArtworkID
HistoricDocumentID
PhysicalArtifactID
OralHistoryID
VideoID
CreatorID
DonorID
CollectionID
Photograph
PhotographID
ArtifactID
HistorianReviewID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
Logical Design
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
ArtifactID
HistorianID
DonorID
ArtifactID
Artifact
CreatorID
DonorID
CollectionID
HistorianReviewID
Year
OrganizationAssociation
MissionAssociation
UnitAssociation
ThingAssociation
LocationAssociation
PersonAssociation
EventAssociation
associationIDartifactID
personFacetID
thingFacetID
eventFacetID
missionFacetID
unitFacetID
organizationFacetID
locationFacetID
associationIDartifactID
associationIDartifactID
associationIDartifactID
associationIDartifactID
associationIDartifactID
associationIDartifactID
Person
Thing
Event
Mission
Unit
Organization
Location
Logical Design(continued)
ER Diagram
Logical Design
Design Challenges Artifact sub-classing
Deciding which types of artifacts to represent
Handling photos Metadata structure and associations
Conveying many to many relationship Designing a UI for a faceted metadata
hierarchy
Physical Design
PHP and MySQL Implemented logical design in MySQL 4.1
and MySQL 3.23 Access Waypoints DB using PHP via Web DB management done primarily with
phpMyAdmin & PHP scripts
UI Design
Users Tasks Competitive evaluations Heuristic evaluation Testing, retesting
Users System
administrator
Subject matter expert
Casual browser
Tasks Data entry
System log in Add, update, & delete records Review records
Content review Search (including save, recall, & sort) Browse View images & descriptive content Submit feedback Link to other resources
Task Analysis
Scenarios
A new find Sorting through new materials & adding
data to database Searching for a friend
Helping a friend locate materials about their time in the service
A history lesson Researching a topic for a paper
Competitive Evaluation The Flamenco Search Interface Project
(University of California) The Charles W. Cushman Photography
Collection (University of Indiana) The Japanese American Relocation Digital
Archive MuseoSuomi (MuseumFinland) The San Francisco Public Library The International Children’s Digital Library
Competitive Eval (cont’d)
Competitive Eval (cont’d)
Paper Prototype
Main (intro) Page
Initial Browse
Mid-Level Browse
End Browse
Paper Prototype (cont’d)
Record Entry
Metadata Association
Hi-fi Prototyping
Web interface Photo input (record entry) Photo detail (end browse)
First Interactive Prototype
Browsing
Browsing
Browsing
Administration
Demo Let’s take a look
Executive Summary A digital archive meets organizational
goals DB design supports information needs Both browsing & search are used to
locate content System received positive feedback from
users Continued development is necessary
Lessons Learned
Faceted (hierarchal) metadata can be challenging for users to understand
It’s all about iterative design, testing, & development
Need a more comprehensive “controlled vocabulary” to help develop facets/categorization
Future Development Plans Develop administrative interface
Allow administrators to add artifacts Add capability to add metadata and
assign it to artifacts Continue adding data Evolve the public UI based on user
feedback Develop social component to allow
community input
What’s Next
Continue efforts to have system incorporated into CG enterprise architecture
Work with Foundation for CG History (non-profit) to host system during interim
Develop new ideas & continue to champion a CG digital library
Waypoints
Questions?