From the CNI Fall 2014 conference in Washington:
http://www.cni.org/topics/digital-libraries/developments-in-digital-repositories/
The National Library of Wales has developed a large number of digital resources (including newspapers, archives, manuscripts and photographs) that are freely available as a national digital public library for Wales. Development of this material has involved research and innovation in all aspects of the digital life cycle, and development of an underlying digital infrastructure, to support the creation of open and sustainable digital collections that can be used, and re-used, by the widest range of stakeholders. Central to this has been the development of digital content in collaboration with national and international partners. This presentation will discuss this national context for Cynefin, a recent project developed in collaboration with the Archives and Records Council Wales (ARCW) and funded by the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund. The project will digitize over a thousand tithe maps covering 95% of Wales between the period 1838 and 1947. The project has explored new approaches to crowd sourcing to geo locate the tithe maps and transcribe related apportionments, and also to develop links between content in the collections, linking location, ownership, land use and value. The project has also had to find innovative ways to digitize large tithe maps, including the use of an automated tripod head originally developed to capture panoramic landscapes and the construction of a specifically designed wall to ensure a consistent horizontal distance from the camera. The digital images have been ingested into a Fedora repository and shared using the IIIF standard. The crowd-sourcing element will be released to the public at the beginning of November 2014 and the initial results of the uptake and engagement of volunteers will be discussed in the presentation. The digital preservation of the tithe maps, apportionments and the crowd-sourced data will present future challenges, and approaches to these issues will also be discussed. This project is a potential model for other institutions to leverage the resources of the crowd to produce a useful and enduring digital humanities resource.
http://chicagocollectionsconsortium.org/
http://cynefinblog.archiveswales.org.uk/?p=195
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk/en/home
http://cymru1914.org/en
1. Cynefin: A Sense of Place
@CynefinProject
@glenrobson
National Library of Wales
2. Background to the project
• 3 year project to digitize 1,000 Tithe Maps
“Tithe maps were produced between 1838 and 1947 following the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 as a part of the
process to ensure that all tithes were paid with money rather than produce. They are the most detailed maps of
their period and there are over a thousand of them covering more than 95% of Wales.”
• Geo-reference
– Link old map to modern map
• Transcribe Apportionments
– Transcribe hand written text of who owned what and how much they
paid
• Linking Apportionments to Maps
– Rows in apportionment to field on Map
• Community Projects
• Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund and Welsh Government
3. Background to the Partners
• Archives Record Council Wales (ARCW)
• 13 Local government archive services
• 5 university archives services
• 4 national institutions
– Engage the public in the use of Archives
• The National Library of Wales
– Managing the project
– Copies of the Maps
– History of digitistation
4.
5. • Based in Switzerland
• Developed Georeferencer
• Old Maps Online
• Works with organizations like the British Library, NLS
and others
• http://www.klokantech.com/cultural-heritage/
20. Layout in Fedora (3.3)
Map Apportionment
Map Object
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Map Page
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Jp2
Archive Link
Apportionment Object
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Apportionment
Page
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Jp2
Archive Link
Apportionment
Page
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Jp2
Archive Link
Apportionment
Page
METS
DC
RELS-EXT
Jp2
Archive Link
21. IIIF
• After a meeting in February re-wrote tender
documents to mandate IIIF
• Share images and metadata (Presentation API)
22. Layout in Fedora with IIIF
Map Apportionment
Map Object
Map Page
Apportionment Object
Apportionment
PageApportionment
PageApportionment
Page
Manifest
Canvas
Manifest
Canvas
Image API Image API
Collection
• Counties
• Parish
• Pointers to Map & Apportionment
23. Benefits of IIIF
• No transfer of images
• Changes can be made straight away.
• No loss of control of images
• Presentation API means no custom connector
• Can display items in our own Resource
Discovery Solutions
25. What to do with the data?
• Geo-located Maps
– Coordinates on Map
– Warping?
• Transcribed Apportionments
– Coordinates of words
– Grouped by columns
• Link between Map and Apportionment Row
• How do we make it sustainable?
– Open Standards
– Do we need a map server?
26. Engagement of Volunteers
• Steady rather than spectacular
• No worries about the Maps
• Quite start while bugs are ironed out
• Expert groups sign off Maps
• Motivation Systems
27. Context in the Library
• Digitising for over 10 years
• 800K+ Digitised Wills
• 1 Million pages of Newspapers
• 1 Million pages of Journals
• WW1 Site – Archives, Photographs and
Manuscripts
28.
29.
30. Aims of the NLW Research Programme
UNDERSTANDING
USE
Understand use of
existing digital content
ENHANCING
CONTENT
Identify ways of
making existing digital
content more useful for
research, teaching or
community
engagement
DEVELOPING NEW
DIGITAL CONTENT
develop new digital
content that addresses
specific research or
education needs, in
partnership with
academics and other
key stakeholders
Bringing Digital Humanities to the Digital Library
31. Activities: NLW Research Programme in Digital Collections
PhD students developed in partnership with HEIs
and based at NLW
Funded projects and activities with national and
international collaborators
New projects in development, and funding
applications
National and international networks
Programme of workshop, publications and
activities around digital collections and research
32. Future
Cynefin
Maps
1838 to 1947
Newspapers
1804 to 1919
Cymru 1914
1914 to 1918
General
Digitisation
Shipping Records
1856 to 1914
Crime and
Punishment
Database
1730 to 1830
Welsh Bibliography
0 to 1970
33. Future
Cynefin
Maps
1838 to 1947
Newspapers
1804 to 1919
Cymru 1914
1914 to 1918
General
Digitisation
Shipping Records
1856 to 1914
Crime and
Punishment
Database
1730 to 1830
Welsh Bibliography
0 to 1970
34. Future
Cynefin
Maps
1838 to 1947
Newspapers
1804 to 1919
Cymru 1914
1914 to 1918
General
Digitisation
Shipping Records
1856 to 1914
Crime and
Punishment
Database
1730 to 1830
Welsh Bibliography
0 to 1970
36. Summary
• Engaging users and using the crowd to
enhance content
• Sharing data using IIIF
• Telling stories though linked data
• http://cynefin.archiveswales.org.uk/
• http://cymru1914.org/en
• http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk
Hinweis der Redaktion
Original map condition:Map was paper panels pasted on cloth, in a fragile condition and dirty, many folds and parts of the paper loose from the cloth. Parts had been lost and the cloth edges were very fragils.
Conservation work:Careful cleaning with brush and special eraser. Verification of fastness of ink and pigments. Flatten by humidification (if ink/colours allow), paste the loose papers back with wheat starch paste. Add additional cloth parts to support the edges of the map.Some maps need a new cloth backing, again applied using wheat starch paste. Where necessary missing paper parts are infilled with a suitable conservation paper.
Maps are allowed to dry between felts and under a few weights
maximum of around 4.5M x 3.5M.
Digitisation of the maps is being carried out using a Nikon D800E DSLR Camera with a 300mm f/4 ED IF prime lens. The Nikon D800E was chosen specifically because of its lack of a low pass filter, to achieve the sharpest results with maximum amount of detail.
A 300mm lens was chosen to increase the working distance between the map and the camera to minimise distortion, while still achieving an optical 400ppi (pixels per inch)
The camera is mounted on a GigaPan Epic Pro twin axis automated tripod head. The Epic Pro was originally designed to automatically capture large panoramic landscapes - however, we have re-purposed it to capture all of the detail within a single large map. After calibration, the GigaPan head captures up to 80 overlapping images of every part of the map. These separate tiles are subsequently stitched together to create a single 400ppi image of the entire map. Our largest maps create images up to 5GB in size.
To combat the issues of distortion and reduced depth of field, we constructed a specially designed curved wall. The curve in the wall ensures that the distance from focal plane to camera remains consistent in the horizontal axis, while the depth of field attained from the small aperture manages the inconsistency on the vertical axis. The wall is constructed of a wooden structure with a metal skin, to allow the use of high powered Neodymium magnets to hold the maps in place during capture.