Projects...
The Digital Knowledge Center (DKC) at Johns Hopkins University, working
with the University of Virginia (UVA), the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) and the Sheridan Libraries network of international
partners, proposes an
architecture and technology research evaluation of
repository software and services such as e-publishing,
e-learning, and digital preservation. Each system will be
evaluated against a series of use cases. The result will be
a set of best practices and recommendations. These efforts
will inform the current development of Fedora and DSpace,
both of which are expected to be intensive over the next one
to three years, result in a typology of repositories and
repository users, and would allow us to begin, as part of
this project, planning for an interface layer that would
facilitate the integration of modules from various
applications. Perhaps most importantly, this effort will
create a greater understanding of the relative merits of
these systems and provide a roadmap for enhancing
interoperability among their services. While a Sakai-like
effort may ultimately be worthwhile, major (and current)
development efforts with both Fedora and DSpace argue for an
initial analysis, evaluation, and planning phase in
conjunction with both UVA and MIT.
The current phase of the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music, or
"Levy 2", is funded by the National Science Foundation,
the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a technology entrepreneurial
group in Maryland, and the Levy family. For Levy 2, the Digital Knowledge
Center will develop a digital workflow management system that will reduce
the amount
of human labor for large-scale digitization projects. During the first
phase of the
Levy Project,
funded
by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Sheridan Libraries
digitized
nearly 130,000 images of sheet music and cover art (nearly 30,000 pieces of
music).
Learn more.
CAPM focuses on the evaluation and development of a robotic system that will provide real-time access, through
a Web interface, to materials shelved in off-site locations. The Digital
Knowledge Center is working with faculty from
the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins and faculty
from the Economics Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. CAPM has been funded by the Mellon Foundation,
Minolta Corporation and private donors.
Learn more.
A core function of the DKC is to conduct usability research and testing
to facilitate access to digital library resources. The usability
research agenda seeks to identify and resolve issues that are specific to
the digital library and educational
community. The DKC provides usability expertise for many projects such as
the Roman de la Rose.
Learn more.
The proposed Information Technology Research, funded by the National
Science Foundation, will result in a fully automated
robotic system for
on-demand and batch scanning of print materials (CAPM) and an open-source
software framework for document analysis that can be trained and
calibrated by Humanities scholars (Gamera). The resulting system will
include an inter-linked mechanism between CAPM and Gamera. To evaluate different
techniques for document analysis, including Gamera, we will build a
testbed of digital images. Gamera will be usable designed according to
the principles of usability which include effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction.
Learn more.
For the SCALE project, the Digital Knowledge Center and Tufts
University Digital Library researchers are working together to provide two
broad classes of service to National Science Digital Library users:
1) automatic linking services that bind key words
and phrases to supplementary information; such automatic linking services
are already in place in the
Perseus
Digital Library, and 2) infrastructure to support automatic linking
based on authority control of names and terms and on links among
different authority lists such as thesauri, glossaries,
encyclopedias, subject heirarchies, and object catalogs. These services
will enable students, professionals outside a particular discipline, and
the
interested public read and comprehend documents full of unfamiliar
technical terms and
concepts. For instance, astronomy students and curious amateurs may need
to see
expansions of some acronyms, e.g., MACHO: massive compact halo object,
such as neutron stars and brown dwarfs or pictures of "Kuiper belt
objects." The SCALE project is funded by the National Science
Foundation. These services can be of particular help to undergraduates as
they shift from textbooks to scientific literature: the student plowing
through research papers on bioluminescence will, for example, be able to
locate information about particular chemical processes or relevant species
of echinoderms.
Learn more.
The main goal of the initial phase of the Peabody Digital Audio
Archive project is to digitize about one third of music in the
Peabody Archives, which holds about 10,000 hours of tape recordings of
concerts and recitals at Peabody over the past thirty years.
Completion of the first phase will ensure scalability and assist in
determining the cost and feasibility of digitizing the entire Archive
and similar collections.
The long-term goal is to digitize the entire collection. All ensemble
recordings in the Archives are believed to be in the public domain. PDAAP
is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Learn more.
