the commons and digital humanities
DESCRIPTION
My presentation on the Balboa Park Commons on Wednesday, November 28 at the CUNYTRANSCRIPT
Better TogetherA Multi-institutional Digital Commons for Balboa Park
The Commons and Digital Humanities in MuseumsThe Graduate Center, City University of New YorkNovember 28, 2012
Christina DePaoloDirector of Digital Media, Balboa Park Online [email protected]@tinabean
Balboa Park Commons Project
To create an online library of aggregated digital collections representing the diverse cultural organization in the park.
Toolset for San Diego area teachers
Balboa Park – A Geographic Collaboration
Balboa Park at Sunset
BPOC History & Mission
• Founded in 2008 by the Legler Benbough Foundation, now it’s own 501(3)C
• Encourages strategic technology collaboration between the Balboa Park cultural organizations
• Execute a fundamental change in the way park organizations approach and use technology
• Help address common technology problems by providing shared tools
BPOC Initiatives
• Professional development/training• Common website platform• Digitization/collection access• Mobile Apps/gaming• Technical services
The Museums: San Diego Model Railroad Museum
Museum of Photographic Arts
Japanese Friendship Garden
San Diego Natural History Museum
San Diego Museum of Air and Space
Why a Commons?
• Partners identified online collection access a primary goal:– Collections online – Flickr/Flickr Commons/YouTube– Within the Park – internal commons– Balboa Park Commons - aggregated collection
portal
Diversity of Collections: San Diego Museum of Natural History Library
Diversity of Collections: San Diego Museum of Air and Space Film Archive
Diversity of Collections: San Diego Museum of Art Collection Gallery
Diversity of Collections: World Beat Cultural Center
Building a Commons Infrastructure
• Rapid-Capture Digitization• Common Collection Management Systems• Data Standards• DAMS
Digitization
Three rapid capture digitization stations exist for photography, film, video and books.
In the last three years over 250,000 photographs and videos have been digitized.
San Diego Air & Space Museum ArchivesMcDonnell Douglas HornetTop 10 - Flickr Commons
San Diego Junior Theatre Playbooks
Collection AcquisitionMuseum of Photographic ArtsCurrently digitizing
Digitization and digital asset management
• Approximately 250,000 images and video digitized by BPOC for 22 museums, libraries, and archives over 3 years
• 430,000 total assets on BPOC servers• Six different cataloging systems: EmbARK,
PastPerfect, EOS, Specify, Excel, Archivist’s Toolkit
• One digital asset management system for all
Infrastructure: Park-Wide Digital Asset Management System (DAMS)
Collecting & Coordinating Data
• Manual extraction of multiple datasets• Cleanup!• Identify breakpoints• Clean some more• Crosswalk• Ingest (and pray)• Clean yet?• Have a beer
Piction as Coordination Engine
Balboa Park Commons Community
Community – San Diego area teachers and students
Wireframes
Design Layer
1st Prototype
Current site in development
Benefits
• Multiple collections and collection types represented – ability to make new discoveries
• Great for SEO – great data• Cross-collection searching is possible• Each organization can participate as much or
as little as they want• Individual DAMS for internal asset
management
Limitations
• Migrating data from different databases limits the ability to bring in complex label or description fields.
• Distribution of finding aids and links to item level records is complicated.
• Adherence to specific standards is loose. • Very little content available to present context,
rich story-telling.
Take away…
Benefits of Collaboration
• Make technology affordable and accessible to institutions of all sizes
• Improve access so the public can use the museum’s rich cultural assets
• Increase cultural tourism• Enhance organizational capabilities