IST-Data Services Blog

The Informatics Services team recently released the results of two major projects: a major redesign and refactoring of CineFiles and the new Botanical Garden Plant Propagation Information web site. Hot off the presses, iNews has published an article (Campus collections: New systems for education and outreach) describing the systems and the importance of collaborative teams to their success.

UC Berkeley is home to numerous world-class museums, visual resource collections, archives, and other collecting institutions. While campus museums have always placed a strong emphasis on the stewarding and safekeeping of these collections and on fostering collections-based research, increasingly their role in education and public service has grown. Recently, IST released two systems that highlight this trend: CineFiles (for the PFA Library and Film Study Center within the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) and the Botanical Garden Plant Propagation Information web system (for the UC Botanical Garden).

Each month, we highlight news relating to digital scholarship, access and preservation at Berkeley and around the world. To contribute, email Lizzy Ha. On Campus 20,000 New Images from the College of Environmental Design http://havrc.blogspot.com/2009/09/20000-new-images-from-college-of.html The College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley recently contributed 20,000 images to ArtStor. Images are available to the all the UC campuses via “the [...]

CollectionSpace, a open-source application to support Museums and collections management, will hosting se series of webinars in the next couple of weeks. The first webinar will be this Thursday, October 22 at 10 am PST. For more information, please go here. Current Schedule: CollectionSpace for Technology Service Providers and Developers, Thursday, October 22, at 10am PST. CollectionSpace for [...]

On October 6, the CollectionSpace project team announced the 0.2 release of the community source collection management system.  As the news item states, this release:

allows users to login to the system, create a new intake record, and auto-fill intake and object identification numbers. Information groups within data entry screens can be collapsed and expanded to maximize screen efficiency (use the plus/minus signs to the left of the information group name; e.g. object identification information). Updates to the object, create new main page, and find/edit main page are also incorporated into this release.

Equally important, this release demonstrates that the project team is gaining momentum towards the version 1 release in June 2010.  The next release is intended to continue accelerating the pace of development and will include:

an expansion of the ID service to include a choice of sequential identification numbers; the first version of the vocabulary service, which will provide access to controlled lists; and support for acquisition.

Also tantalizing, the UCB services team is working on some of the important schema customization and multi-tenancy capabilities for the system.

Each month, we highlight news relating to digital scholarship, access and preservation at Berkeley and around the world. To contribute, email Lizzy Ha. On Campus “Take Control of Your Publications with eScholarship” Catherine Mitchell- Director, CDL Publishing Group Monday, October 19, 2009: 4:30 – 6.00 p.m at Archaeological Research Facility, 2251 College Building, Room 101 In honor of Open Access Week, [...]

The Media Vault Program brought together users of its first generation services Friday afternoon, September 11, to share updates, gather feedback on functional requirements for a “generation 2” service and plan for a larger community workshop.  Following closely on the heels of last week’s workshop of access, preservation and digital [...]

Media Vault Program gathers providers of access, preservation, and digital curation services Who’s protecting our data? Can institutions such as UC Berkeley ensure “the cumulative record of the past and the well-tended, authentic, and readily accessible data of the present” on which scholarship is built?1 What is at risk if [...]

We are pleased to share our latest findings from our Interim Report.  Below is the Executive Summary. To read the report in its entirety, please visit the wiki or download the pdf here. Executive Summary of Findings “Scholarship is built on the cumulative record of the past and the well-tended, authentic, and readily accessible data [...]

Collections Trust, the organization behind Spectrum, has released version 3.2 of the UK Museum Documentation Standard.  According to an announcement dated September 8, 2009, from Gordon McKenna (International Development Manager for Collections Trust),

The new version has been updated to include further support for Revisiting Collections, an innovative methodology to help museums create services and exhibitions for diverse audiences. Other changes in the new edition include the revision of the Sources of Help and Advice sections, which include updated links to websites and publications providing further information on aspects of Collections Management.

The Revisiting Collections methodology is worth looking at more closely.  According to the web site

http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/increase_access/revisiting_collections/

Revisiting Collections … supports museums and archives to open up their collections for scrutiny by community groups and external experts and to reveal and capture histories hitherto hidden or ignored. A key strength of Revisiting Collections is that it provides a framework for embedding these new voices and their perspectives on objects and records directly within a museum or archive service’s catalogues and finding aids: ensuring that they become part of the story about the collections that is recorded and made accessible to all.

Collections Trust then has taken on the challenge of how to incorporate community (and other) annotations into the collection management system in a way that honors the contributor while protecting the information record of the museum.  The Revisiting Collections site includes toolkits and guides for museums and archives to use in their own efforts to explore bringing in such content.  While Spectrum is a documentation standard and not a specification for a collection management system, it is very refreshing to see an organization like this provide practical advice and tangible tools for the kinds of problems that museums, archives and libraries are facing on the ground today.

Each month, we highlight news relating to digital scholarship, access and preservation at Berkeley and around the world. To contribute, email Lizzy Ha. On Campus 5 Major Research Universities Endorse Open-Access Journals By Ben Terris http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Five-Major-Research/8042/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en UC Berkeley, along with Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and MIT, ’signed a compact agreeing to the “timely establishment” of mechanisms for providing [...]