Gary E. Strong, University of California, Los Angeles, gstrong@library.ucla.edu
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The UCLA Digital Library Program (DLP) serves as the catalyst
for the creation, management, and delivery of digital content
in support of the UCLA Library mission and goals. The program
provides for the storage and dissemination of digital objects,
including text, images, audio, and video in their various digital
manifestations and combinations. The UCLA Library provides
a Web presence for digital collections, as well as storage,
backup, and digital preservation support for all digital content
accepted into or developed by the Library.
UCLA Library Criteria for Digital
Projects
The Library has adopted these criteria as an aid in evaluating
whether projects will be a good return on investment and to
help in establishing a strong rationale when requesting support
from internal or external sources.
The criteria are designed to assess the strengths and weaknesses
and promote an analytical approach, but they do not have equal
weight, and not all may be relevant to any given project.
- The project provides significant support for UCLA research
and instruction.
- There are faculty and Library advocates for the project.
- The project’s intrinsic value will ensure long-term
use by a significant audience within and/or beyond the UCLA
community.
- The project can be completed with available funding or
has the potential to generate funding through grants, donors,
or other external fund sources.
- The project will strengthen or enhance an existing California
Digital Library (CDL) or UCLA resource, become part of an
important virtual collection, or support a national initiative
such as those sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries
and the Digital Library Federation.
- UCLA has intellectual property rights to the content and
can manage any required restrictions to access or can realistically
solve any rights issues.
- The project falls within traditional areas of library
service or moves those services into a direction consonant
with the Library’s strategic directions.
- The project advances sustainable models for scholarly
publishing.
- The project brings credit to UCLA Library in a manner
likely to generate further digital library projects and funding.
- The project has local or regional importance and represents
an effort only UCLA can initiate.
- The project is reasonable, practical, and achievable.
- The project saves money in the long term by eliminating
the need to acquire resources or by freeing up staff time.
- The project creates or sustains a partnership that the
Library will find valuable for future development.
- There is a compelling argument for digitizing material
that is deteriorating.
- The project will expand the Library’s technical
infrastructure or contribute to the development of national
digital library standards.
UCLA Digital Library Project Services
Project Planning. Digital Library Program
staff provides assistance in planning and management of digital
projects. Staff works with faculty and various campus organizations
to create digital collections to support both teaching and
research. Staff can provide advice during the development of
grant applications. Areas of expertise include digitization
standards, digitization costs, digitization methods, metadata
standards, rights management, and usability issues.
Project Management. One of the keys to a
successful project is strong project management. Once a digital
project has been approved and funded, the DLP staff can work
with the project team to assure proper management. The staff
is experienced with the hiring and training of employees, establishing
workflow and procedures, quality control, and budget management.
Production Partners. To achieve high standards
of digital image production, the program works in partnership
with its two main suppliers of scanning and photographic services:
the Southern Regional Library Facility and UCLA Photographic
Services.
Digital Preservation and Access. The program
provides backup and digital preservation support for all its
collections. Digital master files are stored in their original,
uncompressed format and can be made Web accessible. Backup
services are provided by Library Information Technology. In
addition, the Library is working with the CDL’s Digital
Preservation Program to provide for long-term preservation
of the UCLA Library’s digital assets. The Digital Preservation
Repository provides two distinct services: preservation of
the metadata and digital files in the form in which they were
initially deposited (i.e. “preserving the bits”);
and, for digital objects that conform to internationally accepted
digital standards, the migration of those objects (both metadata
and digital files) to new standards and formats as they emerge
and are adopted over time. All locally created content falls
into this latter category, ensuring not only that the digital
objects will survive into the foreseeable future, but that
they will continue to function as standards and software evolve.
The UCLA Digital Library of the Middle
East: Collections and Services
As part of its strategy of building its collection of Middle
Eastern resources, the UCLA Library is developing several digital
collection components within the Digital Library Program of
interest to this conference. The importance of identifying
significant collections that an institution might contribute
toward a Digital Library of the Middle East cannot be underestimated.
All partners must bring both expertise and content to the table
to make such a library successful. On behalf of UCLA, the Library
can offer several existing collections and potential collections
to be considered.
Near Eastern Manuscripts in the Charles E. Young
Department of Special Collections
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/area.htm#ne
Collections supporting Near Eastern studies include approximately
fifteen thousand manuscripts, with catalogs, in Arabic, Persian,
and Turkish, primarily in the fields of literature, philology,
theology, law, and history, and ranging from the eleventh through
the nineteenth centuries. Among its treasures are the collection
of Dr. Caro Minasian, a collection of Armenian religious manuscripts
dating from the fourteenth century and gathered in Isfahan
between about 1930 and 1960, and the Aintabi Collection, which
originated in Aleppo and contains many unique Arabic texts
little-known to scholars. The department also holds rare printed
materials related to the study of Near Eastern civilizations,
including fine-press editions and translations of the Persian
poet-philosopher Omar Khayyam, limited-edition facsimiles of
illuminated Arabic manuscripts, and historical editions and
versions in European languages of the Arabian Tales of
the 1001 Nights. In addition, UCLA Library houses an outstanding
collection of travel books from the nineteenth century and
more than two thousand nineteenth and early twentieth-century
photographs, many by Francis Frith, of people and places in
Egypt , Israel, Iran, Istanbul, and the Levant.
Collection 1047: Minasian Collection
The Minasian Collection
of Persian and Arabic Manuscripts consists of works related
to the studies of theologians and scholars in centers of learning
in Iran from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries.
The manuscripts, which include both bound collections and single
works, shed light on the social, religious, and political history
of Iran and Shi’ism,
and on the development of Persian culture during the period
and reveal what was taught and studied in schools, including
commentaries on classical texts in mathematics, astronomy,
and logic.
The collection is one of the most significant of the Near
Eastern manuscript collections held by the UCLA Library. The
creation of an online inventory, which is phase one of a project
to provide access to this important collection. Phase two,
for which funds are being sought from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, will create a detailed online finding aid
for the entire collection of 1497 manuscripts; catalog records
for individual manuscripts; digital versions of 320 manuscripts
selected by expert scholars; and tools for the retrieval, display
and editing of data in both Roman and non-Roman alphabets.
Phase three, for which future funding will be sought, will
digitize the remainder of the collection and add collaborative
online research tools.
Website: http://digital.library.ucla.edu/minasian
Collection 896: Ottoman Turkish Manuscripts
The department
also contains several Ottoman Turkish collections, dating principally
from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and written mostly
in Anatolian cities. Initial analysis undertaken by two specialists
in Ottoman history and culture reveals that these works constitute
an invaluable record of efforts to disseminate theological
and cultural information in Turkish to a non-scholarly audience
unable to read Arabic. Work to create records for the collection
is well advanced, and a selection of notable texts for digitization
has been made.
Cataloging and Metadata Services
In addition to UCLA collections, the Library will also contribute
cataloging and metadata services, facilitating access to the
Digital Library of the Middle East. The metadata capture titles
and other significant textual information in the vernacular
(Arabic, Turkish, and Persian) and are displayable on the Web.
The final application will also allow for searching in the
vernacular as well as the ability to store digital objects
with commentary in a “virtual collections” tool.
These annotations can be for the contributor’s own use,
for instruction and sharing with students or for communication
with other scholars or the general public. It is the UCLA Library’s
intention to build an environment that is equally accessible
and functional for scholars and students working in either
Roman or non-Roman scripts.
Web Gateway: Web Sites rich in Middle Eastern Resources
The UCLA Library can also offer important Web services, which
connect users to resources and specialists. Several valuable
resources have been created through the efforts of David Hirsch,
librarian for Middle Eastern studies at the UCLA Library, by
also serving as gateways to the resources; they offer an enhanced
service to speed users to materials of interest. They include:
Potential Collections for Digitization
Digital Publication Partnership
UCLA
Encyclopedia of Egyptology (UEE)
Willeke Wendrich, Editor-in-Chief
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/UEE/
The UEE will be an online scholarly publication with contributions
from experts worldwide. The intention is that it will become
the standard source in its field, replacing existing printed
sources. The UCLA Digital Library Program will house the non-textual
content (photographs, maps, other images, and video) and the
CDL eScholarship Repository will host the text content (articles).
Access to these materials will be free to the world. However,
there will also be an access application that will provide
searching, linking and other innovative services, using the
DLP as the back-end repository. As with all UCLA Library digital
collections, the DLP will also provide digital preservation
services for the project via the CDL Digital Preservation Repository.
T he advantages of online publishing are obvious. It is no
longer as costly to produce a new edition, because single encyclopedia
entries that are in need of revision can be updated whenever
necessary. Through rigorous version control and the continued
availability of older versions of an entry, the articles can
be cited as similar to printed versions are. To ensure the
highest academic quality, all articles incorporated in the
UEE will be peer reviewed and published through the University
of California online publishing Web site, the CDL eScholarship
Repository under the title: UEE
Open Version.
A key feature of this project is its innovative approach
to data access by making use of hypermedia. Hypermedia provides
opportunities for the linking of information in ways not otherwise
possible, enabling it to be seen in new ways and facilitating
the creation of new knowledge. Online media provide opportunities
that are not available in printed versions. Innovative search
functions and data mining that make use of textual, pictorial
and, in future, audiovisual formats have an important heuristic
function that far supersedes that of searches in printed volumes.
Rather than only presenting a conveniently accessible body
of excellent content, the UEE will ultimately open up new research
methods through combining and interweaving the knowledge of
eminent scholars with original data in completely new ways.
Furthermore, the UEE will solicit constant feed back from
its users, which will allow continuing development through
their comments and suggestions as well as through increased
technological possibilities. In addition, the UEE will provide
links to current high-quality Egyptological content on the
Web with annotated summaries that clarify the strengths and
weaknesses of the pages, according to criteria provided by
a panel of scholars.
For further information about the UEE:
Summary and Recommendations
The UCLA Library is interested in and willing to participate
in the next steps to be taken to create a true Digital Library
for the Middle East. Such a resource only strengthens the programs
in Middle Eastern studies here at UCLA and the support for
study and research by a growing cohort of international and
American students. As the library continues to build extensive
and deep collections, its staff can contribute cataloging and
metadata services that facilitate access to those collections
and Web services that connect users to resources and specialists.
- Fundamental to this initiative’s success is the
need to establish clear standards for bibliographic access.
There is a need for uniformity in bibliographic format, access
points, name authorities, Romanization and use of subject
headings.
- OCR technology for Arabic and Persian printed materials
has improved greatly but is still not sufficient to enable
searching without human review of all digitized texts.
- A coordinated plan for preservation of unique collections
at different institutions throughout the world should be
developed. One institution might have runs of rare Arabic
newspapers, another Arabic lithographs, and so forth. Priority
could be given to those materials facing impending disintegration,
in order to preserve their intellectual content.
- As the UCLA Library is making an effort to digitize Arabic,
Persian, and Ottoman Turkish manuscripts, it is interested
in joining with others in creating a virtual union catalog
of digital Middle Eastern manuscripts.
- The UCLA Library can provide training and orientation
opportunities where appropriate for staff who are able to
visit the offices of its Digital Library Program.
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