contentdm 'quick start' at the metropolitan museum of art

CONTENTdm ‘Quick Start’

at The Metropolitan

Museum of Art

Dan LipcanThe Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries

January 17, 2010

Talking about…

• Landscape & background• Why CONTENTdm• Strategy & plans• Outcomes• Expectations

The landscape

• Ubiquity and growth of digital resources

• Recognized need within the library

• Some content management systems in the Museum, but...

• No place for text-oriented, digital research materials

Object database

Image database

Internal Department site

Administrative documents

Modest beginnings

• Single-volume digitization• Outsourced projects• Born-digital resources• Collaborative ventures• Linked to/from the library

catalog

Kummel Report

Kummel Report

Auction catalogs

Auction catalog pricelists

Macbeth Gallery catalogs

Macbeth Gallery

Custom Google search

Why CONTENTdm?

• Research & testing• Other libraries• Staff reorganizations• FirstSearch Base package

subscription

Our CONTENTdm setup

• 3,000 items/10 GB storage capacity

• Hosted by OCLC• + 1 OCR Extension license

Our Strategy & Plans

• Use ‘Quick Start’ as a live prototype/proof-of-concept

• Justify a larger-scale digitization program

• Graduate to a Museum-wide initiative

Collections for CONTENTdm

• Collaborative projects• Finding Aids• Images• Manuscripts• Text documents

Text documents

Images

Images: Fine bindings

Images: Fine bindings

Manuscripts

Finding Aids

Collaborative projects

WorldCat sync/OAI Harvest

Challenges

• Network connections• Learning curve• Choices! Flexibility!• Integrating CONTENTdm with

other resources

Lessons

• Prepare to do and re-do• Initially, display is of secondary

consideration– Default display is good enough to

start with

Errors happen

Errors happen

Outcomes (so far)

• A solid start• Batch import/upload works well• OCR processing excellent• Excited about the full-text search

potential

Expectations

• Make the possibilities repay our efforts

• Content will be more accessible than ever before

• Advance digitization as a preservation measure

• The software, our presentation and our skills will get better over time

Dan LipcanThe Metropolitan Museum of Art Librarieshttp://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org

daniel.lipcan@metmuseum.org