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
