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 Collaborativecdepaolo@bpoc.org@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…

Thank you!

cdepaolo@bpoc.org@tinabean

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