Waypoints A Digital Archive of U.S. Coast Guard History

Final Project PresentationKen Langford

U.S. Coast Guard Historical Archive

Maintained by U.S. Coast Guard historians office in Washington, D.C.

Donated materials from donors/donor groups; materials collected by USCG historians

Size of collection ~200K artifacts (depends on who you ask)

Diverse Collection of Artifacts Physical artifacts

(e.g., lighthouse lenses, artistic works)

Historical files (e.g., case documents of the Titanic sinking)

Photographic images

Current Storage Solution

Current Access Method (paper)

Current Access Method (digital)

Flow Model

The Solution: Waypoints Administrative interface

Capture information on artifacts in a structured, consistent way

Add U.S. Coast Guard-specific metadata to enrich collection

Public interface Access entire collection online Promote exploration of underutilized

(public) materials

Conceptual Design: Usage Info Administrative interface

Users: historians, record keepers Needs: uncomplicated, fast input Tasks: record input, metadata creation,

retrieve data

Public interface Users: USCG retirees, historians, public Needs: support content retrieval Tasks: subject browse, keyword search

Conceptual Design: Data

Entities Artifact

Photograph, historic document, physical artifact, video, oral history, artwork

Creator Donor Collection Historian Historian Review

Conceptual Design: Metadata Year Person Thing Event Mission Unit Organization Location

Faceted (hierarchal) Metadata

ArtifactID

Artifact

User

UserID

Donor

Creator

Collection

HistorianReview

Historian

OralHistory

PhysicalArtifact

Video

HistoricDocument

Artwork

CreatorID

DonorID

CollectionID

HistorianReveiwID

HistorianID

ArtworkID

HistoricDocumentID

PhysicalArtifactID

OralHistoryID

VideoID

CreatorID

DonorID

CollectionID

Photograph

PhotographID

ArtifactID

HistorianReviewID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

Logical Design

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

ArtifactID

HistorianID

DonorID

ArtifactID

Artifact

CreatorID

DonorID

CollectionID

HistorianReviewID

Year

OrganizationAssociation

MissionAssociation

UnitAssociation

ThingAssociation

LocationAssociation

PersonAssociation

EventAssociation

associationIDartifactID

personFacetID

thingFacetID

eventFacetID

missionFacetID

unitFacetID

organizationFacetID

locationFacetID

associationIDartifactID

associationIDartifactID

associationIDartifactID

associationIDartifactID

associationIDartifactID

associationIDartifactID

Person

Thing

Event

Mission

Unit

Organization

Location

Logical Design(continued)

ER Diagram

Logical Design

Design Challenges Artifact sub-classing

Deciding which types of artifacts to represent

Handling photos Metadata structure and associations

Conveying many to many relationship Designing a UI for a faceted metadata

hierarchy

Physical Design

PHP and MySQL Implemented logical design in MySQL 4.1

and MySQL 3.23 Access Waypoints DB using PHP via Web DB management done primarily with

phpMyAdmin & PHP scripts

UI Design

Users Tasks Competitive evaluations Heuristic evaluation Testing, retesting

Users System

administrator

Subject matter expert

Casual browser

Tasks Data entry

System log in Add, update, & delete records Review records

Content review Search (including save, recall, & sort) Browse View images & descriptive content Submit feedback Link to other resources

Task Analysis

Scenarios

A new find Sorting through new materials & adding

data to database Searching for a friend

Helping a friend locate materials about their time in the service

A history lesson Researching a topic for a paper

Competitive Evaluation The Flamenco Search Interface Project

(University of California) The Charles W. Cushman Photography

Collection (University of Indiana) The Japanese American Relocation Digital

Archive MuseoSuomi (MuseumFinland) The San Francisco Public Library The International Children’s Digital Library

Competitive Eval (cont’d)

Competitive Eval (cont’d)

Paper Prototype

Main (intro) Page

Initial Browse

Mid-Level Browse

End Browse

Paper Prototype (cont’d)

Record Entry

Metadata Association

Hi-fi Prototyping

Web interface Photo input (record entry) Photo detail (end browse)

First Interactive Prototype

Browsing

Browsing

Browsing

Administration

Demo Let’s take a look

Executive Summary A digital archive meets organizational

goals DB design supports information needs Both browsing & search are used to

locate content System received positive feedback from

users Continued development is necessary

Lessons Learned

Faceted (hierarchal) metadata can be challenging for users to understand

It’s all about iterative design, testing, & development

Need a more comprehensive “controlled vocabulary” to help develop facets/categorization

Future Development Plans Develop administrative interface

Allow administrators to add artifacts Add capability to add metadata and

assign it to artifacts Continue adding data Evolve the public UI based on user

feedback Develop social component to allow

community input

What’s Next

Continue efforts to have system incorporated into CG enterprise architecture

Work with Foundation for CG History (non-profit) to host system during interim

Develop new ideas & continue to champion a CG digital library

Waypoints

Questions?