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2014 Prepared Talk Proposals

2,503 bytes added, 21:34, 8 November 2013
added proposal "So You Think You Want to Be a DPLA Service Hub?"
As the University of Toronto Libraries continue to facilitate and develop digital projects, it is vital that our systems be both centralized and flexible, able to meet the needs of various collaborators across a wide range of subject areas. Collections UofT is our first step towards a brighter digital future for special collections at the University of Toronto.
 
 
== So You Think You Want to Be a DPLA Service Hub?: Building a Statewide Repository System for the Commonwealth ==
 
* Steven Anderson, Boston Public Library (sanderson@bpl.org)
* Eben English, Boston Public Library (eenglish@bpl.org)
**No previous presentations at national Code4Lib conferences
 
Built upon the Hydra stack, the [https://search.digitalcommonwealth.org Digital Commonwealth] repository system houses a variety of digital content from over a dozen Massachusetts libraries. In addition, we also harvest metadata via OAI-PMH from many other institutions throughout the state that lives alongside hosted content in (relative) harmony. This talk will discuss the development of our repository, with an emphasis on the specialized use cases that are involved in creating a system to serve as a DPLA service hub.
 
As a DPLA hub, we have many contributing institutions using many different systems (Omeka, DSpace, CONTENTdm, Fedora/Hydra, etc.) with OAI feeds that we need to harvest from and convert into our data storage format. Come hear about our journey into the madness of what people can put into their metadata records and our data normalization strategies for adding this content to our system.
 
We'll also cover:
 
* Inherited design structure: Each OAI source has its own metadata nuances, and creating a "single script to rule them all" is out of the question (even if the records use the same schema and/or come from the same system). It is, however, possible to use good object-oriented principles to first cover general cases and then adjust for each institution's metadata style. In addition, our system uses content models that inherit from more basic implementations that make dealing with various types of heterogeneous content in our system much less painful.
 
* Interface design: How do you create an online metadata editor for world's widest user base, from septuagenarian volunteers to academic librarians? How do you design a search interface that keeps content from a small historical society from getting lost in a sea of material contributed by statewide organizations? We've got answers.
 
* Useful libraries and techniques: '''> 120'''. That's how many date formats our system currently supports when reading from an OAI feed. What libraries did we use to help parse that information? How are we generating thumbnails for various types of content when none are provided? We'll cover useful libraries and gems that make the hub developer's life worth living again.
[[:Category:Code4Lib2014]]
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