The University of Minnesota and its statewide partners – the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) and the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) –worked with the University of Michigan technical team to lead a project to develop a prototype workflow for depositing images and associated metadata into the HathiTrust system for access, storage, and preservation purposes. This effort helps HathiTrust meet one of its key functional objectives, support for non-book/non-journal digital content.
The project, which ran from September 2010 to December 2010, involved a variety of content types, from simple continuous tone images, to compound objects made up of a series of images in a specified structural relationship. Significant progress was made in defining and testing the METS, PREMIS, and XMP data that are required for ingest into HathiTrust. Consultants to the project are Eric Celeste and Katherine Skinner, who worked very closely with the Minnesota and Michigan technical teams. Partner colleagues from Wisconsin and Northwestern were also involved in providing input and review to the project.
Nearly 60,000 images and associated metadata were successfully ingested, providing a testbed for the evaluation of numerous technical, economic, and policy-related considerations now underway. Conclusions have yet to be drawn. Additional information, including the independent consultants' report, is available at http://www.mndigital.org/projects/preservation/.
Public access to the image content is pending approval of a formal agreement.
Project Sponsors
- John Butler, AUL for Information Technology, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
- Bill DeJohn, Director, Minitex
- Bob Horton, Director, Library, Publications & Collections, Minnesota Historical Society
- John Weise, Head, Digital Library Production Servce, University of Michigan, and on behalf of HathiTrust
Project Team and Roles
- Eric Celeste, Consultant (Project Manager)
- Jason Roy, University of Minnesota (Digital Content and Software Development Coordinator)
- Bill Tantzen, University of Minnesota (Software Developer)
- Katherine Skinner, Consultant (Digital Preservation Consultant)
For additional information, please contact John Butler (j-butl@umn.edu).
CNI Presentation
Butler, Weise, and Celeste presented a project briefing at the CNI Sprint 2011 Membership Meeting.
Project Summary (PDF)
Presentation (PPT)