BCAD Architecture
2009 British Cartoon Archive
Projects
A project to digitise and catalogue the Carl Giles Archive to current international standards and to redevelop the BCA website to significantly increase its accessibility and usability.
A project to generalise the BCAD infrastructure and standards and then demonstrate the applicability of the architecture by using it to make the enhanced digital content from three collections available on the web: Tom Webster sporting cartoons, Muggeridge windmills and watermills and the Renfew Archaeological photos of the Orkney Islands.
Verdi
BCAD
OverviewFeature BCAD VERDI
Everything except hi-res images freely accessible
Hi-res images available after Shibboleth authentication to partner institutions and Kent staff
Automated creation of images for web use and distribution
Images securely stored in central disk array – mirrored and backed up (1)
Medium res images can be viewed via zoom technology
Catalogued in system capable of exporting (2) Calm Modes/Calm
Metadata searchable and mapped to Dublin Core 13+ fields 7 standard fields (3)
Records with no images can be searched and displayed
Automatic image delivery with facets (thumb, record, zoom)(1) Verdi and BCAD have funded large disk arrays which can make some space available for other collections. This will need to be monitored and, where possible, digitisation project funding should try to add capacity to the storage array.
(2) Frequency and manual vs automated will depend on the system.
(3) 6 Mandatory ISAD(g) fields (easily mapped to Dublin Core) plus description: Unique reference number, title, date, level, Extent/physical description, name of creator(s), description
Overview of architecture
Website
Data handling systems
Image upload and resize
scripts
Archive management
Web users
Staff
Image repository
Image delivery
(1)
Simple / advanced search
(2)
Results with thumbnails
(3)
Record view with metadata
(4)
Zoom functionality
Or in a more visual way…
Website – (1) Search form (Advanced search)
Website – (2) Results with thumbnails
Website – (3) Record view with metadata
Website – (4) Zoom functionality
Image-related possibilities
Searching across collections and content (e.g. flat website content, book catalogues, digital repositories)
Security (images could be restricted to internal use, to other HE/FEs etc)
Exposing the full archival hierarchy Grouping and sharing images /creating lists of favourites Virtual exhibitions Data sharing/harvesting Additional metadata and related facets
The following have been implemented within the BCAD project and, while outside of the scope of VERDI, are possible with small amounts of development.
Website-related possibilities
Inclusion of questionnaires, comments and other Web 2.0 functionality
Single sign-on User roles and management E-commerce functionality (including buying images) Searching and displaying additional metadata and facets Creating facets to static website content Multi-site capabilities WYSIWYG content editing
Drupal was the CMS selected for the BCAD project and has now been selected as the University CMS solution. It is very powerful, extensible, and well-supported. Possible extensions include:
Website
Data handling systems
Drupal communicates with data handling systems Fedora and Solr.
Solr - Search engine, stores limited metadata for search results.
Faceted searching a strong feature of Solr.
Fedora is a digital repository, storing full record details.
Data between two systems originates from the same source.
Catalogue
(e.g. Calm / Modes)
Solr
(for searching)
Fedora
(for displaying record)
Export from catalogue system
Example of a Solr XML object for BCAD
Archive management
Digital image
(medium resolution)
Catalogue system (e.g.
Calm / Modes)
Enter and maintain:
Access to all versions of
images• Public metadata
• Internal
To demonstrate our catalogue system…
The cataloguing process
Manual process
administrative metadata
Demonstration of a record in Calm
See accompanying set of video files.
Archive managementThe image process
Archival master scanned
Archival master
enhanced(if required)
Copy both to disk array
Automated batch process of images (thumb, med, zoom)
To demonstrate our image processing system…
Manual process
Demonstration of image batch and zoomify batch process
See accompanying set of video files.
To conclude…
A demo clip of the website in action. Questions.
Website demonstration
See accompanying set of video files.