Proni Digital Library

This digital library has been prepared in fulfillment of a class assignment for ILS-655
Southern Connecticut State University
Dr. Yan Quan Liu
Fall, 2005


© Amy Proni, 2005



Proni Digital Library Home Page
Browse the Proni Digital Library
Proni Digital Library Index
Organization of collection
Collection policy
Mission statement
Coverage set Subject set
Resource descriptions Access and use
Services and features Interface design
Collection 1: in Italy
Collection 2: in the United States
Collection 3: Documents
Collection 4: History


Project Notes

I began the project thinking that the FileMaker Pro database might provide a good structure for my materials, which include scanned and digital photos and documents, as well as music and movies. I spent about 20 hours before deciding that it was too cumbersome to use, and I really hated the web interface. I didn’t have the technical expertise to be able to shape the look of the interface.

I had read about Greenstone, and thought that might be a usable structure (overkill, really, for the size of my project) because that software runs on Mac OS X, and we have a Mac web server. Unfortunately, a Greenstone administrator really needs to have more programming experience (either in UNIX or PERL) than I have. I gave up on that after 35 hours, including one exasperating weekend where I begged a good friend to help me with it. I will owe him favors for a long time for that.

After all that I decided to just go with my gut instinct and create a project out of HTML. Some parts of the project were quite challenging. I bought a flat-bed scanner and selected some of the family photographs that we had been given. It took 14 hours to get the scanner (a CanoScan 8400F) to “talk” to my Apple Macintosh PowerBook G4. I ended up using a trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements v.3.0 to manipulate the digital images, as well as Apple’s iPhoto software. I purchased QuickTime Pro, and used it in conjunction with the Apple software iMovie to import, export, and manipulate family movies that my brother-in-law had converted from 8mm film to digital. All in all I worked on the project for about 200 hours, including scanning and resizing the documents and images, creating the index, and adding metadata to each file.

I looked into different options for a search strategy, and realized that this was more of a problem than I had expected. My husband did not want the library to be searched by Google spiders, and I didn’t want to add a commercial advertising-based product to my site. (Note: as of December 1st, that is a moot point: it has already been found by several search engines. As of December 2nd, I have added new code to the head of the main pages: <META name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"> which may block further spider searches.) I may be able to add a search feature in the future, but don’t have time right now to fully investigate and implement the appropriate code. What I have done instead is to add metadata keywords in the heading of each document (to aid in future searching) and created an index that is cross-referenced and provides direct links to pages. Access points are available to different sections of the collection through links at the top of each page.

Strengths of the collection: diversity of materials in two languages; options to see images as part of the overall story (small size) or as the story in and of themselves (in larger size); breadth and quality of the materials.

Weaknesses of the collection: inadequate representation of all family members; not enough materials from different time periods; indexing may not be exhaustive.

This was not an easy project; it has required much concentration, as I had to be able to envision the project in multiple dimensions. Not only was I concerned about the relationships between the files and folders, the images and their respective pages, but also about the relationships between the individuals. I wanted to be able to effectively tell their story through this digital library. Ultimately, I feel that I have succeeded. Could it have been done better? Yes, of course. No project is perfect. The final results might have been better if I had exercised more logic in selecting and arranging the images by date. Unfortunately, I did not locate some of the oldest photographs and documents until late in the process, and did not want to re-label each image file. The arrangement of some images was also rather haphazard, which is regrettable and something that I may change in the future. Having said that, I must also say that all of the URL links are relative; this is very useful when moving the collection as a whole from one server location to another.

The peer review process was useful in that one classmate suggested a way that I could improve the look of the section titled “Organization of the collection” on the home page. She also noticed that I had forgotten to include a statement on the maintenance of the digital library, so I added that to the “Services and features” section. Final revisions and editing, and arranging the files so that they could be burned onto a compact disc, required about 40 hours.

I take away from this project confidence that has been gained in creating and managing a rather large website. My career goal is to work as an independent information professional, providing research and consultation for clients on an as-needed basis. I am very pleased with the results of my hard work on the Proni Digital Library. Even though it is not directly related to librarianship, I feel that I am now adequately prepared to create a similar project for clients, or even to teach others about the difference between a digital library and basic website. The difference is in the details.

I could not have created this digital library without the assistance and support of my partner, Tullio Proni. From the server to the software, from the technical books to the scanner, every time I said that I needed to buy something else for the project, Tullio said "okay." Every librarian should be so lucky. Duilio Proni was kind enough to provide archived movie files and still images from his personal website, and moral support when the going was rough. P. Crone also offered technical assistance and encouragement. I am also grateful to friends J.D. Combs, M. Sinkula, and classmates J. Bassett, C.C. Hung, and E. Wassmer.

Thank you all.

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Last updated 2005-12-02. AP.

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