Capturing Classroom Metadata with the DRC

The GIS-Based Photographic Archive at the College of Wooster has recently reconfigured its input process to allow students to add objects directly into the collection. Students in Professor Greg Wiles geology class have been capturing photographs of environmental change near Wooster, Ohio, and recording metadata about the location. While the project has been active for a few months, previous data was entered by a trained student worker. Now all students in the class are able to upload their images and metadata directly into the DRC.

The GIS-Based Photographic Archive is not the only NGL project to capture objects and metadata from the classroom, but it is the first to have students enter objects directly into the DRC. The student input process uses a simplified input form for adding images and metadata, and has students agree to a license that lets the college display and archive the images. Objects are reviewed by library staff before being made publicly available.

Having students add items directly to a collection is a great way to capture classroom work and ensure the growth of a collection beyond the NGL grant. If you are interested in setting up direct student input for your collection please let me know.

Tools To Know About: FOSS4LIB

Last week LYRASIS announce the launch of FOSS4LIB (Free/Open Source Software for Libraries), a website dedicated to providing guidance about Open Source software for the library community.

FOSS4LIB offers a list of Free or Open Source software and provides descriptions of the product as well as comments from users. In addition, the site includes 'Decision Support Tools,' worksheets that help you determine if Open Source is the right choice for you.

While very new, the list of software on this site is growing. FOSS4LIB can be an useful tool for determining if Open Source is right for you and what Open Source software is available.

Steering Committee Minutes January 19th

Technical Infrastructure Committee update

• Getting close to getting the Google maps interface up
• Matt is working on Newspaper interface
• Evaluating our Metadata documentation
• Responses are back from newspaper RFI
• Talking about moving to a new DRC modle.

Update on next Mellon proposal

• Last Friday Catalina, Alan and Mark put together an outline

Campus updates

• Denison – No Update
• Oberlin – Bringing online the music iconography collection
• Kenyon – has one more open call currently has a proposal for local interviews with people at a retirement community
• OWU – Just gave their last grant for the Potters for Peace Initiative and an extension on another project
• Wooster - Political Science grant will archive student produced political commercials developed in a class on the political process. Also Digitizing Art Slides and re-digitizing materials from slides that have faded.

OWU Chinese Movie Collection

Our Love Stories at Ohio Wesleyan University: a database of movies in conversational Chinese created by OWU students is now publicly available.

This collection of short movies was filmed by the students from the Chinese Program to promote students’ learning of Chinese language and culture. The students applied what they had learned in class to write the scripts and were strongly encouraged to let their creativity flow. They filmed the movies under the direction of Professor Wu during the spring semester of 2011. The project can serve as a resource to students of Chinese who are interested in utilizing textbook vocabulary and sentence structures in different contexts. The project is included as part of teaching materials for listening comprehension in the Chinese Program.