As some of you know, I have been working on a project to use FRBR and
facets to improve access to moving images materials in libraries.
Although we have managed to lay some theoretical groundwork and work on
some practical proof-of-concept projects, I have continued to struggle
with finding a way to move the project forward. Someone recently
suggested that I should apply for planning grant. The project doesn't
seem to lend itself to a lot of smaller grants because the midpoints
aren't sufficiently interesting in themselves. The main thing that seems
to be holding me back from getting a bigger grant is that I can't even
put together a proposal because I don't have the knowledge to make the
basic planning decisions related to the technological aspects of the
project.
I initially thought the planning grant would primarily pay to hire a
consultant or consultants. It has also been suggested that alternatively
maybe I should form an advisory board and bring a group of people
together to help with the planning. What I would like is for someone(s)
to do the technical project planning that would be necessary to write a
realistic grant proposal--things like evaluate and recommend software
platforms and tools, make recommendations on the technical skill sets
and personnel needed, and develop a high-level plan of work, timeline
and budget.
I am looking for advice on how to identify people who would be good
members of an advisory board, especially people with a strong technology
background or, alternatively, how to identify an appropriate consultant
or consultants. If anyone has advice for how to go about this or
suggestions for specific names, please let me know.
Also, if anyone has general suggestions for the best way to approach
this kind of planning project, I would very much appreciate hearing
them.
To give you some sense of what we hope to do, there are three broad
components to the overall project:
1. Conversion of existing data
We will convert existing MARC bibliographic data to a form useful for
the new interface, i.e., normalized, machine-manipulatable values for
important data elements mapped to the appropriate FRBR levels. We will
cluster records representing the same movie or FRBR work and use these
clusters to create preliminary work records. We are current
investigating the potential of the XC Metadata Services Toolkit to
perform the initial data transformation.
2. Development of end user discovery interface
We plan to develop a discovery interface that will enable users to
easily find specific movies as well as explore categories of movies. The
interface will also support identification of appropriate versions based
on format, location, language options and other characteristics. We have
developed an initial prototype at http://blazing-sunset-24.heroku.com/
that was designed to demonstrate the basic concepts of our approach.
3. Creation of tools and documentation for data input and maintenance
Although the initial data conversion can be treated as a separate
process, we will need to develop tools and forms for inputting records
directly into the new system as well as for editing, deleting and mass
updating of data and records. Documentation will be needed for data
elements, data sources, input standards, and using the tools for data
input and maintenance.
If you are interested in more details, feel free to email me.
Kelley
Kelley McGrath
Metadata Management Librarian
University of Oregon
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