Andrew and Yan,
Thanks for the reply and the information!

About DSpace metadata registry, we can add new schema or new elements to it, but the elements won’t be searchable, right? (We can change the input-forms.xml to make it display in the submission workflow if we will have item by item submission.)

In our case, we already have the herbarium metadata in excel sheet created by Biology Dept. They are now in loose Darwin Core and kind of free style. If I would like to do data transformation (transform it to a mixture of DC and Darwin Core possibly) and batch import the xml to DSpace, how to proceed? Where should I add the Darwin Core metadata (in the dublin_core.xml as well)? It seems that it only has dcvalue element. 

Sai

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew Hankinson
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Digital imaging questions

Hi Sai,
"Archival Quality Images" has some meaning, but it might be helpful to look
up a standard and start your investigation for a new camera based on the
recommendations of that standard. You might find this page from the Library
of Congress helpful:

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/content/still.shtml

I think your indication that RAW/TIFF is a pretty safe bet, but being able
to point to an actual standard might make your case for a new camera a bit
more convincingly.  Other factors to take into account (other than
megapixels and format) are color reproduction, image 'noise' specifications,
DPI, lighting, (and probably many other things).

For DSpace you don't even need to map the elements of Dublin Core to
DarwinCore. Dspace has the ability to input different schema in its metadata
registry. You can then modify the "inputforms.xml" file in the Dspace config
directory to add the appropriate fields for the additional metadata fields.

Hope this helps!
-Andrew

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Deng, Sai <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi, list,
>
>
>
> A while ago, I read some interesting discussion on how to use camera to
> produce archival-quality images from this list. Now, I have some imaging
> questions and I think this might be a good list to turn to. Thank you in
> advance! We are trying to add some herbarium images to our DSpace. The
> specimen pictures will be taken at the Biology department and the library is
> responsible for depositing the images and transferring/mapping/adding
> metadata. On the testing stage, they use Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd digital
> camera
>
> (
> http://www.fujifilmusa.com/support/ServiceSupportSoftwareContent.do?dbid=874716&prodcat=871639&sscucatid=664260).
> It produces 8 megapixel images, and it doesn't have raw/tiff support. It
> seems that it cannot produce archival quality images. Before we persuade the
> Biology department to switch their camera, I want to make sure it is
> absolutely necessary. The pictures they took look fine with human eyes, see
> an example at:
> http://library.wichita.edu/techserv/test/herbarium/Astenophylla1-02710.jpg
>
> In order to make master images from a camera, it should be capable of
> producing raw or tiff images with 12 or above megapixels?
>
>
>
> A related archiving question, the biology field standard is DarwinCore,
> however, DSpace doesn't support it. The Biology Dept. already has some data
> in spreadsheet. In this case, when it is impossible to map all the elements
> to Dublin Core, is it a good practice for us to set up several local
> elements mapped from DarwinCore?
>
> Thanks a million,
>
> Sai
>
>
> Sai Deng
> Metadata Catalog Librarian
> Wichita State University Libraries
> 1845 Fairmount
> Wichita, KS 67260-0068
> Phone: (316) 978-5138
> Fax:       (316) 978-3048
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>             [log in to unmask]
>