Information Technology

The Libraries’ Digital Collection platform (http://library.osu.edu/dc) is the home to many of the Libraries’ unique and distinct digital materials.  This includes access to materials of all digital content types, highlighting the broad depth of the Libraries primary resources.  And the system continues to grow, as the Libraries continues to work to move older, unprocessed digital artifacts into the Digital Collections platform, and will be a vital part of the infrastructure that enables the Libraries to continue developing robust, vital, long-lasting digital projects into the foreseeable future.

As part of the Libraries’ regular investments into its tools and services, a significant upgrade to the Digital Collections system provides access to digital images has been developed.  Starting so, the Libraries will be transitioning to using JPEG2000 to generate publicly accessible content, while continuing to utilize TIFF formatted images for preservation.  This format change and upgrade will not only improve the overall performance for the user, but will enable the Libraries to provide a better experience, with richer detail and functionality, without compromising our commitments to content rights holders whom request materials be made publicly available at a resolution, unsuitable for print publication.

But maybe you’re asking yourself, JPEG2000?  Print resolution?  I’ve heard of those things, but how does this really impact the user?  It’s a great question.  The simple answer, is that for the user, they’ll have access to better images.  Let’s look at a practical example.  This image demonstrates the representative experience that a user can expect when looking at a 35 MM slide in the current Digital Collections system: https://library.osu.edu/dc/concern/generic_works/2r36tz92c

If you followed the link, you likely had to wait for the image to show up (this takes about 2 seconds), and the resulting image is kind of blurry, and unable to be viewed at any higher resolution (i.e, you cannot zoom in).  Obviously, this isn’t an optimal experience for the user, but it’s been one that we’ve had to work with due to a variety of rights and policy issues.  But even within these limitations, we knew that we could do better.

By changing the underlying data format used by the Digital Collections system to JPEG2000, we can provide that experience.  Looking at this same image in the staging environment, we can see the difference right away. 

First, processing time to render the image is greatly improved.  On the staging system, rendering takes less than a second.  But more importantly, the initial image quality has improved.  Gone is the blurry image…by using JPEG2000, the Libraries can provide a crisp, clear user to the user.  And what’s more, the resolution can get better.  Using JPEG2000, we can provide up to 4 zoom settings.  So, for this image, the user can zoom in for better detail:

Zoom X 2

Zoom X 3

Zoom X 4

By implementing these changes, the Libraries will be able to provide the user a far superior experience, while at the same time, optimizing the content presented for the web. Each of the above images were generated from a 35 MM slide scanned at 2800 dpi, though the images provided through the browser are optimized for web viewing at 72×72 ppi (pixels per inch), rendering these images unsuitable for professional publication. 

This is really cool, how is JPEG2000 different?

JPEG2000 is a fundamentally different kind of image format.  Let’s consider the above images.  In the current Digital Collections system (pre-JPEG2000), zooming of images is done through the creation of lots of individual images at created at different sizes and resolutions.  So, for a typical image, this would mean creating a thumbnail, and then 4 image panels at the different “zoom” levels.  Since the system doesn’t know anything about the size of the image or the content, these zoom levels are generated through an evaluation of the source image’s DPI (dots per inch).  For most images in the Libraries, images are scanned for preservation at 600 to 800 dpi.  For a traditional 8×10 image, the process that we use to scale the images for “zooming” works pretty well.  However, for images of large size, or materials at higher resolutions (like 35 MM slides), the process results in poor quality access images.  Additionally, as you might guess, this process of creating lots of copies of smaller images requires a great deal of processing, which is why performance has sometimes been sluggish within the system.  Using JPEG2000, we are able to start looking at new ways to overcome these problems.  As an image format, JPEG2000 is a different kind of animal.  JPEG2000 was created as a wavelet technology, meaning that in addition to containing information about the original image, the JPEG2000 wrapper also contains technical metadata that defines how a JPEG2000 viewer can extract the various “zoom” levels from the image.

JPEG2000 Image Pyramid

http://www.astraguard.com/images/Pyramid.png

Unlike the current process, which requires multiple JPEG images to be created, a single JPEG2000 image contains all the information needed to generate different access representations.  Embedded in the JPEG2000 container is the original image with a set of mathematical data that generates a pyramid of accessible copies.  The benefit of this approach is that images generated through JPEG2000 retain the clarity and detail of the original source image, but are optimized through the decoder for low-resolution viewing.  JPEG2000 is heavily used within the cultural heritage community precisely because it enables this type of functionality.

If you are interested in learning more about JPEG2000, you can look at the following:

• Wikipedia: JPEG2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000
• Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections: JPEG 2000: https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000143.shtml

These are exciting changes, and will enable the Libraries to offer our users a digital object that more closely represents the physical slide (or photograph)…support our students, faculty, and world-wide user communities and continue to showcase the OSU Libraries as a world-class research institution.

–tr

On Monday, May 15, Robyn Ness and Meris Mandernach lead another UX Cohort meeting for the Libraries Website Redesign project. This lively and informative session allowed the attendees to observe a card sorting exercise in action.

Nick Wilkenson and Judy Cerqua kindly volunteered to participate in the think-aloud exercise, together selecting what made the most organizational sense for content under a category. The goal was to reorganize content of the current Research Commons site. Some of the categories were: Home, About, Experts, Consultations, News, Rooms, and Events.

During the iterative redesign process, UX Cohorts can lead card sorting exercises with users, so it was helpful to see a live demonstration.

“This session was a great way for someone like me, who has never done UX testing, to see how it works in action and learn how to run a card sorting exercise. Robyn and Meris gave us great tips on how to get users to engage with the task.”

–Jennifer Vinopal, Associate Director for Information Technology

The group members were able to observe the process and ask clarifying questions.  From observing Nick and Judy doing the card sort, we learned how it’s helpful to pair people to talk through and try to come to an agreement for what goes where. Cohorts can ask participants about their thought process to encourage them to elaborate, but should be careful to not give the impression that their choices are ‘wrong’ in any way.

The pair didn’t agree on every decision, which often had to do with how one might interpret why a user is looking for particular content. In some cases, instead of assigning content to an existing category, they create a new category that they found to be more appropriate. At other times, they felt that content could be accessible from more than one category, to make sure it was as easy to find as possible.

Again, during this type of exercise, there are no wrong answers; the testers are instructed to group items in a way that makes sense to them. Robyn and Meris shared that in past exercises some people were able to complete the card sort fairly quickly, while others wanted to overhaul many of the categories, and still others were much more regimented in making sure all of the categories were assigned content. Another pattern that may emerge when there is quite a lot of content to categorize is that participants may re-assess their decision and move content after the first pass. Once they see the big picture, they get a better idea of how a user might search for information.

Meris and Robyn have even more interesting UX Cohort sessions planned. Would you like to learn more about this process and play a role in future user tests? Please join us at the next meeting to find out more.

• Digital Collections | Finding Aids Integration
  Implement a prototype for viewing Digital Collections information in Finding Aids generated from Archivists’ Toolkit, and vice-versa
• Digital Collections | Image Server Upgrade
  Implement Kakadu image server to increase efficiency in image delivery
• Archivists Toolkit | Finding Aids Publishing
  Automate some aspects of SCDA’s process in publishing Finding Aids from Archivists’ Toolkit to increase staff efficiencies
• Digital Initiatives | API
  Develop an API to facilitate the interoperability of various Digital Initiatives projects and provide programmatic access to library resources

• Discovery | Search Results Proof of Concept
  Experiment with consuming a few data sources via their APIs and and test usability of search results presentation (per Discovery Inquiry report)

• Room Reservation System | Responsive Calendar
  Implement a more responsive and intuitive calendar for navigating room schedules
• Room Reservation System | On Demand Reservation at Research Commons
  Reserve a room on the device as you are standing at the room
• Suma Enhancements | Research Commons
  Enhance and contribute back to NCSU’s Suma physical space usage assessment app
  
• Platform as a Service | Research Commons
  Develop interface for Research Commons to on-demand provision temporary sandboxes for researchers on platforms such as Omeka, Scalar

• Website Redesign
  Continue efforts to build out new CMS and to analyze content

• Update Sierra database and Dspace
  working with AD&S and external vendors

• Pc refresh for all of Thompson staff machines. 

• DUO multi-factor authentication
  

• Bring in hardware solution for VPN

• Doing backups directly to OCIO from SOCC

• Replace iSCSI switches at SOCC

• Work to refresh SOCC and Dreese data centers storage and NAS controllers

• Install and deploy JAMF Pro software to manage Macs and iPads
  
  
• Clean up Active Directory groups and users
  
  
• Create new Active Directory
  
  
• Work implementing all CIS/OSU benchmarks for servers, switches and firewalls
  
• Begin work with OCIO on replacement for mobile device management
  
• People counter

The IT Division has been collaborating with the Special Collections Description & Access (SCDA) team to implement an Archival Description Management System (ADMS). The software, Archivists’ Toolkit (AT), is the focal point of an effort to provide a central point for the records about the materials housed in our Special Collections.  AT is very effective at allowing staff to record accessions, organize records, and search for materials. We still need to get this information into the hands of researchers; this is why we are publishing Finding Aids for each collection.

AT is able to export the data in a standard format, Encoded Archival Description (EAD). This xml format may sound familiar, as it is what we have been using in the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.  This document encapsulates a great deal of valuable information about the collection and what it contains.  We were able to slightly modify the style sheets that came with AT to allow web browsers to transform the native XML into nicely formatted HTML.  The SCDA team publishes the EAD files to our web server and the search engines are able to pick it up.

AD&S is working with curators to provide links to these finding aids from their collection web pages, but we are also able to search them via the Search This Site feature on the OSUL website.  After you enter your search term, you can limit it to just finding aids,  using the tab.

So far we have finding aids up for a few collections, but we have lots more in the works, please check them out!

• University Archives – Charles Cook Stillman Papers, 1912-1970
• Theatre Research Institute – Ralph MacPhail, Jr. Howdy Doody Collection, 1903-2014
• Rare Books & Manuscripts – Sheila E. Murphy Collection, 1957-2014