Discovery & Access to Hybrid CollectionsErin O’MearaElectronic Records Archivist, UNC-Chapel HillCREW Workshop - August 23, 2011

Case Study• John (Yonni) Kenyon Chapman Papers• Hybrid collection • 15 linear feet including digital media• CDs comprising of material from PC, portable hard

drive and digital voice recorder• Ingesting into repository https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/

• Caveat: processing workflows are still in progress• Thanks to:• Jackie Dean, Manuscripts Processing Coordinator• Joyce Chapman, Project Librarian

Role of Finding Aid• Gateway for discovery with hybrid collections• Search engine and intra-repository discovery

is still possible• Finding aid provides in-situ access to digital

materials• Consistent with “bucketized” content access

(digitized items from collections)

Levels of Description• Describe down to the lowest level described in

the finding aid for the series (e.g. series or folder level description)• From that point of description, a URL is

embedded to the material housed in the Carolina Digital Repository

Point of Access:

Restricted Content• Finding aid will still provide description but

indicate restrictions (e.g. reading room access only, embargoes, etc.)• Some users will have login permissions for online

access

• Other institutions have experimented with this (Emory and Harry Ransom Center at UT)

Access Control• Access control is managed in our digital

repository via metadata (within FOXML and Solr)• Curator’s Workbench (ingest prep tool) can

assign metadata to indicate restrictions down to the file level

• Roles-based permissions:• Admin - (CRUD everywhere)• Curator – can have CRU or CRUD for specific

collections• Patrons – can Read specific collections• Public – default for collections. Only open content is

available to Read

Usability & Perceived Accessibility• More work/assessment needed • Issues • Once the user exits the finding aid, many never

come back (issue for both analog and hybrid collections)

• Displaying context within the repository• Managing multiple streams of metadata (finding aid

and repository)• Does the current model of reading room access

work? Is presenting material on a locked-down computer a realistic way for researchers to do their work?