An Arizona Model for Capturing and Describing Documents on

the Web

Richard Pearce-Moses

Director of Digital Government Information

Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records

rpm at lib.az.us

What Does WWW Stand For?

They both abbreviate to WWW

Rugged Individualism

Lack of standards ~ Lawlessness

[Collage of Robert Conrad as James West in the Wild, Wild West removed to

avoid violation of copyright.]

The Dream

To collect, manage, preserve, and make useful the

enormous amount of digital information

our culture is now producing

The Reality

Two Approaches

Bibliocentric (Item-by-Item)

Tech-centric (Capture-It-All)

Emphasis on Software Tools and Technology

Limited Assistance from Content Providers

Library of Congress & NDIIPP

University of Illinois at

Urbana-ChampaignSchool of Library • Information Science

OCLC

Content ProvidersTufts University Perseus Project • Michigan State University Library • State libraries: Arizona Connecticut, Illinois, North

Carolina, Wisconsin • UIUC partners: NCSA • WILL-AM/FM/TV • Information Management Services

Digital Archives

LibrariesArtificial collections • Item Level Control

ArchivesProvenance • Original Order • Hierarchy • Aggregate Control

Websites as Archival Collections

Documents of Common Provenance

Organized into Directories (Archival Series)

Publications v. Records

The Art and Craft of Building a Collection

What we do remains the same

How we do it will change

※

Identification/Selection

Acquisition

Description

Reference

Preservation

Identification — Where Do We Look?

Finding the Forest az.gov • state.az.us

※

Domain ToolIdentifies all distinct domains Reports

new sites since previous spider

Reports when sites disappear

Selection: Which Collections Do We Harvest?

Collection-Level Analysis

Macro appraisal sets priorities

Materials appraised as series

Content Providers Taxonomy Tool

Names • Administrative history

Relationships • Subjects • Functions

Selection: Which Documents Do We Harvest?

Identify Series Aggregate selection Set frequency of harvests

Site Analysis Tool Display structure Harmonize physical, intellectual structure Identify inaccessible content Show what’s new Show significant changes

Description

To be able to locate documents• when the creator or provenance is known• when the subject is known• and to aid in selection as to character

Series Description• Make directory name a meaningful title• Scope and contents note• High-level subject headings• Recorded in site analysis tool database

Document Description• Creator: taxonomy, internal metadata• Title: from internal metadata, noun

phrases• Subject: from series metadata, internal

metadata

Access

Finding Aids A valuable bird’s-eye view for archivists Of limited value to patrons . . . Unless they’re transformed into topic maps

Full Text Search Engines Ranking Algorithms Categorization / Packaging Results Based on series-level metadata Based on autoclassification

Description and AccessSeries-Level Description

name=“Creator” Governor’s Drought Task Force Rural Watershed Alliance

name=“Subject” reservoirs ground water

name=“Subject” drought water conservation

name=“Subject” potable water agriculture

name=“Type” planning reports

Categorized ResultsYour search for water, Phoenix Found documents in the following categories water (500+) water conservation (357) Salt River Project (210) drought (110) flood control (98) xeriscape (25)

Found documents from the following agencies Water Resources (135) Governor's Drought Task Force (102) Phoenix (87) Maricopa County (84) Corporation Commission (35)

Administration / Curation / Stewardship

SystematicRegular Workflows

Not idiosyncratic

CollaborativeConsensual , Not Idiosyncratic

Avoid Redundant Efforts

Quality ControlNeed for Good Metrics

Need for Regular Audits

Stay Tuned . . . .