CONTENTdm Manual, Library Staff Manuals, Boreham Library, UA Fort Smith

CONTENTdm manual

Boreham Library Staff Manuals

CONTENTdm Manual

version 2008.6.5.a

The information in this manual is still being discovered and worked out - nobody else should depend on it yet!

Note: minor changes in menus and wording may occur with each upgrade. Just read the menu carefully and select the correct item wherever it is.

Steps to create an online collection

Read ALL instructions before beginning a project.

Create a Collection
Configure the parameters of the Collection
Edit the fields of the Collection
Create a Project
Attach the Project to a Collection

Each broad category, such as type of material or subject area, can be a Collection. Under each Collection, you create individual Projects.

The following are proposed or actual Collections and Projects under development.

Boreham Library Digital Documents is a collection. Under this can go Projects such as:

"General Materials" project: digitized materials not requiring a separate collection
"Regional Business & Industry Project"

Southeast Asia Collection is a collection covering the SE Asian immigrants, many of whom arrived at Fort Chaffee. Under this can go Projects such as:

oral histories project
artwork project
classwork assigned to the SE Asian students project

Fort Smith Historical Society is a collection. Under this can go Projects such as:

Journal
other materials from/about the Society

Setting Up a Collection

This is done in the Administration section of CONTENTdm.

First, determine the common characteristics of the collection. Is it a collection due to a common subject, or a common type of material?

Select a name that is broad enough that it will not restrict future projects which might be added, unless your deliberate intention is to set such a limit.
For example, a Collection called "XYZ Oral Histories" should only contain oral histories. If you intend to cover more topics about XYZ, you should call it something like "XYZ Collection" and then name the Projects after the specific format of the material: Oral Histories, Books, etc.

Configure the parameters of the Collection

Set the users to the authorized names allowed to create projects and enter items for this specific collection only
Enter the Description of what will be entered in projects in this collection
PDF Conversion set to Convert multiple-page PDF files to compound objects so the PDF files will be completely indexed
Full resolution enabled for best quality; accept the default full resolution settings for now

Edit the fields of the Collection

The following fields are standard for all collections here. The order may differ in each collection.

Field name	DC Map	Data Type	Large	Search	Hide	Vocab
Title	Title	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Author	Creator	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Publisher	Publisher	Text	No	No	No	No
Date	Date	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Description	Description	Text	Yes	Yes	No	No
Subject keywords	Subject	Text	No	Yes	No	Yes
Contributors, Additional	Contributors	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Type of Material	Type sound, image, etc.	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Format of File	Format - Medium	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Identifier	Identifier	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Source	Source	Text	No	No	No	No
Coverage (state or local)	Coverage - Spatial	Text	No	Yes	No	Yes
Rights	Rights	Text	No	No	No	No
Relation	Relation	Text	No	No	No	No
Language	Language	Text	No	Yes	No	No
Text	none	Full Text Search	Yes	Yes	No	No

Description is a Large field. Describe the material, where the original is stored, etc.
Subject keywords uses the Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I for now
Format of File is the computer file format, such as PDF, Tiff, JPEG, etc.
Coverage (state or local) uses a controlled vocabulary customized for us.
Select Yes in Controlled Vocabulary field and Use the existing contents, then save it.
Go back in and click on the new link for Administer controlled vocabulary, then enter the following, one term per line:

Arkansas
Regional
Fort Smith
Fort Chaffee
Westark/UA Fort Smith
Other

Text is for Full Text Search for PDF files, and is a Large field.

Creating a Project

You must have a Collection already created to which you attach your Project, in order to have the entries saved.

Load the Acquisition Station software.
Enter the project name. Example: Yearbooks
Enter the server URL: http://eval1585.contentdmdemo.com
Login as one of the authorized users.
Choose one of the existing collections.
Select full resolution.
Select where on your own computer you have the files for a "staging area".
Be sure that the ONLY files in the staging area are the ones to be included.
Leave the volume name to automatic. At the finish screen, leave it at FTP to server.
Select Compound Object.
Mark no.
Select the directory.
Unless it is a very large graphic, select no to full resolution for this file.
Now you are at the Import Compound Object screen. You fill in the Enter Compound Metadata table. In this example: Title = Numas. Type of material = Yearbook Author in this example is blank. Date.Creation is the date the final file was created. Subject keywords are selected from the list in the right pane. Relation = original material, in this example the paper yearbooks Description = any useful descriptive information, name changes, etc.
Source = original format of the material, such as paper Rights = UAFS owns, or info on permission and where filed Publisher is not indexed but enter here. Contributors, Additional = in this example the college name which is indexed Format of file = pdf in this example Identifier = general group info Coverage = select from list Language = English (add or use other as needed)
Text is blank. OCLC number is entered if available.
Check the box for ignore information before underscore
At the Finish screen, you can use the Preview button to see what you get.
If the Preview looks correct, click Save or if not, click Cancel
Click on finish. If you get the Windows firewall warning, tell it Unblock. The files are sent via FTP to the server. You get a successful message.
Now you are ready for the Administrator to approve the material. This is done on the Administration screens.
Select the Item from the blue bar.
Click on Approve all Plese wait while it adds the items. If the OCLC connection is too slow, it may claim disconnection. Use the Resend button.
Select the Index from the blue bar.
Click on the Start Index button.
It will take some time to index. You may need to refresh your screen to get the completion message.