[Libs-Or] Oregon Digital Library Project -- pre-announcement

[Reese, Terry]

URL:  http://odl.library.oregonstate.edu

I would like to give the Oregon Library community a heads up to a project that is currently coming to completion (at least, the initial work is coming to completion).  At this point, the project isn't "officially" available for public consumption, but will be placed into our production environment in early March with an official announcement coming around the same time.  I would like make the Oregon Library community aware of this project ahead of that announcement and allow this group on opportunity to preview it, ask questions (if there are any), offer feedback related to functionality (or search relevancy) and potentially self-identify additional collections from institutions not represented in the initial phase of the project.   Anyway...

Oregon State University Valley Libraries has completed work on an LSTA sponsored project lovingly called, the Oregon Digital Library Project (ODL).  The project goals were to create a portal that would bring together all the digital collections being created in the state - and provide a clearinghouse that would help to make Oregon's digital collections easier for more Oregonians to discover, as well as help individuals interested in specific content make those connections with the digital collection owners and rights holders.

The project as it stands now, includes collections from most of Oregon's 7 OUS State institutions, as well as from public libraries and museums that make their collections available online and utilize software that makes access to their collections metadata available in a standards compliant format (specifically, OAI-PMH for the initial harvests).  Initial collections were selected primarily based on their support for standards-based metadata harvesting.  In the coming weeks, I'll be filtering in access to a number of other collections that, while not able to provide their data in OAI-PMH format, can provide their metadata in a manner that will enable automated collection and harvesting.

So what is the ODL?  The ODL is essentially a public discovery tool for Oregon digital collections.  It doesn't capture or host digital assets, but rather, harvests metadata about individual items found in collections around the state.   Using software developed at Oregon State University Valley Library, these collections are then indexed, and made available through a global search.  The fact that it is possible to build the ODL for the state of Oregon is a testament to the fantastic work being done by institutions around the state building high quality digital collections.  Likewise, I think it bodes well for the state of Oregon that as these collections are being built, institutions are not just creating collections, but they are creating collections that encourage the harvesting and re-use of their metadata to help patrons build connections to their data in ways that we maybe never saw possible.  On first run, approximately half a million items were harvested and continues to be processed, so more information will continue to filter through the site as time progresses.

Presently, the ODL project URL can be found at: http://odl.library.oregonstate.edu.  This is a placeholder location for the project as we continue to do some data processing and prepare the site for production.  However, feel free to visit the site, run some searches, look at the data - though apologies in advance if initial response time is occasionally uneven.  That will change once the project has been fully integrated into the OSU Libraries' production infrastructure.

--TR


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Terry Reese, Associate Professor
Gray Family Chair
for Innovative Library Services
121 Valley Libraries
Corvallis, Or 97331
tel: 541.737.6384
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