University Libraries Participants

The Projects

Problem Set #1: Hancock Photo Archive
Jean Crampon

There is a substantial collection of photographs, slides, and films in some of the Library's archival collections. As an example of the type of materials available, I would like to suggest using the archival collections of the Hancock Library of Biology and Oceanography to see if better access could be designed. Material from this collection is used by both scholars on campus and worldwide. Most of the Hancock materials are still under copyright, but the copyright is owned by USC in most cases.

Problem Set #2: Technical Reports
Charles Phelps

Virtually all applied science departments publish technical report series publications. While most originate from the School of Engineering, other departments issues them as well (e.g., the Center for Applied Mathematics in the Dept. of Mathematics). After they are published as technical reports, many are submitted for publication in peer reviewed journals. A central database of technical reports (corresponding to the information on the first page of the report) as well as full-text retrieval would be very helpful as would linkages to the documents as they appear in journal form.

Problem Set #3: Student Access to Digital Maps
Julie Kwan

Maps are an important resource for many scientific disciplines, e.g., geology and petroleum engineering. Many are published by the government which is converting from paper to electronic distribution. At present, researchers need to take paper copies into the field. Maps are difficult to manage due to size, map detail, and color/symbols.

Problem Set #4: Medieval Manuscripts
Ruth Wallach

I am interested in the problem of scanning medieval manuscripts in such a way that a researcher would be able to both read the content, but also study the scribe's hand, special markings, etc. A related issue is that of transmitting such images over the network.

Problem Set #5: EDGAR Corporate Data
Caroline Sisneros

Increasingly the government is using the WWW as a tool for disemination of information. Two very use sites are the Edgar Database of Corporate Information (http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm) and the Bureau of the Census (http://www.census.gov). Part of the problem is that some of the information (particularly that at the EDGAR site) in only available as ASCII files. For information that is textual in nature, while the files can be cleaned up (using taking time and using commercially available software) formatting of statistical tables is often lost in down loading or e-mailing. Printing does retain the formatting. None of these options allows transfer to statistical programs. And while this information is useful for the typical library researcher, who usually have a very distinct information need, the investment in what it would take to put this information is a usable format is often too much trouble. The problem is making the option attractive to the user and in a format that doesn't require a great deal of investment by the user.

Problem Set #6: CNTV Moving Image Archive
Sandra Joy Lee

The USC Moving Image Archive houses USC student film and video productions dating from the1930s to current productions in the School of Cinema-Television. Moving image materials in multiple formats, specialized viewing equipment, limited storage space, and complex access needs create challenges that may be solved with new computer technologies. Fifteen movie clips (.mov format), each approximately 45 minutes in length, over 100 digital film stills (.gif format), and textual descriptions of the films will be made available to students wishing to explore this project.

Problem Set #7: Latin American Pamphlets
Barbara Robinson

The Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies houses a growing collection of Latin American pamphlets primarily covering the 19^th and 20^th centuries and numbering over 5,000 items. These materials cover a wide range of subjects and countries (including Mexico and Central America) in the social sciences, humanities, and even sciences, medicine and law, the majority of which are in the Spanish language. Characteristically the items are less than 50 pages each, many are scarce and not held by many, if at all by any other libraries, they are fragile and in need of preservation to extend their life into the next century, and they are not yet accessible on the USC Libraries' catalog HOMER (and not likely to be in the near future unless a solution is found). Pamphlets are a common format for publications from the Latin American countries and are often primary sources, especially the historical items. These types of materials are collected by most major academic libraries with Latin American collections and pose the same problems described above for other academic institutions. Some libraries have made attempts to provide access to their burgeoning pamphlet collections on Latin America through full cataloging records, for preservation and access others have used microfilming and then gathering like items into general groups or collections by topics or countries and then providing a single collection-level bibliographic record in their local online catalog and in the national bibliographic utilities. These alternatives have not been very satisfactory for researchers nor cost effective for libraries. They also do not take advantage of the range of capabilities of automation. There are no known electronic collections of these Latin American materials anywhere in the world. THE PROBLEM is to solve access to these pamphlets in the broadest meaning of term, the preservation of both image and textual content and provision of fulltext searchability, with a focus for the course on only those items which are known to be in public domain, i.e. the 19th century Latin American pamphlets.

Last modified 1/17/97