Friday, November 27, 2015

Registry Update - November 27, 2015

The University of Toronto Libraries' Information Technology Services department has confirmed it will fully support the registry project. The registry will be developed in Drupal, likely using SOLR indexing to facilitate faceted searching. There will be three content types 1) Institution 2) Staff linked to an institution 3) Projects linked to a particular staff member of an institution. The goal is to have a prototype ready by January.

A few notes and questions. Please provide feedback in the comments or contact me directly (margaret.wall@utoronto.ca/416-576-2862). Thanks!

  • We are investigating how best to facilitate editing access to records in the registry for those external to U of T. Any library will be able to add records once they have contacted me to set up an account. We want to make sure you can also make edits down the road without intervention from us. 
  • Authority records - Drupal does not allow for the creation of authority records (for example, for department name), so we are considering creating fields in the metadata entry form in which to record past department names, for example. There will be a prompt to complete the field and it will be the responsibility of the person entering the data to complete it. There will be a link to a list of current department names (www.canada.ca/en/government/dept/) and to the Library of Congress Authorities page to search for the authority record for the department to determine any previous names (www.authorities.loc.gov/).
  • RE: the wishlist/function to connect libraries with resources to share - I am looking for feedback as to how to approach this. We could add a field where libraries could list resources they have to share and/or resources they need, and output a list to a page in the registry. Would people come to the site to check? Sign up to watch the page? Perhaps we could set it up to notify you with an e-mail if another party indicates they have a resource you need? Other ideas? 
  • Here are the metadata fields we are considering including. I would be very appreciative of feedback on these: 
    • Digitizing Institution
    • Institution Type (Drop-down menu: Government Department, Archives, Historical Society, Academic Library, Public Library, School Library, Special Library (ie. Law, Medical), Other: )
    • Institution Address (to be added once at registration)
    • Project Contact Name 
    • Project Contact Email 
    • Project Contact Phone 
    • Project and Contents Description 
    • Are the digitized documents part of an existing or planned digital repository for long term preservation? 
    • Were any of the publications digitized for this project sourced from another organization (ex. missing documents from a serial collection)? If so, please provide details. 
    • Project Status (Drop-down menu: Proposed, In the planning phase, In progress, Ongoing, Completed, Other: ) 
    • Approximate Project Start Date 
    • Completion/Expected Completion Date 
    • How are the digitized materials accessible? (Check all that apply: Organizational website, intranet, internet,  Internet Archive, Scholars Portal, Online library catalogue, Other: )
    • Project URL 
    • Number of documents in the collection 
    • What jurisdiction do the documents cover? (Drop-down menu: Canadian Federal, Canadian Provincial, Canadian Municipal, Other:) 
    • Originating Department, Agency or Administrative Unit 
    • Geographic Coverage 
    • Are any non-Canadian publications included? If so, please provide details. (Scope of the registry is Canadian, so I'm not sure we really need this field?)
    • Original Publication Date of Documents 
    • Language(s) 
    • Does your organization have resources to contribute to collaborative digitization projects? (drop-down menu: funding, scanning equipment, staff time to create MD, hosting, etc.) 
    • Is your organization seeking collaborators for a digitization project? If so, which resources do you require from partner organizations? (drop-down menu: funding, scanning equipment, staff time to create MD, hosting, etc.) 
    • Was your project collaborative or independent? (If collaborative, list partners) 
    • Were the documents in this collection digitized in-house or was digitization outsourced? 
    • Formats included (check all that apply: PDF, Doc, Xls, etc. 
    • What metadata standard was used to describe the documents in this project? 
    • Document types included (drop-down, select all that apply - will probably be one type per project - ex. monographs, serials, maps, annual reports, brochures, scientific reports, policy papers, etc.) 
    • Does your organization have a policy or workflow for digitizing documents?
    • Funding source for this project  (operating budget, provincial, federal, grants, private funding, other: ) 
    • Do you know of any other digitization projects that should be included in this repository? Please provide details so we can follow up. 
    • Restrictions on Access?


I am currently on research leave (until September 2016) to develop an online registry of Canadian government information digitization projects. My goal is for the registry to be a resource for both the library community and for researchers. For researchers, it will function as a centralized access point for digitized government documents and publications. For the library community, it will also function as a resource for confirming whether a particular publication, document or serial has been digitized, so that we are making the best use of limited resources for digitization by reducing duplication. I hope to also add functionality which would allow libraries to find partners for digitization projects if they have resources to share or require resources that others may be able to provide.

I've created this blog as a space to post information about the registry and to seek feedback from the library community as it develops. Please feel free to leave comments via this blog, or contact me at margaret.wall@utoronto.ca. All input is welcome and appreciated!

Margaret Wall
Librarian (on research leave)
University of Toronto