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Interim Report March 31, 2013
Interim Report September 14, 2012
Interim Report March 31, 2012
July 1, 2010 - Jan 31, 2011
Final Report 2008-2010
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July 1, - December 31, 2008
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Reports
Interim Report March 31, 2013
Posted to NDNP 4/02/2013
NDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
(September 1, 2012—March 31, 2013)
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Shawn Schollmeyer
Report Date: March 31, 2013REPORT NARRATIVE
1. Describe any changes that you have made or that you anticipate making in the project work plan or methodology from the award proposal submitted to the competition.
No major changes will be implemented during our third grant cycle though we are working on fine tuning the OCR correction process. By deciding to outsource our early stages of image processing, the de-skewing and text-zoning stages, we are speeding up some of the processing time and allowing more time for local correction of spelling people and place names and key search terms in effort to improve overall search results. In the case of the Seattle Star we found that the OCR accuracy levels were very poor without some intervention due to the quality of text in film and originals.
This correction process is done by staff and volunteers with very specific guidelines in order to avoid “scope creep.” With a staff of librarians, library students, and retired teachers the urge to correct details can be very strong and lead to a loss in production time. In order to keep the balance of processing time and improved search results, we will keep the correction limited to vital statistics, election results, significant place names and topical subject terms contained within an article. Priority would be placed on local topics or national events that reflect a local point of view. At this time the OCR for ads, such as classifieds, theater bills, medical products would not be included.
2. Please describe any selection or film acquisition/evaluation activities during the performance period. Our first title for processing contains the remaining issues of the Seattle Star, which have been evaluated and digitized as part of our second grant cycle. The next title, comprised of 75 reels of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1876-1922, have been reviewed and evaluated for missing issues, damaged pages or poor conditions affecting OCR readability and physical metadata was noted in a spreadsheet as per Library of Congress specifications. The collection is missing two reels of film which we are not planning on seeking a replacement for at this time. We are now in the process of evaluating the condition of the Morning Olympian microfilm. We will review the full date range of this title between 1898-1922 though we won’t be able to digitize all of these issues in the remaining grant cycle. The number of pages in the Seattle P-I collection will determine how much of the Olympian we can digitize, but at least we’ll be ready once that determination is made. We plan to find some way of funding the digitizing of any remaining issues once the NDNP grant ends.
3. Describe any specific award activities that have taken place between collaborating institutions in your state. We continue to have an excellent working relationship with the University of Washington and still maintain an office within the Microforms and Newspapers (MicNews) department, collaborating with Glenda Pearson and Jessica Albano. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer microfilm, which will comprise the bulk of our page count this year, is owned by UW and Jessica has already shipped the film to Backstage Library Works for duplication. They have made this piece of the process very easy for us.
The MicNews department has also supplied us with the structure for hiring student staff. We have been very fortunate with the students, often library and information masters candidates, who are doing the processing for us. Currently we are in the process of hiring a new student to learn OCR correction, page evaluation and processing to replace a student who is leaving due to personal reasons. We have a couple good candidates and should have a new processor starting within the next week or two. In June our other processor will be graduating and we’ll need to advertise again. While this slows some of the processing down, we have been making steady progress in the evaluation phase and I feel we can afford the time to make a good choice now for someone who can work through the summer hours for us as well.
One benefit of hiring in student staff from the nearby Information School (UW iSchool) is that they’ve been a terrific advertising voice for us. I am hearing more reports about their discussions with classmates on their interesting work in our program. I have been working on establishing an internship type program with NDNP, which they call Directed Fieldwork (DFW). They learn valuable experience about newspaper digitization programs by learning OCR requirements, page evaluation, and preservation issues in exchange for credit toward graduation. In the case of our first student, Casey Lansinger, she was encouraged to write an article about her interest in the argument of access vs. preservation which we’ll publish on the Washington State Library blog “Between the Lines” and she will keep in her class portfolio. Each student has the opportunity to learn an aspect that most interests them and use it as practical experience outside the classroom.
Last year I presented an invitation at the iSchool for DFW opportunities and this quarter the students have advertised their positive experiences on their own. A new student has approached us and we’re just beginning our second quarter of the DFW learning experience with 2013 MLIS candidate, Linda Gwilym. I will do another presentation at the iSchool this spring in hopes that we can encourage more students to take an interest in other activities at the state library, including our Special Collections department and the Washington Talking Book and Braille branch in Seattle.
4. Describe specifically your progress in conversion and/or vendor selection (attach documentation as desired). Our processing environment will mostly stay the same during this last grant cycle. Our vendor Content Conversion Specialists (CCS) does an annual upgrade of their docWorks software each spring, usually in March or April. The upgrade this year should appear in mid-April and include minor fixes to known issues. No major interface or functional changes will be made. Once the upgrade has been completed and tested we will begin our full swing on production by early May.
My plan for full production in early May is also contingent upon scheduling and staffing in April. One of our valued student staff at the University of Washington is moving on after the first week of the month and I am in the process of advertising the position. Interviews will be conducted that same week and then I’ll train a new student staff member in mid-April before I am out of office for the joint WLA/OLA conference in Vancouver, WA, at the end of the month. We are doing well in progress on the evaluation stage of the program and awaiting our first batch of TIFFs from our vendor Backstage Library Works.
From the previous grant cycle there are about 23,000 TIFFs remaining of the Seattle Star. These were used as the test files for the Sample Batch which was approved by Library of Congress just this week. The one reel used for the Sample Batch will be included on the first full batch of 10,000 Seattle Star files which will be known as “batch_wa_alki”. The evaluation of this title was completed during the 2010-12 grant cycle so only the metadata and OCR processing will be done this year. The clarity (or lack of) of text has been an issue during processing, reducing the OCR accuracy well below 70%. I am working with CCS to temporarily turn off the accuracy reading threshold and use this title as a test for manual OCR correction to improve search results. My plan is to turn the accuracy reading threshold back on for the next title and minimize the need for manual correction to this extent. OCR correction was not performed during previous grant cycles, but by outsourcing early stages of processing this year I believe we can afford the time to improve search results and the user experience of our newspapers on Chronicling America.
Our second title for processing will be the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We have identified 75 reels of microfilm owned by University of Washington, covering the 1876-1922 range. Our student staff, two MLIS candidates Ashley Fejeran and Al Ybarra, have already finished their evaluation of newspaper issues on film. Comments from our student staff last year have helped to improve the capture of condition detail and clarify notes that should help reduce time spent pulling film for verification later in the project. Our UW contact Jessica Albano coordinated the shipment and duplication of negative print masters with Backstage which is now complete. We are getting weekly progress reports from Backstage showing at least the first 16 reels of film have been scanned and we should see the first shipment of files the first week of April. I will then begin a quality review and verify that all files are complete before loading them into docWorks for processing. Over 62,000 files wil be added to Chronicling America by the end of the grant cycle.
The last title will be the Morning Olympian. We identified a date range of 1898-1922, but the final quantity uploaded to Chronicling America will depend on the final page count of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I estimate over 14,000 page files will be uploaded to the Chronicling America site by the end of the grant cycle. The student staff is about half way through the evaluation of the 40 reels covering this date range and we will hold digitization of files until the second half of this year when we are more certain of the Seattle P-I numbers. The negative print masters are owned by Washington State Library and will be duplicated by ProQuest, where they are currently in storage.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)? We would like to know more about the LC viewer and how it can be used in our web pages at the state library. As a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, we have strict controls over our portals and content. We are extremely limited to shared technical support of web development resources (about three people) with other divisions such as Elections, Corporations, Charities, and State Archives among others. So using and installing the viewer on our library website would depend on the technical requirements and whether it could be done by myself or limited additional resources. If we are able to stay ahead on batch deliverables, this is something I’d like to do towards the end of the grant cycle early in 2014.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets to the NDNP repository. Include anticipated number of files to be delivered and planned means of delivery or transfer. (Keep in mind the delivery deadlines noted in the Cooperative Agreement Document, but also take into consideration your own resources and workflow plans. LC requests that you plan to deliver new data monthly, with one batch per hard drive. Batches that have been submitted and require rework should be shipped to LC as soon as fixes are complete (send more than one hard drive at a time, if needed).
Based on my experience of the batch process last year, I plan on a similar workflow of file delivery, 10,000 pages per batch delivered once every thirty days. Due to our need to hire and train a new student processor at UW this month and will need to hire a second student processor in June, there may be some delays in the second or third batch as training permits. Also due to the CCS upgrade of docWorks in mid-late April, we probably won’t get our first full batch out until May. The first two batches will contain mostly the Seattle Star, though the first batch will contain a re-worked issue of the (Ellensburg) Dawn as per Henry’s suggestion at LC. It is a minor fix that will allow our last batch from 2010-12 to move forward and be included in the next upload to Chronicling America.
We’ll have files back by then of the Seattle P-I , but as mentioned above, the staffing changes may delay the third full batch by a couple of weeks. The Morning Olympian will be digitized by the end of 2013 and at this point I estimate that we should have our shipments done by March or April, allowing us to spend more time on promotion and our web promotion. I would like to be able to learn more about the LC Viewer and work on implementing something our own site, perhaps similar to what the Oregon awardees are working on.
7. State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded).Over the past year, the University of Washington Microforms and News (MicNews) Department, where we have an office for our Washington NDNP processing, has been working with the Hokubei Hochii Foundation in identifying a select range of the North American Post, a Japanese American paper published in the Seattle area, for digitization. At my suggestion they have selected a small group of papers, post-World War II years 1946-48, to start with as a pilot batch to learn the basic process of creating files, delivering derivative files to translators, and understanding and creating metadata and indexing terms. Through experience gained in NDNP, I have been able to provide guidance in creating preservation master files (TIFFs) with software already owned by UW, help them to understand storage requirements, begin creating a metadata schema and subject terms specific to the Japanese American culture at the time of publishing. They have looked into OCR software for this project, but OCR accuracy is still poor for Asian character recognition. Their current plan is to have a volunteer (s) translate the old style kanji to a more modern style as recognized by the Microsoft language pack then UW students would then pull subject terms for an index, but there are still challenges with training and understanding what’s needed for an index. They are also still working on identifying project management needs and roles for key steps in the project.
They hope to use this pilot to show the need for funding and grants to support a larger project. Several Japanese American leaders within the Puget Sound area and in Seattle are supporting the project and finally some modest matching funds have been contributed to continue the project. The Foundation and UW grants department are now creating a budget structure modeled after the UW-WA NDNP budget structure for digitizing newspapers. We’re very excited that they have been gaining support within the local community. We will continue to provide guidance to UW and Hokubei Hochii as we can through the coming year.
8. Please provide copies of or URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such).
To promote Washington’s participation in NDNP I have been focusing on the educational and historic organizations of our state.
Last October I presented information on our state digital collections and Washington Rural Heritage as well as NDNP to the Washington Library Media Association conference.
Just this month, in March, I modified the presentation to address the needs of attendees at the Washington State Council for Social Studies and the League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations, an organization of community museums and preservation societies. See slide presentation in Appendix A.
With the recent upload of titles to Chronicling America I released our exciting news on the Washington State Library Blog called “Between the Lines” and modified this announcement to be a press release for each of the affected communities with a masthead image from their local historic paper and details relevant to their community.
http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/index.php/2013/03/breaking-news-new-titles-for-washington-ndnp/
I will be co-presenting a poster session in Oregon City this July to show off our state digital collection and NDNP collection for the Oregon-California Trails Association Convention, highlighting our primary sources gathered from the pioneering history of the Oregon Trail through Oregon and Washington Territories.
9. Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee.
None at this time
Interim Report September 14, 2012
NDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
(March 1, 2012—August 31, 2012)
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Shawn Schollmeyer
Report Date: September 14, 2012
REPORT NARRATIVE 1. Describe any changes that you have made or that you anticipate making in the project work plan or methodology from the award proposal submitted to the competition. During the 2010-12 award cycle the decision was made to bring the processing work in-house to minimize the time delay of shipping drives to our vendor, Content Conversion Specialists (CCS) in Romania. This was an improvement, but there were also factors of training local staff in the software, a steep learning curve and additional processing steps. It turned out to be a good decision and we have a much better understanding of where we can improve film evaluation, collation, page processing and OCR preparation.
For the 2012-14 award cycle we will continue to keep the digital assets on local servers, but send files for the first two processing steps to Romania via the docWorks system on FTP server. Once the master files are loaded locally, we will review them for duplicate pages and image quality then, the FTP system will load the files for the first two steps of processing in the CCS docWorks software. This will include minimal de-skewing and also zoning page images for text and illustration to allow for the best OCR readings. Images will then be sent back through the docWorks system for us to complete the remaining page structure and date verification steps.
This change was briefly described in the 2012-14 proposal, but in further detail, our plan is to allow time for better quality processing. First of all the Romania team is very quick in performing the initial steps of the docWorks workflow. But what we found is that while most of the image pages go through the system without OCR rejects, we would still like to improve the overall OCR quality and can use local time more effectively correcting names and headlines for better search results. This is particularly useful on page images where the quality of the original did not allow for a sharp image of the text during file creation steps. Second, with the experience we have gained and the stability of not having the steep learning curve that we did last year, we will have more time to prepare batches for shipment.
We are also waiting to hear from CCS regarding future changes to docWorks which may affect our workflow. One of the early challenges in verifying batch data against our metadata is the process which the evaluation data we collected on Excel spreadsheets had to be converted to an Access database. The number of areas in which Excel and Access would automatically format dates and numbers added considerable time to correct for the data conversion and verification steps. It would sometimes take as much as a day due to data corruption. We found the spreadsheets also needed to be divided to correspond with the specific LCCNs contained on the batch. We asked CCS to improve this process and we are waiting to hear back if a workflow change will be implemented soon.
2. Please describe any selection or film acquisition/evaluation activities during the performance period. While researching material needed to create the informational essay for The Ellensburg Dawn
sn88085012, sn88085011, we found there were three issues printed earlier than we originally believed to be the beginnings of the title. By working closely with the University of Washington and supporting student staff with an onsite office, we were able to scan the three issues beginning in 1893 from the University’s Special Collections department. The three volumes, containing one issue each, had been bound together and cataloged as a monograph rather than a serial. We corrected the cataloging information in UW, WSL, and LC catalogs to reflect the title variations and mark it as part of the same title series.
We then worked with UW’s Special Collections and Digital Collections departments to determine the best method for capturing the pages digitally while maintaining the best access to the physical material. We worked with CCS to set up a “print” project in docWorks to align pages and add OCR metadata. The pages were included in our last batch, batch_wa_lacamas, to upload to the Chronicling America collection.
3. Describe any specific award activities that have taken place between collaborating institutions in your state. Through our partnership with the University of Washington we are able to maintain an office in Suzzallo Library where two student staff can work on microfilm evaluation, wiki updates, essay research and docWorks processing. We select the students based on their interest in digital projects as well as skills that fit the needs of the project. As the program coordinator I am onsite three days a week to answer questions from UW library staff and guide student staff on the project specifications. We also use this location to collaborate with UW’s Information School. We are in the process of advertising a Directed Fieldwork Position, a type of internship for MLIS students, to provide practical knowledge of the digital conversion process so students can gain career experience before they graduate.
This partnership has been a great opportunity to show off the Chronicling America program. I’m happy to say many staff librarians tell me they’re already using the CA website. This has also been a great opportunity to see other newspaper digitization projects that UW is working on. One example is the Hokubei Hochi Foundation, a non-profit organization promoting the rich history of Japanese Americans in the Puget Sound area. They are in the process of defining the scope and needs of the project which echoes our early efforts of NDNP. Through the experience we have gained in selecting software for processing NDNP inventory; evaluating newspaper and film conditions; and determining asset storage needs we are able to share this valuable experience with our partners and their partners.
4. Describe specifically your progress in conversion and/or vendor selection (attach documentation as desired). The conversion process was quite slow and several software challenges created considerable delay. One was due to a program upgrade during the early phase of batch collation. New to the docWorks software program to begin with, the upgrade occurred in the middle of creating our second batch and caused inconsistencies in the export of the data. The software was developed to create structural and OCR metadata for books, serials, and other media and it had not been thoroughly tested for the NDNP project. There were also training issues that arose due to limited documentation, but our vendor did send an engineer to our location to help fill in information not included in the manuals and set up bi-monthly phone conferences to help close the time zone gap between Seattle and Bucharest, a ten hour time difference. In order to better meet customer needs CCS added a systems engineer position in Texas for technical support. This decision by our vendor has been invaluable to help resolve issues that arose from the upgrade in the NDNP environment; however it delayed our batch a month before we could ship it.
The docWorks program is good about indicating errors, but the messages are cryptic in that they don’t indicate the source or type of error in natural language. There were some messages only decipherable to a systems engineer that might take the user a few minutes to fix, but we still needed to post the error message to the SharePoint log site. Our contact in Romania would then send the error message to their development team in Germany causing another 24-48 hour wait for a response or solution. I have asked for a log of common error messages and troubleshooting help, but don’t know if that will be forthcoming.
The software had been upgraded in part to resolve a problem with missed JPEG2 files, which worked, but then we began to find other files were missed during exports. Issue page files and targets were occasionally missed or duplicated during export so we began to review the number of directories and file count to make sure all the targets and derivatives were present and no additional files or directories were created when we made corrections and re-exported content.
Occasionally technical targets would fail to appear in the delivery directory and a re-export would irregularly cause a duplication of standard targets. The docWorks system leaves the original targets and rather than writing over the files with the same images, it would create a new set of standard targets with a new set of file names. A certain amount of batch surgery was then needed or a re-export of several issues with their target files. I was able to figure out this problem with the aid of Nathan Yarasavage after most of our batches had been shipped out.
Overall the docWorks system does very well in workflow management and data export. We have learned more about establishing some parameters around when to perform upgrades and ways to improve communication with the support team. We have also created our own documentation and workflow guidelines for our specific NDNP environment. We will continue to grow these documents as the software is updated or workflow requirements change.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)?
In order to thoroughly investigate the details of the data quality, I found that using the DOS commands were more accurate and easier to understand than the GUI version. Having the commands listed on the LC wiki was extremely useful and once familiar with the commands used most often, I was able to find any potential errors quickly to resolve most of the issues that came up. It would be helpful to have a list of common error messages to determine where to look for problems in batch or reel data, such as a missing date or target, though Nathan Yarasavage has been very helpful in narrowing down problems to resolve them in a timely manner.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets to the NDNP repository. Include anticipated number of files to be delivered and planned means of delivery or transfer. (Keep in mind the delivery deadlines noted in the Cooperative Agreement Document, but also take into consideration your own resources and workflow plans.
Once we were able to overcome several challenges presented by moving some of the processing in-house; filling the vacant coordinator position; and resolving some of the upgrade issues we encountered, we focused solely on getting the batches out. The coordinator position was vacant for over two months and the software upgrade occurred in February, delaying us even further. We were not able to focus on promotional activities during that time, but we were able to ship 2-3 batches per month to meet the required schedule of 100,000 pages to be delivered by the end of August.
For the next grant cycle, we have a much better understanding of potential delays and estimated time it takes to complete a batch, however, our new goal will be to begin batch shipments to LC sooner and build in trouble-shooting and communication time. Training and support are conducted via SharePoint site and bi-monthly phone communications to the CCS team in Romania. We will have a new contact to work with there, but our intent is to be clearer in setting upgrade implementation times and make sure that upgrades are not done during active batch work. This should cause fewer problems with inconsistent data within a batch.
We have roughly 25,000 page files that are ready to be processed which will also help us with an early start on delivery requirements. We are waiting for CCS to determine if changes will need to be made for the next NDNP grant cycle so we can begin processing as soon as the software is ready. These files are the rest of the Seattle Star
sn87093407, part of which was included the 2010-12 grant.
Some additional evaluation was done in the last cycle for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
sn83045604 while we had additional student resources to do so. This will be our next title for processing, so we have a head start on the evaluation phase which we will complete by spring of 2013. We anticipate that with one additional title being selected for 2012-14, The Morning Olympian
sn88085352, we should be able to complete the evaluation phase this spring so we can begin sending out the evaluated reels to Backstage Library Works for Digitization. We will investigate the possibility of sending reels out earlier.
7. State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded). We are continually adding to our Digital Collections catalog at the Washington State Library. Our volunteers add subject headings on the article level to create a searchable database and minimal processing is done using the DJVU image database, but it allows patrons to view and print historic materials. Our newest titles to be added are the Mason County Journal, Shelton, Wash.
sn88085081 May 17, 1889 – 4/19/1901 and Northwest Enterprise, Anacortes, Wash.
sn8805204 March 25, 1882 – March 13, 1886.
We are also excited to have completed the scanning phase of our International Workers of the World (IWW) collection that includes some samples of IWW newspapers to be posted online by the end of this month. This specific collection was used at the Everett Massacre trial in 1917. Our NDNP selected titles The Labor Journal (Everett, WA)
sn88085620, and the Seattle Star reported on the confrontation between the Wobblies and local authorities, in 1916, resulting in 7 deaths and 50 people wounded, so this is a significant title for our collection.
As mentioned in section three, we do some consulting with the University of Washington’s Hokubei Hochi project. The non-profit organization will be digitizing post World War II Japanese language newspapers to preserve Japanese American history and culture in the Puget Sound area. Through early discussions we have provided information to help them select a reasonable number of pages to scan for a pilot project; whether to create metadata on the article or page level; and consider needs for online storage and access based on our experience over the last four years. They will move forward with a smaller number of pages to test the process and train initial staff and volunteers. This pilot project will then be used to help them seek additional funding to digitize a larger number of pages in the future.
8. Please provide copies of URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such). At this time our main promotion of NDNP is through the Washington State Library blog and our wiki. As a learning exercise for our library student staff and interns, I have begun asking for a quarterly contribution to the blog. Our first article was posted in August from first year student, Ashley Fejeran, and it has been a steady winner, currently in our blog stats as a “top ten” web hit for September. We have also submitted this to our UW Libraries contact, Glenda Pearson, for consideration in the Libraries’ newsletter. Ashley has since been asked to write a similar article about her NDNP experience for the UW student ALA chapter. http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/index.php/2012/08/how-digitizing-is-changing-my-life-ashley-fejeran/
In October, I’ll be presenting Chronicling America resources at the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) conference in Yakima. This presentation, entitled “Chronicling Washington: Washington State Library’s Digital Initiatives” will mostly focus on the Chronicling America website and how to search historic Washington newspapers, but it will also highlight some of our other digital collections such as Washington Rural Heritage, historic maps, and primary resources from the 1800s. We’ll use examples from these primary resources to illustrate how they can be used in K-12 classrooms to support the new Common Core goals being implemented in Washington State over the next few years. Attendees often bring their computers to the conferences which will allow for an interactive discussion at the end of the presentation.
http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/digcolls.aspx
There are also some early discussions surrounding a joint presentation at the Washington Library Association/Oregon Library Association joint conference in the spring of 2013. The presentation, or possibly a panel discussion, would lean toward digital and online technologies common between our two states. We are still in the process of identifying Oregon partners and best approach to this topic.
9. Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee. In my first year with the NDNP I have found our contacts in Washington, DC very helpful in sharing the technical expertise I needed to get quickly up to speed. I’m looking forward to meeting the NEH team, LC leads and fellow awardees as well as another two great years of sharing our newspaper content on the Chronicling America website.
Please submit to NEH via e-GMS with a copy to
[email protected], by September 30, 2012.
TopInterim Report March 31, 2012
Posted to NDNP 3/28/2012
NDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Shawn Schollmeyer, Marlys Rudeen
Report Date: March 31, 2012
1. Describe any changes that you have made or that you anticipate making in the project work plan or methodology from the award proposal submitted to the competition.
Minor modifications have been made to the 2010-2012 work plan to improve workflow efficiency and accommodate the OCR processing and metadata creation that is now being done in-house rather than submitting for processing by our vendor, Content Conversion Specialists (CCS), in Europe. By processing the content locally we are able to avoid the waiting periods for shipping drives to Romania and packages delayed by weather or international customs. However there has been a considerable learning curve to use the CCS docWorks application and a few metadata conversion issues that we needed to resolve. Microfilm evaluation had originally been created in Excel spreadsheets, stored for the processing team to access via "the cloud" as a Google document, then converted to an Access database used by the docWorks program. To minimize formatting problems created by converting Google formats to Access, we now store the data in Microsoft SkyDrive for better compatibility with docWorks’ Windows-based software. The current version requires the Access database to compare the METS files against the original film evaluation data, a critical step in verifying data at the end of the processing cycle. We are still experiencing some issues with the conversion and are currently working with the vendor to resolve the issue.
In order to improve the learning curve for several different document processing stages and quick onboarding of any new staff and volunteers, careful documentation is being created. In some cases the vendor was not able to provide enough specific information for the NDNP workflow and project handling for remote and local processing data. Export QA and verification was not covered since there is so much variation between the grantees. This information is being compiled from various resources including other NDNP grantees at the Universities of Virginia and California, Riverside who also use the same application.
After the deliverable files have been exported from the docWorks program, a few changes have been made to streamline the QA check before running LC validation and verification programs. A few steps have been eliminated in favor of a docWorks recommended process using an out-of-box file comparison tool and their comparison file generator script instead of an earlier DOS command line tool. This has been further improved upon by using an easier to read file comparison application called Beyond Compare 3. This cuts down a considerable amount of time in reviewing any differences between the Access database and the METS file.
2. Please describe any selection or film acquisition/evaluation activities during the performance period.
Newspaper title and film selection is complete for the Washington NDNP grant project and the number of scanned images remains at 75% due to the changes in staffing over the summer. No additional reels will be scanned for this grant cycle so we can prioritize current deliverables. The remaining content has been identified as a title chosen for the third grant cycle, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
3. Describe any specific award activities that have taken place between collaborating institutions in your state.
As part of the Washington State Library and University of Washington partnership, an NDNP office is maintained in UW’s Suzzallo Library for our UW student staff. We were able to secure a larger space in the basement of the building this past fall after the Maps department moved to a different floor. This area is much bigger than the work area we had before and allows more than two people to work at a time. This is important in that we are interested in opening this project opportunity to students at the UW Information School through a non-paid, for-credit internship program known as "Directed Fieldwork" (DFW) or an unpaid, for-credit internship for the undergraduate students in the Informatics program. We are currently working with a student volunteer in addition to these other options as a way to promote newspaper preservation and digitization projects. We’ve had a positive amount of interest in the program and would like to test it this summer. If we are awarded a third grant cycle we would launch the program solidly in the fall quarter.
Our current UW student staff are a tremendous asset to the NDNP program. Claire Imamura has been with us since the early microfilm evaluation days and will graduate this summer. She is very detailed and production oriented, with a great knowledge of the docWorks tool. April Martin graduated last year and we fear we may lose her to a full time job soon. She is a passionate researcher and librarian and brings great energy and questions about the NDNP program. I hope to find more students like Claire and April through the internship programs and anticipate that we have a pool of potential candidates for promotion of NDNP and if needed, interested library students to fill their shoes if they should find other opportunities in librarianship.
Our UW staff contacts have been very supportive, filling me in on access to UW networks and resources. Glenda Pearson and Jessica Albano are a wealth of information. I have been meeting quarterly with Glenda to keep the UW team updated on the progress of the program. After an exciting discovery that we have an even earlier start date to the Ellensburg Dawn title than previously thought, the UW and WSL cataloging staff are aligning MARC records to reflect the print copies of the 1893 Reformers’ Dawn, Volumes 1-3, held in UW Special Collections department. April was thrilled when her research revealed the copies she had seen references to and now we have the opportunity to add these to the Chronicling America catalog and ensure the records are consistent across agencies, including Library of Congress.
4. Describe specifically your progress in conversion and/or vendor selection (attach documentation as desired).
Our vendor, CCS, has been very good at making themselves available and assisting me where possible in learning the nuances of the docWorks tool. Most of the documentation however is oriented toward the broad scope of materials they provide support for and far less is provided specifically for the NDNP program due to the fact that each of their NDNP customers has a variation in workflow. With this though, they have provided phone support every two weeks, online communication tools for issue tracking and as of September 2011, a U.S. based systems engineer who is in a much nearer time zone.
We found a few problems last summer with the generation of JP2 files that were resolved in a February upgrade, but as with many upgrades, some new problems were introduced. We have been working closely with the CCS support team to resolve the issues and maintain an environment as close to we had before the upgrade. The software is very configurable and sometimes the smallest script change may disrupt the output of files. As mentioned in the answer to question one, the conversion of our metadata from evaluation spreadsheets to a
docWorks accessible database has been a challenge to a fairly straightforward process of export and batch verification. Once we have this resolved with the vendor, most of the system issues we’ve been experiencing will also be resolved.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)?
The DVV tool provided by LC has been very easy to use and reliable. I do find the DOS command line less user friendly, but I’ve had to use both now and the results are consistent with the data in the batch.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets to the NDNP repository. Include anticipated number of files to be delivered and planned means of delivery or transfer. (Keep in mind the delivery deadlines noted in the Cooperative Agreement Document, but also take into consideration your own resources and workflow plans. LC requests that you plan to deliver new data monthly, with one batch per hard drive. Batches that have been submitted and require rework should be shipped to LC as soon as fixes are complete (send more than one hard drive at a time, if needed).
The last reported plan to deliver 25% of grant deliverables by August 2011 was unfortunately delayed by several factors but we are now on schedule for a delivery of over 32,000 pages by the end of April 2012. The workflow change and learning curve of the docWorks software program; a significant reduction of WSL staff over the past year; the three month vacancy of the Washington NDNP coordinator; and issues surrounding a docWorks software upgrade have been challenges that we are surmounting. Two WSL staff members working part-time, two University of Washington students, and our two volunteers were able to keep the processing going over the summer and fall while I came up to speed on NDNP requirements and docWorks software beginning full time in late November. The processing team kept working with minimal guidance and built up a high rate of content ready to be exported into batches as soon as I began the program. Several batches, named after Washington rivers, are ready to be exported and allow us to catch up quickly. I resubmitted our first batch, batch_wa_american, at the end of December 2011. The second batch, batch_wa_bumping has been submitted to Library of Congress and pending approval. We now have two more batches that will be shipped in the next two weeks and then account for approximately 32,000 pages. These batches will include the following titles:
- Wenatchee Daily World
- Labor Journal (Everett)
- The Lynden Tribune
- The Spokane Press
- The Vancouver Independent
We will continue toward a goal of another batch of 10,000 pages every two-three weeks to catch up on the previous delays and complete 100,000 pages by the end of the grant cycle. I have been reviewing the steps of the docWorks process and working with CCS in finding ways to streamline processing and make many of the steps easier. These improvements along with the UW student staffing plans mentioned in question three will speed up the overall processing time from import to export and verification.
7. State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded).
With the greater visibility of our papers on the Chronicling America website, we have been receiving more phone calls and emails regarding small projects around the state from museums, publishers and archives. The furthest along in a newspaper digitization project is the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum, celebrating their centennial this year, who will be promoting the content in their searchable database. Their questions were based around image standards and ways to collaborate with the state library. They had also contacted the state archives regarding image formats to use and guidelines for their volunteer with a professional camera.
After a Grays Harbor county publisher for local paper, The Vidette, contacted us wanting to know how she could use volunteers to have their paper searchable on the Google Online Newspaper Site, I realized it would be beneficial to have some guidelines and standards available in a quick and easy to use format. This activity will focus on image standards and basic metadata that organizations should capture for best preservation and tracking. It will start as a handout and lead to a more detailed document for the level of interest and development of a project. Ideally, these standards will enable us to collate collections and allow easier database migration as collections are developed and shared.
8. Please provide copies of or URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such).
As we get more titles into the Chronicling America database we are eager to promote usage of the content in broader regions of our state. We are planning two main tours of the eastern side of Washington and the Washington Library Media Association conference to promote usage within our schools. The list below is only a preliminary itinerary which will be solidified in the next few months. I will begin introducing myself and our new Washington NDNP energy to librarians at our Washington Library Association conference next month and begin contacting key libraries across the state.
I will also be partnering with a Washington State Library sister program, Washington Rural Heritage, which focuses on our regional history through images and historic events. WRH often receives questions regarding the digitization of local newspapers and we are already planning on ways we can collaborate through common standards and preservation goals. My message will focus on ways we can encourage future preservation programs in regional organizations and develop high quality standards across the state, based on NDNP guidelines, even after the program ends.
- Spring Tour, (TBD 2012) Southeast: Walla Walla (Whitman College)
- Autumn Tour, Northeast: (TBD 2012) Spokane, Colville, Omak
- NDNP Conference, September 26-28, 2012 Washington, DC
- WLMA, October 11-13, 2012 in Yakima
- Everett (Labor Journal) & Puget Sound libraries, informal over several dates
9. Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee
Bringing the image and metadata processing in-house was an ambitious step that brought with it a host of challenges for staff. Continued state budget problems and staff changes exacerbated them. But the process has also allowed staff to learn so much about the structure of the data and the workflow used by vendors that we believe the experience has been extremely valuable.
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July 1, 2010 - Jan 31, 2011
See NDNPInterimReport20110131_final.pdf
Final Report 2008-2010
See 2010 Final Reports
July 1, - December 30, 2009
INTERIM PERFORMANCE REPORT NARRATIVENDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Laura Robinson, Project Manger
Report Date: January 31, 2010
1. Changes in Workplan or MethodologyQA – There have been a few changes to our QA procedures due to corrupt JP2 files in our first batch. Since validation checks and byte counts didn’t catch these nor help us determine problem files, we’ve begun a visual QA check of all JP2 files. We use a batch script to output a copy of all JP2s of the same reel into one folder, this eliminates the need to navigate the file structure and click on each issue folder. Each image is viewed as a large thumbnail in Adobe Bridge to make sure the image renders properly, is deskewed and cropped accordingly. Approx 10 percent of the images are then opened and further examined to make sure image quality is acceptable
We still use the QA-Report tool (scripts reported in last report) to cross check the input and output data and investigate all variations. This is an efficient form of QA and accounts for approx. 90% of the errors we catch in the batches. A further check on approx. every 10th issue is made in order to check dates, volume and issue numbers as well as page order.
We’ve found that it is generally easier to send all errors back to CCS and have the images reprocessed via the docWorks software. Errors are corrected in house only when they don’t affect the embedded (or header) metadata in the images.
Documentation – We’re documenting the research and work via a project wiki. A new progress chart was created and is used to keep track of the milestones for each title.
Communication – Communication hasn’t changed much since Backstage Library Works has taken over for OCLC. We have noted that staff assigned to our project has decreased and this has caused some difficulty for the project manager at BSLW. Monthly phone calls are scheduled with WSL, BSLW and CCS. Communication and action based on communication remains to be slow and cumbersome. In order to mitigate this issue, we’ve asked BSLW to post meeting minutes and action items after each phone call.
2. Selection or Film Acquisition/Evaluation Activities Title selection is final now that pages counts are coming in. We’ve had to reprioritize some of the titles and remove some from our final list. The final list is below:
- Cayton's Weekly (Seattle) 1917-1921
- includes Cayton’s Monthly
- Colfax Gazette 1900-1912
- Colville Examiner 1907-1922
- Commonwealth, (Everett) 1911-1914
- Industrial Freedom, (Edison) 1898-1901
- Leavenworth Echo 1904-1922
- Pullman Herald 1888-1922
- Ranch (North Yakima) 1894-1912
- includes Ranche and Range
- Ranch (Seattle)
- Washington Farmer (Spokane)
- San Juan Islander 1894-1914
- includes Islander
- Seattle Republican 1896-1902
- includes Daily Republican
- Republican
- Seattle Star 1899-1910
- Tacoma Times 1894-1922
- Washington Socialist 1914-1915
- includes Co-operative News
- Northwest Worker
- Yakima Herald 1893-1912
3. Award Activities with Collaborating Institutions Collaboration with the UW Libraries continues. Office space is provided for the Project Manager and work study student. Also, coordination with UW Libraries continues in reimbursement of student work, research and creation of the title essays, and purchase of duplicate film from negative masters owned by UW. The selection committee is also managed by UW Libraries staff member Glenda Pearson.
We are planning collaboration with the Seattle Public Library and other institutions in order to publicize the collections as they go online.
4. Conversion and/or Vendor Selection Approx. 90% of the images have been scanned and converted. We are working with the vendors to lessen the errors found in each batch, which significantly slows our progress. We’ve seen less major errors in the latest batches, though turnaround of rework still seems very slow. One of the main reasons we’ve proposed licensing the docWorks software and doing the image conversion in-house is because of the slow turn-around time of batches and re-work. We’ve found that much of the time wasted is due to the layers of communication between the vendors and their staff as well as the shipping of hard drives.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)?We find that we are using the DVV mostly just for verification and re-validation upon rework. We use Adobe Bridge to view the images and our QA-Report tool to test and link to the metadata files.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets for the award, including samples, to the NDNP repository. We have approx. 40% of the images delivered and live in Chronicling America and plan to have nearly 70% of the images delivered to LC by mid February.
7. State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded).Since July, 2009, the State Library has put up two more newspaper titles in their internal digital newspaper project. They are the Puget Sound Mail from La Conner (1879 – 1884) and the Northern Star from Snohomish (1876 – 1879), with a total of 1874 pages. We anticipate expanding an existing title, the Puget Sound Weekly Argus from Port Townsend within the month. These newspapers are indexed to the article level by volunteers who are supervised by staff.
8. Please provide copies of or URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such).Publications:
- WSL’s NDNP related news: http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/library/index.php/tag/ndnp/
- Microform & Imaging Review article to be submitted by Feb. 1, 2010
Presentations:
- Oct. 3 - LITA National Forum, Salt Lake City, UT
- Oct. 9 - WLMA, Yakima, WA
- Nov. 14 - Museum Computer Network, Portland, OR
9. Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee as you begin your digital conversion project.Please submit to your NEH Program Officer (
[email protected]) with a copy to
[email protected], by January 31, 2009.
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January 1, - June 30, 2009
INTERIM PERFORMANCE REPORT NARRATIVENDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Marlys Rudeen, Project Director
Report Date: July 31, 2009
1. Changes in Workplan or MethodologyQA - The first batches were received and reviewed. A workflow for dealing with data or image errors has been established but continues to be refined. Most data errors in the batches are fixed in-house while images are sent back to the vendor via ftp to be reprocessed. Some common errors to look for during QA and other hints and tips were provided by Deb Thomas during her site visit in May. The data and digital image QA process has been created and tested. Using the detailed documentation of the NDNP METS data structure provided by LOC, we created scripts to verify that the evaluation data (input data) matches the metsrecord xml files (output data). The pdfs are checked by staff. For now, every pdf is copied to a temporary location while staff conducts review.
Documentation - A project wiki has been established and is used to collate project documentation, title selection, and ongoing research. Links to evaluation spreadsheets (Google Docs) are also available on the wiki. An effort to keep information on the internet helps to keep the project mobile and aid in collaboration.
Communication - OCLC hosts a SharePoint portal used for data delivery and communication. Semi weekly phone calls happen with OCLC and monthly phone calls are scheduled with all sub-contractors. Communication and coordination with multiple organizations in multiple countries has proven to be a slow process.
Infrastructure - We've worked to find funding to increase server capacity for the batches to live locally. Further work will be required to manage and preserve the local copy of files long term. An intermediary server is being set up to provide remote access to pdfs during QA.
2. Selection or Film Acquisition/Evaluation Activities The final selection list was delivered to LOC in February, 2009 (included below). In late June, the decision was made to substitute the Bremerton News with the Walla Walla Evening Statesman due to a lack of complete microfilm and local funding to finish microfilming originals.
3. Award Activities with Collaborating Institutions The University of Washington houses half the project by hosting the student work station and a work space for the project coordinator three days per week. The University also orders approximately half the film and manages the selection committee.
Other organization will aid in promoting the collection once images are loaded into Chronicling America.
4. Conversion and/or Vendor Selection The first batch of approx 16,000 newspaper pages were delivered in June. Approx 20 errors were found and fixed. The vendor is having internal software issues and is only able to deliver a partial second batch of approx 6,000 - this batch is due to arrive in early July. We may not have the full 25% of images delivered to LOC in time to meet our July 31st deadline but the rest should follow soon after.
We're pleased with the quality of images and OCR data received from OCLC. We'd like to move to using the 2009 NDNP specs but have had to hold off due to sub-contractor's software. This has hindered the project somewhat.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)?We feel more confident with the DVV. There was a small hiccup with our first batch in that the subcontractor validated our first batch with the latest version of the DVV software and didn't tell us. After consulting with Ray Murray we learned that the file signatures are not upward compatible so it took us a while to figure out why our data wasn't validating once we received the batch.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets for the award, including samples, to the NDNP repository. We should have approx. 22,000 images delivered by the end of July with approx. 10,000 to follow a few weeks after that. We are currently on track with our other milestones.
7. State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded).Since Jan. 1, 2009, the State Library has put up three more newspaper titles in their internal digital newspaper project. They are the Yakima Herald (1891-1892), the Vancouver Register (1865-1869), and the Puget Sound Herald (1861-1864), with a total of 1,822 page images. These newspapers are indexed to the article level by volunteers who are supervised by staff.
8. Please provide copies of or URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such).Presentation at WLA (Washington Library Association) in April related to using maps to display collections of digital newspapers (including NDNP) -
slidesWashington State Library blog posts related to NDNP -
postsPlanned poster presentation at LITA National Forum - display uses of various tools and techniques to make Washington's participation in NDNP a collaborative and mobile project.
Planned co-presentation at WLMA (Washington Library Media Association) - will talk about digital collections available to social studies teachers, including Chronicling America.
9. Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee as you begin your digital conversion project.Please submit to your NEH Program Officer (
[email protected]) with a copy to
[email protected], by January 31, 2009.
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July 1, - December 31, 2008
NDNP Awardee Interim Performance Report
NEH Award Number: PJ-50038-08
NDNP State: Washington
Submitted By: Marlys Rudeen, Project Director
Report Date: January 31, 2009
INTERIM PERFORMANCE REPORT NARRATIVE1. Changes in Workplan or MethodologyThere have been few changes in the preliminary workplan to this point in the project. However, with the advent of the new DVV and adoption of the new technical specifications, there will be some adjustments in future months. At present, despite occasional bureaucratic delays, the project is on schedule for the first deliverables at the end of January.
The Project Coordinator, Laura Robinson, was hired and began work full-time in September. It was decided that it would be advantageous to have her work part of each week at the University of Washington (UW) campus. This enabled her to supervise student workers directly, and continue to work closely on selection issues with UW staff.
2. Selection or Film Acquisition/Evaluation Activities Title selection is continuing, and the decision was made to focus on a particular time period with a wide geographic distribution. Accordingly the selection committee looked for titles that covered 1900-1910, with at least one title for each region and the significant towns of the period: Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Yakima. At a meeting between UW and WSL on Sept. 12, 2008 both organizations decided on the first titles to be duplicated/purchased. Since both UW and WSL own master negatives, it was decided that each organization would be responsible for managing its own negatives and obtaining the required duplicates for the titles they own.
Both partners have spent some time working with their service bureaus to get acceptable 2nd generation negatives and the required density readings. Since many of WSL’s negatives are held by a third party, this required some research to confirm the location and availability of certain titles.
While this was happening, Laura hired a work study student and began developing the workflow for examining the film and collecting metadata. She began by experimenting with an Access database supplied by our vendor (OCLC) and with Excel spreadsheets. However it was not always possible to get the required programs on the computer available for the student worker, so they began to use the spreadsheet function on Google Docs, a free web-based set of applications. This has worked well, ensuring that Laura and the student can reach the files from any location and providing the ability to link the film evaluation data to the NDNP wiki (see section 3). They are consulting with OCLC to firm up the respective metadata responsibilities.
The first reel was scanned and run through OCLC’s OCR process, and the data and images were shipped to WSL. Laura ran it through the DVV to make sure it validated before beginning the quality assurance process. Using the sample reel, the internal quality assurance processes are being developed.
We did find some incorrect metadata and are creating a work plan to best deal with such errors. One such example of an error was the incorrect attribution of ownership of the tiff images to ‘Minnesota State Historical Society’ in the validated data files (_1.xml files). Laura investigated and determined it came from embedded metadata in tiff files. She located a command-line tool used to extract, write, and view embedded data in image files and is working with the vendor to develop a plan of correction.
Since the latest version of the DVV has arrived, the decision was made to adopt the 2009 technical specifications for metadata on future reels.
3. Award Activities with Collaborating Institutions A contract with the UW was executed to allow the Washington State Library (WSL) to reimburse UW for two functions: purchase of duplicate film from negative masters owned by UW; and payment of work study worker(s) at the UW Library. Arrangements were also made to provide office space for Laura and student worker(s) at UW.
Laura has established a wiki for the project to use for maintaining files and communicating. The NDNP wiki is located at
http://wiki.secstate.wa.gov/ndnp/MainPage.ashx The wiki provides a method of storing and making available a variety of documents generated during the project, and will provide a coherent record of the project. News and updates also circulate on a project listserv to all participants and committee members.
4. Conversion and/or Vendor Selection
The RFP for scanning and OCR was issued on Sept. 15, 2008 and responses were due Oct. 15, 2008. Three proposals were received and evaluated by staff according to a procedure and scoring process developed in consultation with WSL’s contracts office. On Oct. 24, 2008, WSL announced that the successful vendor was OCLC. WSL and its contract office immediately began working on the contract which is now completed.
While contract negotiations were going on, the portable hard drive and mailing cases were purchased, named (after boats in the Washington State Ferry fleet), and shipped to the vendor in Bethlehem, PA.
Film examination and metadata collection were completed for the first title, five reels of the Seattle Republican and related titles. The first reel will be used as the sample reel to be submitted to LOC by January 31, 2009.
A kickoff meeting with OCLC staff has been scheduled for January 7, 2009 to discuss metadata specifics, project structure, communication, and scheduling of work and shipments.
5. Do you have any questions or comments regarding the use of the tools provided by LC (Digital Viewer Validation)?The DVV has been very helpful and generally easy to use. There were very minor issues with the install and a suggestion made to LOC staff to add text to the documentation for future users. We’ve found that the GUI has been less helpful and more limiting than the command-line options of validation. We intend to use the GUI and perhaps Adobe Bridge for visual validation of the image files.
We are hoping to create scripts and that can output the batch, reel, and issue metadata into various formats for testing and validation.
6. Provide an update on your planned schedule for delivery of digital assets for the award, including samples, to the NDNP repository. The hard drives purchased for the project have a capacity of 1 TB, requiring between 18-20 reels to fill. Shipments of drives will take place every 6-8 weeks. The table below represents the list of titles and possible substitutes divided by six month periods to assist the staff members responsible for acquiring the negatives, performing the film evaluation and quality control.
7.
State briefly the status of any other digitized newspaper activities in your or collaborating partners’ institutions (non-NDNP-funded).Since July the State Library has put up two more newspaper titles in their internal digital newspaper project, the Yakima Herald (1889-1890), and the Puget Sound Herald from Steilacoom (Mar. 1858-1860). Several more titles are in process. This internal project has been significantly slowed down by budget and staff cuts, and by the fact that some of the personnel involved have significant roles in the NDNP project.
8.
Please provide copies of or URLs for any public presentations or publications on topics related to your participation in NDNP (or describe future plans for such).WSL’s NDNP related news:
9.
Describe any follow-up issues or questions you would like convey to the NDNP program committee as you begin your digital conversion project.It is our understanding that the new DVV includes validation of embedded metadata in the image files. Because of such issues as described above we are looking forward to having more robust checking of the metadata in the image files.
Please submit to your NEH Program Officer (
[email protected]) with a copy to
[email protected], by January 31, 2009.
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Template
COVER PAGE
Provide the following information in the order requested:
- type of report (interim or final performance report),
- grant number,
- title of project,
- name of project director(s),
- name of grantee institution (if applicable),
- date report is submitted.
NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
The items listed are provided as guidance to the project director in developing the narrative description of project activities. Because projects vary considerably, not all items will be relevant to a particular project. Please feel free to organize this portion of the report in the way that most clearly presents what has taken place during the grant period.
Interim Performance Reports
- Compare actual accomplishments with goals established for the report period. Whenever possible, describe the work accomplished in both quantitative and qualitative terms. If project goals have not been met, explain the reason for this, what steps have been taken to get the project back on schedule, and whether it seems likely that the project will be completed by the expiration date of the grant. Favorable developments that will enable project goals to be realized sooner or at less cost than anticipated should be described.
- Describe any changes that have been made or are anticipated in the project work plan or methodology.
- If the role of consultants, as outlined in the approved project plan, has changed, explain how and why it has changed.
- If applicable, describe how automation contributed to the project and whether hardware, software, or staffing problems have been encountered.
- If federal matching funds are a component of the award and the full amount of gifts has not yet been raised, provide information on ongoing fund-raising activities and the prospects for raising additional gifts.
The narrative description of an interim performance report should average between one and three pages in length.
APPENDICES
Enclose with the report one copy of any supporting material that would contribute to an understanding of the project and its accomplishments to date. This would include:
- representative samples of completed work,
- preliminary products such as conference or workshop papers,
- course syllabi and manuals,
- written evaluations of a project,
- consultant reports, if required,
- articles submitted to journals,
- illustrated field reports,
- copies of published announcements or other formal efforts to recruit participating scholars,
- copies of any mailing, fliers, newspaper releases or articles, or other media coverage.
It is not necessary to append work in progress, such as draft chapters of a book or other manuscript materials. However, unless otherwise specified in the conditions of the grant award, two copies of any publication, film, videotape, or slide presentation resulting from the grant should be forwarded to the Endowment with the final report.
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