1. The American Museum of Natural
History Special Collections Practicum
by Jack Weiss
Dean Tula Giannini
LIS 698-01
2. Origins of the Image Database
• Shortly after its founding in 1869, AMNH
began accumulating images made by its
scientist and explorers. They photographed
their missions, as well as the lands and
peoples around them.
• Albert Bickmore, AMNH founder, was an
enthusiastic proponent of visual education.
3. Growth of Photographic Collection
• By end of 19th century, AMNH had a 140,000
lantern slide lending library for NYC schools. This
began trend to “go beyond the Museum’s walls”
• Currently, the Photographic Collection has about
1.5 million images in all formats. Originals are
kept in 7-story climate controlled archive
• To build internal support for digitization
projects, Library staff produced a 50 image print-
on-demand book distributed to AMNH Trustees
in Jan. 2007
4. NY METRO Library Council
• In 2007, AMNH secured a grant from NY
METRO and created its first digitization
project, Picturing the Museum: Education and
Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural
History.
• This 989 image website was a showcase for
the Photographic Collection and the prototype
for the Image Database.
5. NY METRO Grant
• Enabled cataloger and scanning technician to
be hired
• Enabled equipment to be purchased: Epson
Perfection V750-M Pro flatbed scanner, MAC
Pro work station, Eizo CG211: ColorEdge Color
Calibration LCD Monitor w/hood, and Eye One
Calibration Hardware
6. Sources of Image Metadata
• Mellon Foundation grant funded digitization
of typed logbooks, negative envelopes, and
photo print file cards.
• All data was “triple-keyed” by hand
(outsourced) to compare and eliminate errors.
• This produced 186,000 “legacy records”
7. Cataloging Procedures & Metadata
Documentation
• The Descriptive Data Fields were formed
according to DACS (Describing Archives: A
Content Standard)
• Mapped to Dublin Core
• Syntax Rules for ‘new caption’ field based on
VRA Core Element Description were designed
to be brief and descriptive
8. Descriptive Fields Used
• Drop-Down Menus: Format, Original
Photographer, Copy
Photographer, Artist, Department/Discipline, Subj
ect Heading
• Drop-down menus used for ease and consistency
• Fill-ins: Caption title, Date, Geographic Location
(repeatable), Institution, Permanent
Hall, Expedition, Cultural Context, Cataloger’s
Notes (seen only in Administrative Interface)
9. My Internship Role
• Edit Metadata
• Save Original Caption & Source Data
• Write New Caption, descriptive and
brief, eliminate any “culturally insensitive”
terms
• Complete fill-in and drop-down menu
selections using Authority Files (various
AMNH Departmental databases, LC
Authorities, TGN)
10. Workflow
• Work of interns editing metadata reviewed by
Visual Resource Librarian
• If approved, work sent to Head Archivist for
review in batches of 100 images
• If approved by Head Archivist, available for on-
line viewing; “culturally insensitive” images
are suppressed and available only to
researchers at AMNH
15. Omeka CMS Virtues
• Good points: easy to install, easy to learn and
use.
• Over a dozen plug-ins available
• Dublin Core is default Metadata Set
• Tagging is easy
• It’s open source (free)
16. Omeka CMS Drawbacks
• Endless scrolling within a record
• If one moves to another tab without hitting
‘Save Changes’ risk of loss of new data; no
warning from Omeka
• Not designed to handle large volume
collection
17. Digital Migration to new CMS?
• AMNH might acquire LUNA
• LUNA is a proprietary CMS
• Annual Licensing fee; fee for 24/7
maintenance/support
• Source data unavailable – customization handled
by LUNA for a fee
• Easy to create different interface templates
• Can offer streaming video
• Features searchable text
• Handles large volume collection easily
