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CONTENTdm : Overview : Collection building and management

Collection building and management

Creating and organizing collections

CONTENTdm simplifies the process of creating and organizing digital collections. Each user has personal project space within the CONTENTdm Acquisition Station on their desktop. When image acquisition and metadata entry are complete within a user’s project, the items are uploaded to a centralized pending queue for final review or editing by a collection administrator before being added to the collection.

Inputting data and media

Items can be added to CONTENTdm singly or in batches. CONTENTdm’s batch processes and tools streamline your work, making it easy to add and manage thousands of digital items at once. Create metadata templates to speed and standardize the entry of descriptive and administrative metadata. Apply image settings instantly to items as they are imported into your projects or make global changes to metadata within live collections. Additionally, add digital items to CONTENTdm collections using the Connexion digital import.

CONTENTdm also provides a range of options for working with high resolution JPEG or TIFF files, from automatically creating lower resolution display copies that enable modifications to image quality and legibility, to using custom display copies you create.

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Optimizing pages of a document

Tab-delimited text import enables easy import of metadata into CONTENTdm from existing tools such as Microsoft Access and Excel. You also can batch import lengthy text files from OCR or transcripts into metadata fields to enable full-text searching of documents. Or, use the OCR Extension to generate OCR during the import process. Other batch processes allow you to make global changes to collections or the database.

Project template transfer

When projects require similar settings, such as image rights or administrative metadata, the project settings can be transferred easily between workstations or copied within the same workstation. This saves setup time and eases collaboration between organizations sharing the same CONTENTdm server since project settings can be shared with colleagues.

Controlled vocabulary

CONTENTdm offers controlled vocabulary for consistent, uniform metadata entry. Our software is shipped with the Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphical Materials I, or you can import or develop your own controlled vocabulary. The CONTENTdm controlled vocabulary feature permits review of vocabulary additions before they are accepted and provides support for Dublin Core Qualifiers.

Complex media types

CONTENTdm handles audio, video, PDF, image files and more. Streaming media server support provides efficient delivery of streamed items.

CONTENTdm also enables you to define items that consist of multiple views so search results will retrieve entire entities or Compound Objects, rather than individual elements. Add documents and monographs, or multi-sided objects such as postcards or sculptures. CONTENTdm also provides editing options for making changes to Compound Objects even after they have been added to collections.

To see how CONTENTdm handles specific media types, explore the collections created by CONTENTdm users.

Image rights

CONTENTdm’s Image Rights tools provide flexible options for identifying ownership of items in your collections. Options include an easily configured band of color and text, a color brand or a grayscale watermark. Each can be customized to meet your needs. When items in collections are viewed by end users, the band, brand or watermark with ownership or copyright information will be clearly displayed.

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Establishing image rights settings

Managing collections

Collection and system administrators can perform needed tasks easily with CONTENTdm. It enables complete database administration through a simple Web interface, allowing designated users to edit live collections, perform global search and replace operations, create a new collection and customize collection queries. There also are a variety of choices to protect copyrighted or other restricted materials with CONTENTdm’s security options.

Additionally, CONTENTdm supports a number of common data standards and a variety of data types and has a several options for data import and export including:

  • XML—XML is used for all internal metadata and structure descriptions within CONTENTdm. CONTENTdm also offers custom XML export of metadata that supports user-defined fields and formats for greater compatibility with local catalog systems and other applications.
  • Dublin and VRA Cores—You can use Dublin Core or VRA (the Visual Resource Association) Core to describe media and search across collections. CONTENTdm provides default metadata templates specified by the Dublin and VRA Cores. Additionally, metadata fields within CONTENTdm are fully configurable to provide maximum flexibility.
  • Null data types—For items that are not yet digitized, null data type support for metadata-only records allows you to add metadata singly or in batches.
  • Support of audio, video and streaming media—URL support allows lengthy audio and video sequences stored on your streaming media server to be accessed through CONTENTdm, providing efficient and reliable delivery over the Internet. Furthermore, CONTENTdm supports the mapping of streamed files to streaming media servers, providing efficient delivery of streamed files while maintaining database management within CONTENTdm.
  • METS/ALTO—CONTENTdm supports emerging newspaper digitization specifications—including the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) format and METS/ALTO format for when newspaper digitization projects are outsourced to a qualified partner.
  • Exporting data—To enable you to work with metadata in other programs, CONTENTdm supports export of metadata descriptions using XML. You can define specific fields to be exported and designate the format for each exported field, including repeating fields and customization of XML tag names. This enables the selection of specific formats for more compatibility with local catalog systems.
  • Metadata harvesting—CONTENTdm is also fully compliant with OAI-PMH v2. OAI, or Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, is a standard for metadata harvesting. If you wish to make your metadata available for harvesting, CONTENTdm supports collection-level OAI harvesting. Support for OAI flow control provides more reliable network transmission for harvesting especially large collections.

If you’re ready to explore CONTENTdm for yourself, simply request an evaluation to begin your free trial.