CONTENTdm
Encyclopedia
CONTENTdm is digital collection management software that allows for the upload, description, management and access of digital collections. It is Unicode and Z39.50
compatible. CONTENTdm can handle documents, PDFs, finding aid
s (including Encoded Archival Description
, or EAD), images, videos, and audio files. It can also handle content so that multipage documents, scores, or books can be uploaded and organized into chapters, books or by page number. CONTENTdm is also able to display six-sided, multidimensional objects. It is mostly used by universities, libraries, archives, museums, government agencies and historical societies.
. The University of Washington's digital collections were expanding, and there was an increasing demand for online access to those collections. The University of Washington started to use CISO lab software to display their collections on the internet in 1999.
In 2001, DiMeMa (Digital Media Management, Inc.) was formed to support the increasing user community and to accelerate product development. After extensive field testing, the software was made available outside of the University of Washington. It was named CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software. The name is not an acronym, CONTENT is capitalized to distinguish the software from items in a digital collection. The letters dm stand for digital management. Since CONTENTdm grew collaboratively based on feedback from users, the goal was to design CONTENTdm to be easy to use and powerful.
In 2006 OCLC
acquired DiMeMa.
CONTENTdm has evolved into a digital collection management solution that offers scalable tools for archiving collections of any size. More than 2,000 libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations worldwide use CONTENTdm software.
CONTENTdm is standards-based and supports a number of industry standards including Unicode
, Z39.50, Qualified Dublin Core, VRA, XML
, JPEG2000 and OAI-PMH. The metadata is based on Dublin Core
, an extensible metadata standard created by OCLC
in 1995.
using the WorldCat Digital Collection Gatewayhttp://www.oclc.org/gateway. The Gateway now makes it possible for any OAI-compliant repository, including CONTENTdm, to contribute metadata to WorldCat. Once the metadata is in WorldCat, digital collections are more discoverable by Web searchers through WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local, as well as Google, Yahoo! and other popular Web sites.
CONTENTdm enables collection management through a Web interface, allowing 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 security options.
Additional collection management functions are available such as creating and editing metadata templates, administering the use of controlled vocabularies, importing metadata (tab-delimited text), exporting metadata in XML, generating OCR during the import export using the OCR Extension, and viewing statistical reports.
Z39.50
Z39.50 is a client–server protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote computer databases. It is covered by ANSI/NISO standard Z39.50, and ISO standard 23950. The standard's maintenance agency is the Library of Congress....
compatible. CONTENTdm can handle documents, PDFs, finding aid
Finding aid
A finding aid is a document containing detailed information about a specific collection of papers or records within an archive. They are used by researchers to determine whether information within a collection is relevant to their research...
s (including Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description is an XML standard for encoding archival finding aids, maintained by the Library of Congress in partnership with the Society of American Archivists.-History:EAD originated in 1993, at the University of California, Berkeley...
, or EAD), images, videos, and audio files. It can also handle content so that multipage documents, scores, or books can be uploaded and organized into chapters, books or by page number. CONTENTdm is also able to display six-sided, multidimensional objects. It is mostly used by universities, libraries, archives, museums, government agencies and historical societies.
History
CONTENTdm was originally conceived by CISO, the Center for Information Systems Optimization, at the University of WashingtonUniversity of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
. The University of Washington's digital collections were expanding, and there was an increasing demand for online access to those collections. The University of Washington started to use CISO lab software to display their collections on the internet in 1999.
In 2001, DiMeMa (Digital Media Management, Inc.) was formed to support the increasing user community and to accelerate product development. After extensive field testing, the software was made available outside of the University of Washington. It was named CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software. The name is not an acronym, CONTENT is capitalized to distinguish the software from items in a digital collection. The letters dm stand for digital management. Since CONTENTdm grew collaboratively based on feedback from users, the goal was to design CONTENTdm to be easy to use and powerful.
In 2006 OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
acquired DiMeMa.
CONTENTdm has evolved into a digital collection management solution that offers scalable tools for archiving collections of any size. More than 2,000 libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations worldwide use CONTENTdm software.
Design
When CONTENTdm was created, there were five goals:- Search efficiency: the digital assets had to be easily searched (by the textual metadataMetadataThe term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
entered during the file upload process). - Scalability: projects had to be able to grow in size seamlessly.
- Features: product development had to be on-going and able to keep up with digital demands. Some examples of these developments are the ability to upload JPEG 2000JPEG 2000JPEG 2000 is an image compression standard and coding system. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard with a newly designed, wavelet-based method...
files and use optical character recognitionOptical character recognitionOptical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
(OCR) on text documents to allow for full text searchFull text searchIn text retrieval, full text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full text database...
ing. - Web compatibility.
- Interoperability: especially within formats and across systems and platforms.
CONTENTdm is standards-based and supports a number of industry standards including Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, Z39.50, Qualified Dublin Core, VRA, XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, JPEG2000 and OAI-PMH. The metadata is based on Dublin Core
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms which can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The terms can be used to describe a full range of web resources: video, images, web pages etc and physical resources such as books and objects like artworks...
, an extensible metadata standard created by OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
in 1995.
Discovery through WorldCat
In order to enhance discovery on the Web, CONTENTdm users may upload their collection metadata to WorldCatWorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...
using the WorldCat Digital Collection Gatewayhttp://www.oclc.org/gateway. The Gateway now makes it possible for any OAI-compliant repository, including CONTENTdm, to contribute metadata to WorldCat. Once the metadata is in WorldCat, digital collections are more discoverable by Web searchers through WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local, as well as Google, Yahoo! and other popular Web sites.
How the process works
Digital items can be added to a CONTENTdm digital collection (1) using the CONTENTdm Project Client, which can be distributed among staff and collaborating partners, (2) through the OCLC Connexion client using Connexion digital import, or (3) through a Web browser using a Web form. The digital collections reside on a CONTENTdm Server, either installed locally or on an OCLC-hosted server.CONTENTdm enables collection management through a Web interface, allowing 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 security options.
Additional collection management functions are available such as creating and editing metadata templates, administering the use of controlled vocabularies, importing metadata (tab-delimited text), exporting metadata in XML, generating OCR during the import export using the OCR Extension, and viewing statistical reports.
External links
- OCLC's CONTENTdm website
- WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway
- Digital Library Application Software