The text of the article included below has just been published in
"Object Magazine" and provides an overview of the progress that CHS
has made in the field of collection management/digitization. I hope
that some will find the information helpful. Though my comments are
platform specific, I hope the fact that we have resolved so many
common problems will make it pertinent to this list. Other computer
platforms should, or should in the future, have similar capabilities.

We are just moving to new headquarters in the downtown San Francisco
area where ISDN data communication lines are available. We hope to
have Web access to our collection data and images within a few
months. I will alert pertinent lists as we go online.

This, of course, will enlighten my comments of just days ago.

"DIGITIZING THE FUTURE WITH NeXT AT THE CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

By supporting the infrastructure of the organization, NEXTSTEP has
made the workplace a "productivity place."

Robert MacKimmie

With a successful transition to Mission Critical Custom Applications
and OpenStep porting to major platforms, the time is right for an
overdue appreciation of NeXT technology. One of the most overlooked
aspects of the past half-decade is the the extent to which NEXTSTEP
has provided a progressive and powerful work environment for small to
moderate sized organizations. For those in the trenches, not having
to tolerate vaporproduct and feeble computing environments has meant
that significant progress has been possible by allowing the
construction of profound information toolsets that are the foundation
of tomorrow's information environment.

Typical of many private non-profit organizations which serve the
public at large, the California Historical Society lacked
contemporary technology solutions and continues to be reliant upon
the philanthropic interests of private foundations. Having conceived
a project of digital access to collection materials, a small grant to
provide a proof of concept consisting of one used NeXT Cube, a flat
bed scanner, laser printer and minimal software produced results that
continue to inspire not only the public, but museum and collection
management professionals.

The successful pilot project leveraged continuing support related to
data management and facsimile retrieval, eventually providing staff
for the specialized information development and a technology base
consisting of ten NeXT Computers, three flat-bed scanners, one
high-speed document scanner with optical, CD and DAT drives serving
the entire system. The computers are spread throughout three floors
of a Victorian mansion in San Francisco's Pacific Heights, many of
the client-server computers functioning as specialized workstations.

Moving into its fourth year of NeXT-based deployment, CHS has been
pioneering information access aimed at making available the vast
collections held at it's North Baker Research Library. Comprehensive
data development is meeting standards for surrogate retrieval of
materials typically found in museum and research library collections
throughout the world. The information sets developed adhere to
standardized thesauri and controlled vocabularies which are required
for success in the maturing global research environment. Robust image
handling, capable networking, file security and an array of powerful,
well-integrated custom and shrink-wrapped applications have been a
particular benefit in CHS' success---all made possible by NEXTSTEP's
user friendly client-server environment.


Prior to the explosive growth of Web/Mosaic, Internet navigation and
digital imaging was vaguely comprehended by the public. Additionally,
the evolutionary transformation of cryptic bibliographic information
sets into open-standard, universally accessible formats remains
highly dependant on specialized human labor. Integral online tools
developed to interpret, manipulate and codify raw information
streamlines the data standardization process. Optical Character
Recognition, text processing and initial database manipulation can
quickly groom pertinent data to a useful state.

When the configured information engine is able to retrieve specific
documents, digitized photographs for instance, the need for
traditional staff-based access is minimized with two important
benefits: a researcher is able to locate disparately located
materials without institutional assistance (positions that are
vanishing in present-day budgets) AND original materials, often rare,
valuable and extremely fragile remain safely housed in their
temperature/humidity controlled vaults. Typically, a digital
surrogate of a delicate unmounted albumen photograph by a prominent
California landscape photographer in the 1860s can be printed out on
a laser printer, sufficing for researchers in most instances. Because
the handling of original material is the greatest threat to their
preservation and longevity, digital access compounds the digital
project benefits---near immediate review of the material is possible
whether on site or at a distance, something made possible only by
global access of the Internet.

Primary sources materials curated for the digital imaging project
includes photographs, broadsides, manuscripts, sheet music
illustrations, rare book woodcuts, ephemera and realia--physical
objects, such as a money belt which travelled across the Isthmus of
Panama on its way to the Gold Rush in California. Robust subject
cataloging provides hooks which await the pertinent queries of
researchers. A search on the ubiquitous Sutter's Mill, where gold was
first discovered in the 1848 pre-state of California, will invoke a
vintage drawing from a daguerreotype of the river scene complete with
miners doing Sunday laundry, a portrait of John Sutter, a portrait of
John Marshall (the actual discoverer of gold in 1848) in front of the
mill, a commemorative 50th year portrait of Marshalls's four fellow
workers at the time of gold's discovery, a descriptive vintage map of
the goldfields, an image of the first published newspaper listing of
gold's discovery, an aerial photograph of the riverbed made in the
1960s which shows the former path of the river with the mill's
location, and finally, there is a photograph of the Sutter Mill
corner posts which were excavated from the site more than 100 years
after it was abandoned. The fact that these are not just references
to the material but images provides an immediate sense of vibrant
history with veracity that has not previously existed.


Once the data is Internet connected, whether the researcher is a
museum curator making final selections for a groundbreaking
exhibition, a fourth grade student working on a school report, or a
publisher seeking specific rare materials to illustrate a text, these
new methods of scholarship are clearly invaluable. Digital searches
of indexes now makes possible in twenty minutes what would have been
two weeks of hit and miss detective work.

So what is so revolutionary? Client-server networking providing the
unseen power of UNIX, user friendly interface, interoperability of
third-party applications through the API and powerful tools bundled
with the OS have provided a scalable solution for modest sized
organization with the need for powerful solutions. Shrinkwrapped
software, while not as bountiful as selections on mainstream OSs, is
all encompassing and provides productivity suites that make
comprehensive work an achievement miracle. The effectiveness of
NEXTSTEP/OpenStep in supporting the infrastructure of an organization
cannot be understated. The workplace becomes a productivity place.

Vertical market solutions have been available where shrinkwrapped
software has not offered a solution. For the CHS digital imaging
initiative, Virginia Tech Library Systems, (VTLS), has provided
museum and library communities with a multimedia bibliographic
front-end for the multimedia database and it remains well ahead of
the capability of other bibliographic vendors. The development
environment of NEXTSTEP/OpenStep provides critical custom software
tailoring in addition to evolving data management solutions such as
Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) from NeXT. Mainstream
shrinkwrapped applications now available across the quad-array of
major hardware should be considered as indispensable tools for
enterprise success. Applications such as Stone Design's DataPhile
database are as useful for data manipulation as a hammer is to a
carpenter. As if that weren't enough, the host of bundled NeXT
applications has offered mainstream employees powerful capabilities
not available on other popular platforms.

The California Historical Society has been able to make steadfast
progress not only by moving toward the future environment of data
management, but thanks to the powerful toolset and information
management system, we have been able to help shape what that future
will be. Happily, it is user friendly and substantive.


Robert MacKimmie
Curatorial Director of Photography
California Historical Society
[log in to unmask]"

END