COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Rick Sherman, Colleen Hubbard (Team Manager), Lisa Czirr, Laura Keller

As the Collection Development team, our chief responsibility was to sift through the Niagara Aerospace Museum's considerable holdings and define a scope for the digital collection. By focusing our efforts on Western New York-based companies, we hoped to establish a unique collection that would provide in-depth information about and improved access to the museum's exceptional materials of local origin.

Read our team policy

COPYRIGHT, CONTENT, COMPLIANCE TEAM

Joseph Hartnett (Team Manager), Jennifer Santomauro, Susan Clementson, Theresa Hogg, Christian O’Brien , Rachel Meyers

Our Team researched, developed and implemented this collection’s copyright and section 508 compliance policies. We worked closely with the collection development and infrastructure teams and provided general copyright and compliance advice to the class. We developed, compiled, organized, edited and wrote content related to Western NY and the collection.

DIGITIZATION TEAM

Caleb Moshier, Mitra Karimi-Tabriz (Team Manager), Colleen Dippold, Ahlam Saleh

The Digitization Team was responsible for the creation of digital images that supported the mission of the Digital Library. The team members researched current technologies for procedures such as scanning, resolution, storage, and watermarking. We also created procedural instructions and work schedules for the capture of images and their categorization. Working closely with both the Collection Development and Metadata teams, our team had the final responsibility for the integrity of all digitized images used in the Digital Library. It is our hope that the images as presented will capture the unique and interesting collection housed in the Niagara Aerospace Museum.

INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM

Adam Traub, Reema Banerjee (Team Manager), Tanya Kuzylak

The Infrastructure Team researched Niagara Aerospace Museum’s current resources to support the digital library (DL) and made recommendations concerning the resources that we would need to develop the DL. We researched software that we would need to both create the database and perform dynamic search and browse functions. We used Microsoft Access® to create the database which acts as a backend for the DL and holds the metadata for the collection in the DL. We used Active Server Pages (ASP) as a scripting language to connect the database to the browser for creation of dynamic search and browse pages that display the metadata for the collection. We coordinated our efforts with the entire class, especially the Metadata Team and Interface Team. Our team will assist Niagara Aerospace Museum to migrate the DL to their Internet server provider. We will also provide written procedures to the museum on how to maintain the DL.

INTERFACE DESIGN TEAM

Reema Banerjee, Matt Kochan (Team Manager), Nick Kerelchuk, Andy Aquino

Our team designed an interface for the Niagara Aerospace Museum’s Digital Library that we believe best serves our users and does the best job of highlighting the collection. An emphasis was placed on user needs by following the following three criteria:

• Site simplicity and consistency to ensure return users
• Ease of navigation to aid users while they visit the site
• Compliance with W3C guidelines to make the site accessible to all users

We created our interface using HTML coding, which was continually revised after receiving feedback from others involved in the project. The interface team’s ultimate goal was to create an interface that immediately pleases the user’s eye on the first visit, and grows in familiarity after repeated visits.

ORGANIZATION AND METADATA TEAM

Emily Sarazyn, Mark Gatti, Carol Harper (Team Manager), Melodye Campbell

The Organization and Metadata team was responsible for creating a scheme for the class to use when entering the information for each record; every class member worked as a cataloger in this project. This team formed a scheme based on Dublin Core and outlined rules for each cataloger to follow. The subject thesaurus that the Organization and Metadata team assembled drew from Library of Congress subject headings and natural language from the museum. Each item at the Niagara Aerospace Museum is labeled with information about its origin. Information for the digital library metadata was gathered from these museum resources, museum experts, and outside reference sources. This team also assisted the catalogers in entering and improving their metadata entries and performed the final editing of the metadata in each record.

USER LIAISON TEAM

April Scherer, Molly Dahl, Jaimie Unglaub (Team Manager)

To design a system that would be useful and produce return visits the User Liaison developed an in-depth picture of just who our users are. The User Liaison team used various methods to identify the key identified collection users: Researchers, General Interest Users, and Children. We collected both user demographics and technology/ information seeking profiles that were essential in the design of the entire library, particularly the metadata, interface and infrastructure. Our team used this information to create the digital library mission statement.