The Ralph Wheeler Hybrid Daylily Collection

Implementation
This section describes how the collection’s ontology will be implemented.

Metadata creators
The Ralph Wheeler Hybrid Daylily Collection is very small (around 120 items),
so the implementation will not be a long or difficult process. Because it is a
family collection, volunteers from within the family will perform the
implementation and maintenance. Having family members working on the
collection will enable us to capture specific details that those who never knew
Wheeler would not be able to add. We envision two people working on the
collection at a time to ensure that all metadata will be seen by two sets of
eyes.

Quality Control
To ensure quality and consistence of the Collection’s metadata records,
volunteers and/or staff members will follow the official metadata standard of
the Ralph Wheeler Hybrid Daylily Collection in creating records and we will
perform the following activities during the workflow process.

At the first stage, to ensure consistency we will create and use a controlled
vocabulary for all records. Next, the metadata creation process will be
managed throughout. Because metadata will be created manually, each
volunteer and/or staff member will be trained by the Project Manager with
appropriate measures. Additionally, records for each object will be verified by
volunteer and/or staff person upon creation, and usability tests conducted.

We acknowledge the possibility of receiving existing digital files as

contributions from external sources and will take appropriate actions to align
all records with our official metadata standard.

The following two samples illustrate quality metadata records of the Ralph
Wheeler Daylily Collection.

Sample 1:

Title: Slide of Show Girl Hybrid, 1949 (Winter Park, Florida)

Creator: Wheeler, Ralph W. (1880-1963)

Creator Role: Photographer

Subject: Daylilies, Gardening – Florida

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Description: VRL1 (Violet Red Light Self), Pinkish-purple with White Stripe on
Each Petal, 40 in.

Date Digital: 2010-09-07

Date Original: 1949-01-01

Format

Original Format: Image

Original Format Extent: 5.08 cm x 5.08 cm (2 in x 2 in)

Asset Type: 35mm slide

Digitization Specs

Digital Format: image/jpg

Bit Depth: 24 bit

Digital Creator: Alexandria Marder

Resolution: 96 dpi

Capture Hardware: Epson Scanner

Resource ID: Wheeler-1949-showgirl

Rights Management: Copyright to this resource is held by XXX and is

provided here for

educational purposes only. It may not be downloaded, reproduced, or

distributed in any format without written permission of XXX. Any
attempt to circumvent the access controls placed on this file is a
violation of United States and international copyright laws, and is
subject to criminal prosecution.

Source: Wheeler, Ralph W. (1880-1963)

Relation: Wheeler-1950-award_of_merit

Sample 2:

Title: Ralph W. Wheeler ’06 Dean of Hybridists, 1958 (Amherst,

Massachusetts)

Creator: Amherst Alumni Magazine

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 Creator Role: Publisher

Subject: Daylilies, Gardening -- Florida

Description: Includes photo of Wheeler

Date Digital: 2010-09-07

Date Original: 1958-01-01

Format

Original Format: Image

Original Format Extent: 20.32 cm x 20.32 cm (8 in x 8 in)

Asset Type: Newspaper clipping

Digitization Specs

Digital Format: image/jpg

Bit Depth: 24 bit

Digital Creator: Alexandria Marder

Resolution: 96 dpi

Capture Hardware: Epson Scanner

Resource ID: Wheeler-1958-deanofhybridists

Rights Management: Copyright to this resource is held by XXX and is

provided here for

educational purposes only. It may not be downloaded, reproduced, or

distributed in any format without written permission of XXX. Any
attempt to circumvent the access controls placed on this file is a
violation of United States and international copyright laws, and is
subject to criminal prosecution.

Source: Amherst Alumni Magazine

Relation: Wheeler-1957-farr_award

Systems/Tools
In creating metadata for the Ralph Wheeler Hybrid Daylily Collection,
Microsoft Access will be used to create metadata records (an example of
which can be seen below). The Access database will be set up so that specific
fields within each metadata record will pull from tables of controlled
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vocabulary. Other fields in the records will be free-text fields. More detailed
guidelines about creating metadata records for the Wheeler Collection have
been specified elsewhere, and examples of metadata are provided above.

Once the metadata records have been created, they will be uploaded (most
likely manually so) to a staff-created (Alexandria) Omeka page. Omeka was
chosen because it is an open-web tool designed to be easy to use and to get
things on-line quickly. Omeka will be utilized in managing content as well as
in providing the end users access to the collection. For a collection of this
small scope, it is an ideal choice. Omeka allows pages to be set-up using
Dublin Core elements (as well as our slightly modified Dublin Core elements).
Additionally, Omeka allows for tagging by users, an aspect that may be
exceedingly useful for attributes such as color. An example page, Bracero,
created using Omeka can be seen below. Our page will look very similar, with
the addition of images along with the specific metadata for each item.

Figure 1. Sample Access database interface. Notice that tables in the left-
hand column contain controlled vocabularies.

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Figures 2-4. Sample page created using Omeka.
http://braceroarchive.org/items/show/3219?view=full. Accessed December 7,
2010.

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Workflow & Timeline
Given the size and scope of this project, the implementation process will be
fairly brief, involving six basic steps:

1. Creation and refinement of the ontology

2. Creation and formatting of the content management system

3. Training

4. Digitization

5. Metadata creation

6. Usability testing

This will be an iterative process in which several steps may lead back to
previous steps to ensure highest usability (see Figure 5).

1. Creation and refinement of the ontology (2 weeks)

Our group has already sketched out a basic ontological framework, providing
suggestions for controlled vocabulary and thesauri. The proposed ontology
pulls from existing metadata schemas with modifications specific to this
particular collection. Though the bulk of this work has already been
completed, revisions to the ontology will be necessarily once we have
assembled the team who will actually complete this project. These individuals
will bring new perspectives to the collection, which will undoubtedly need to
be incorporated into our existing model. Therefore, we anticipate the
completion of the ontology to take approximately two weeks.

2. Creation and formatting of the content management system (5

weeks)

We expect that the second step, creating and formatting the content
management system, will take about five weeks. This will include setting up
the database (including crafting an appropriate ER model), as well as
developing the proper interface. Since this collection will rely on existing
platforms—Access for the back-end database and Omeka for the content
management/interface—this step should not be particularly labor-intensive.

3. Training (1 week)

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Since we are relying on a volunteer staff to create the metadata and oversee
content and collection maintenance, it is imperative that we provide thorough
training. Training will go beyond simply instructing our team in how to use
Access and Omeka. They will need to learn about the purpose of proper
metadata, as well as become familiar with the modified Dublin Core schema
that serves as the framework for the objects in the Wheeler Collection. We
anticipate that this will take no longer than one week.

4. Digitization (3 weeks)

This is the most critical step in the entire process, as the digital image is the
primary unit of analysis in our collection. Digitization will entail scanning each
object and cleaning each image in Photoshop. Each image will then be
uploaded to our server, at which point a unique Resource ID will be created in
compliance with Dublin Core specifications. Each Resource ID must be
created in a standardized way to enable search and discovery within our
content management system. We expect that it should take about twenty
minutes to scan, clean, upload, and create a Resource ID for each object.
With about 120 items currently in the collection, this translates into about 40
hours of labor. Assuming each volunteer works ten hours per week, this
process could take as little as two weeks. More realistically, we expect the
digitization process to take about three or four weeks, with each volunteer
donating about five hours per week.

5. Metadata creation (2.5 weeks)

Along with digitization, this step will be critical if our collection is to be

usable. Metadata creation will consist of creating each entry (Access),
verification of each record, and uploading into our interface (Omeka). We
expect that two people will work on this and the previous step in the project
(digitization), splitting the digitization and metadata creation workload. Each
person will then verify the accuracy of the other person’s work for internal
consistency. We expect that it will take about fifteen minutes per item entry,
for a grand total of thirty hours.

It is possible that during the process of creating metadata for each item, our
team will need to revisit and revise the original ontology. Should that happen,
they would need to go back over each entry to adjust and update the
metadata to match any changes made to controlled vocabulary, thesauri, or
entity relationships. Though it is not possible to accurately predict how long
this iterative step would take, it is reasonable to think it would only set the
project back by a week or so.

6. Usability testing (one month)

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Once everything has been digitized and entered into our database, we will
begin testing the interface’s usability. We will begin testing on an internal
population—relatives of Ralph Wheeler who have a personal connection to
the collection. Depending on their feedback, we will either iterate back to the
ontology system or revisit the design of our content management system to
improve search and browse functionality. If the first phase of testing does not
lead back to an earlier step, we can begin Phase II testing with a broader
population of users, in this case a random sample of users. We will keep
iterating through the process, expanding our test population until we are
confident that our interface is easy to use, and that the relationship of objects
is logical to our end users. We anticipate this step taking about one or two
months, depending on how many cycles are necessary.

Implementing the collection from start to finish may take as little as eighteen
months, depending on the amount of time our team can devote to the
project. The entire project, however, might take as many two years to get off
the ground and onto the web.

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Figure 5. Implementation Workflow

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Cost
In light of the size and nature of our collection, as well as our reliance on a
volunteer staff to prepare and maintain the collection, it is imperative that
this project be as inexpensive to produce as possible. We have selected
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Microsoft Access not only for its relatively straightforward format, but also for
its price. Several of the team members who will be working on the collection
already have the software. Hardware is relatively inexpensive; a quality
scanner costs approximately $100-$200. To keep costs at a minimum, we
have opted to use an open-source content management system, Omeka,
which will provide free website hosting services.

Growing the Collection

Because our collection is rather contained, it does not make sense to try to
“farm out” the creation of our collection beyond our volunteer corps.
However, we agree that drawing on more decentralized and automated
processes will help to grow our collection in the future. For instance, Omeka
allows for user-generated tagging. We hope and expect that our end-users
will use the tagging feature to add value to our collection. Specifically, we
would like to see visitors to our site add natural language to our “Description”
category so that we can move beyond the expert-created color schema found
on the AHS Daylily Database. Expanding to natural language color
descriptions will help users find images of flowers of particular hues.

Likewise, should the inheritors of this project want to expand it beyond the
approximately one-hundred objects, they might consider exploring the
application of OCR methods and automated metadata harvesting of the local
Winter Park, FL newspaper (assuming back copies of the paper have been or
will be digitized).

While we recognize that our collection is rather limited in scope, and perhaps
in audience reach, our system can prove to be a helpful model for similar
collections, whether of a horticulture nature or not. It is easy to imagine, for
instance, a demand for an online database for roses, given the popularity of
the flower and the countless number of hybrids in existence and in
development. There is currently a rose database available online:
http://www.everyrose.com/everyrose/sitemap.lasso.

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