Vivarium welcomes contributions from CSB/SJU department that
wish to deliver digital collections online. Vivarium can deliver
many types of digital media objects, including images, audio files,
video clips, PDF documents, and more.
Imaging Standards:
Vivarium strives to have the highest-quality digital images and
resources it can present. The
Vivarium staff can assist in helping CSB/SJU departments find ways
to digitize their collections.
Scanning Standards:
In many cases analog visual resources will have to be scanned
to create digital files for Vivarium. For zoom and pan
capabilities, images with pixel dimensions in the 2000x3000 range
provide the richest online viewing experience. The following table
sets some imaging guidelines:
| Source
Material |
Original Size |
Scan Resolution |
Photographs,
prints,
documents |
4 by 5 inches and smaller |
600ppi |
| 5 by 7 inches and larger |
300ppi |
| Film Originals |
35mm slides and negatives |
2400ppi |
| Medium format |
1200ppi |
| 4 by 5 inch film |
600ppi |
|
|
|
|
Direct Digital Photography:
Digital photography from cameras equal to or better than the "four-megapixel"
range are suitable for creating digital content for Vivarium.
Metadata Standards:
Metadata is a relatively new term for a very old concept.
Metadata is simply "data about data," or information about a resource. An
old-fashioned card catalog contains metadata about books and bibliographic
items. Vivarium's database contains information about the digital objects
delivered by the system.
Vivarium's database systems is based
on Dublin Core, a set of metadata standards
supported by OCLC and other groups. Unqualified Dublin Core consists of 15
database fields. They are:
| DC
Element |
Definition |
| Title |
A name given to the resource. |
| Subject |
A topic of the content of the resource. |
| Description |
An account of the content of the resource. |
| Creator |
An entity primarily responsible for making the content of
the resource. |
| Publisher |
An entity responsible for making the resource available |
| Contributors |
An entity responsible for making contributions to the
content of the resource. |
| Date |
A date of an event in the lifecycle of the resource. |
| Type |
The nature or genre of the content of the resource. |
| Format |
The physical or digital manifestation of the resource. |
| Identifier |
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given
context. |
| Source |
A Reference to a resource from which the present resource
is derived. |
| Language |
A language of the intellectual content of the resource. |
| Relation |
A reference to a related resource. |
| Coverage |
The extent or scope of the content of the resource. |
| Rights |
Information about rights held in and over the resource. |
|
|
Further information about the Dublin Core metadata
elements can be found
here.
In general, the more metadata about an object,
the better. The search capabilities in Vivarium work best when there is lots of
specific information about a resource. The Vivarium staff can assist departments
in finding ways to create metadata or convert existing database information into
formats suitable for Vivarium.
