To register for any of the above programs, please contact Marilyn Shaver (SHAVER). All sessions will be held in the Ground Floor Conference Room.

Computer training (Indiana Memorial Union M088)

To register for the computer classes, contact Marilyn Shaver (SHAVER>). These classes will be held in IMU M088.

Human Resources Management is presenting a wide variety of classes that are open to all librarians, faculty, and staff on campus. Classes for February include:

For more information about these classes, please contact Marilyn Shaver.

4. FINE ARTS LIBRARY EXHIBIT

"The Year Has Begun: Calendars in Books of Hours and Other Forms of Art"

On the occasion of the new year, an exhibit in the Fine Arts Library examines representations of the calendar in the history of art. "The Year Has Begun" focuses primarily on the depiction of the months of the year in medieval prayer books known as Books of Hours. Reproductions of these richly illustrated manuscripts come from both the Fine Arts Library's circulating and special collections. Ancient Roman, Balinese and contemporary American depictions of the months of the year and the signs of the zodiac represent a small cross-section of the ways humankind has marked the passage of time in its artistic expression.

Visit the exhibit in the lobby of the Fine Arts Library from now until February 16. The lobby is open Monday through Thursday 8am to 9:30pm, Friday 8am to 5pm, Saturday 10am to 5pm, and Sunday noon to 5 pm. Access the lobby through the Fine Arts Building or the IU Art Museum.

--Erika Dowell, Assistant to Branch Head, Fine Arts Library

5. MINOLTA DPCS (DIGITAL PUBLICATION COPYING SYSTEM) 3000

The IU Libraries have been investigating digital scanning of graphic materials as an alternative to preservation microfilming. The Preservation Department is seeking a technology that will non-destructively scan a bound volume to produce a digital image of a page, for later enhancement, OCR processing, electronic transmission, etc. We also wish to produce from the digital files facsimile copies of bound volumes, on permanent/durable paper, with page registration and a binding margin.

The IUL Preservation Department tested the Phase I DPCS from December 5-18, 1995. This iteration of DPCS consists of the PS 3000 Planetary Scanner and the Di30 Digital Copier. Each of these units can operate independently, and since future phases of the system will not incorporate the Di30, this evaluation reviews the performance of each separately.

Di30

The digital copier component is basically an office-type copier and has many features that are attractive in that environment but not in a preservation reformatting operation. It produced high-quality copies of texts, line drawings, photographs and halftones. However it is extremely slow. Since Minolta plans to offer subsequent phases of the system with a low-end laser printer instead of the copier, it is not necessary to look for upgrades in the Di30.

PS 3000

The most innovative and, from the preservation standpoint, important feature of the digital scanner is that bound volumes may be scanned face-up. This is beneficial for all library materials, but especially for rare items. The automatic curve correction produces legible copies from very tightly bound volumes. One rare book was successfully scanned when opened only to a 90 degree angle.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to produce a facsimile preservation copy of a bound volume. There is no option for adding a binding margin. In addition, the automatic curve correction, while producing legible copies from pages with tight gutter margins, makes page registration nearly impossible.

If the page is 4" or closer to the scanning head, it is impossible to get a legible image. Since many older volumes, especially serials and government publications, may exceed the 4" limit, it is important to be able to increase the distance between the scanner and the page.

One unresolved question about the scanner is resolution. The Minolta brochure claims "True Gray Scale image reproduction equivalent to 6400 dots per inch." However, for preservation purposes, the input image resolution that will be stored in the digital file is more important than the image reproduction. The specification sheet sent by the sales rep states that the scanning resolution is 200, 300, and 400 dpi, with 256 gray scales, but gave no information about which modes scan at which resolutions. Since the scanner offers only two modes, it is unclear how it could scan at three different resolutions.

Summary

From the preservation standpoint, the Di30 copier has no benefits. The PS 3000 as it is currently configured is adequate for most scanning of bound volumes. In Phase II and subsequent developments, it will be possible to connect the scanner to printers, disk drives and other peripherals, and to network it. This will make the scanner extremely attractive for both special collections (to make nondestructive copies) and access services (to make electronic transmission of requested materials in one step).

Any decision on the utility of the scanner for digital reformatting for preservation is contingent on more information from the manufacturer. We hope to see Phase II in operation in the next few months and to be able to make a recommendation then.

[See the IUL Preservation Department Home Page (http://www.indiana.edu/~libpres) for a longer version of this report and DPCS 3000 product information from Minolta.]

--Lorraine Olley, Head, Preservation Department

6. . "I don't think many of these works have been pulled off the shelf that often."

Some of the works could not have been taken from the shelf at an IU Library, since many of the works that appear in the VWWP are not owned by IU. In the bibliography first proposed for the VWWP, Willett was surprised to find that IU only had about half of the works in its collections. "And the Libraries' collections from this period are among the best in the country," Willett notes.

His discovery emphasized the need for and usefulness of creating a specialized collection accessible through the Internet. The works are now available universally. "You don't have to travel to see half of what you want," Willett says. "It's all together in one place."

Featuring the works of British women from the late Victorian period (1860-1910), The Victorian Women Writers Project originated in the Spring of 1995 after Felix Jung, an undergraduate English major, contacted IU's Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS) about the possibility of helping update and add to the Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Full Text Database.

"I thought the Chadwyck-Healey database was incredible. I was amazed to see how literature was crossing over into the computer realm," Jung says. When IU Librarian Perry Willett, subject specialist for English and American Literature, explained that the database was produced by Chadwyck-Healey, a commercial publisher, Jung asked what he could do to help IU develop its own database of authors not represented in other digital collections.

Why not? thought Willett. "We thought it would be a great opportunity for us to get involved in producing electronic texts." They decided to pursue Jung's interest in Victorian literature, which had grown after he took a Victorian Poetry class from IU English Professor Donald Gray, editor of the journal, Victorian Studies.

Working with Gray, Willett and Jung developed an initial list of writers to include in the project. "We were looking for writers who were not considered part of the canon, but who may have received some attention lately," Willett explains. "As scholars review overlooked writers and examine people who have been ignored, a lot of attention has been focused on women writers of this period."

Making sure not to duplicate works that appear in the Chadwyck-Healey collection or in the Brown Women Writers Project, they identified five writers to start with (Louisa Bevington, Amy Levy, Eliza Keary, Maud Keary, and Dollie Radford), and Willett began locating copies of the authors' works in order to conduct the physical process of digitizing the literature.

Because many of these authors wrote in a wide range of genres, Willett decided not to limit the collection to poetry only. "I think it's more interesting to have a variety of works available to see how the author thought and wrote about different things throughout her career," he says. The collection currently includes works by the initial five authors, plus Mathilde Blind, Ada Cambridge, and Helen Taylor.

Obtaining copies of some of the works was often a challenge. Although some of the writers were popular in their lifetime and saw their works in circulation, not many libraries collected these works systematically, Willett explains. "We have received many items through inter-library loan, but some items are only available in rare book libraries that don't lend their materials. Some libraries have been kind enough to photocopy requested materials for free. However, others will not permit photocopying because the materials are too fragile."

Jung, who received a $500 grant from the Research and University Graduate School to help pay for the time he was spending on the project, occasionally took a laptop computer over to the IU Lilly Library in order to type selected works directly into the computer. Using Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines, which adapt Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) rules to humanities texts, Jung transcribed and encoded the text, proofread it and printed a hard copy for Willett to review.

Willett says he initially didn't care about typographic details such as indentations, but with Jung's insistence, he decided that this is an important part of how a poem looks. Plus, he says, "people in the humanities are used to looking at the printed page. They're used to seeing text in a certain way."

Willett and the other project editors also are careful to note erroneous spellings using TEI coding, while correcting obvious typos and other printing errors. In addition to the TEI encoded texts, which are viewable with a Windows Panorama browser, the VWWP includes Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) versions of the works, which are viewable with any Web browser. Creating electronic texts is a complex process, Willett says. To ensure that the VWWP continues as an ongoing project, he hopes to find funding for someone to produce more texts, as Jung did.

Before he graduated in December with a B.A. in English, Jung's proposal to establish the VWWP as an internship opportunity for English majors was approved by IU's English department. Students will be eligible to apply for the 8-hour internship in the summer. In the meantime, LETRS graduate assistants continue to work on the project as they have time. Six works are currently in production and 75 more are proposed for addition.

"Seeing the enthusiasm this project has generated has been very rewarding," Willett says. "Whether they're interested in poetry, electronic texts, publishing on the Web, preservation -- whatever aspect they're interested in -- people from the English Department, University Computing Services, LETRS and the IUB Library have come together to work on this."

Willett regularly posts project updates to the ETEXTCTR listserv for people working with electronic texts and the VICTORIA listserv for Victorian literature enthusiasts and has invited scholars at other institutions to contribute to the project.

"A strength of the Internet is that it allows for remote collaborations. I think this kind of work will be an important source of publications in the future," Willett says. "Scholars and librarians need to see themselves not as passive consumers, but as active producers, and take advantage of opportunities to produce texts they want, rather than wait for someone else to do it. I think publishing on the Web is the future, and being part of that is very exciting."

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