Imagining the Northwest : A Digital Library Partnership in Oregon

Abstract

This paper documents the development of a digital library of still images created by photographer Lee Moorhouse on the Umatilla Indian Reservation at the turn of the 20th century. The University of Oregon Libraries, working with the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, developed a Dublin Core compliant metadata structure. The metadata structure accommodates descriptive metadata from different cultural perspectives as well as technical and administrative metadata about multiple manifestations of images. The paper also details the development of scanning and color management methodologies, the design and application of controlled vocabularies, and the implementation of the metadata structure in the CONTENTdm Software Suite. The authors discuss the challenges of creating a flexible and interoperable metadata structure and explore the use of XSLT as a mechanism for transforming metadata exported from CONTENTdm into more granular formats. The paper concludes with a discussion of recommended best practices and future directions. The project is currently in progress and will be completed in Fall 2003.