National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

In August of 2008, Willamette University was granted a Level I NEH Digital Humanities Startup Grant to fund work that explores the integration digital repositories and multimedia authoring tools, specifically the CONTENTdm digital asset management system used on this Academic Commons site, and Pachyderm 2.0, an open source authoring application.

The project's overall goal is to enhance the ability of scholars and students to work with digital repository content.

The Willamette University Startup Grant project is developing a repository Open Service Interface Definition for CONTENTdm and integrating this service into new code being developed for Pachyderm 2.1. Digital scholarship will guide and inform our software development activity, with the Hallie Ford Museum, the Willamette University Archives, and Professor Roger Hull creating a multimedia presentation that describes the work of a Pacific Northwest artist, Carl Hall (1921-1996). This project will use Museum and Archives digital content that is currently being added to collections on this Academic Commons site.

Project Update: July 28, 2009

Work is underway to update Willamette's local Pachyderm 2.0 instance with new templates developed at the Seattle Musuem of Art and SFMOMA. Meanwhile, images from the museum and archives have been added to CONTENTdm and the Carl Hall Pachyderm presentation is taking shape.

Support for collection-specific metadata mapping has been added to the CONTENTdm OSID support code. To use an OSID-aware application with your CONTENTdm collections download and install the latest version:

CONTENTdm OSID Support (PHP)

osidsearch-1.5.tar.gz
Download this file. Unpack the contents and move the new "osidsearch" directory to your CONTENTdm document root. Then add the address of your server to the config.xml file.

Project Update: May 15, 2009

The final version of the Repository OSID and CONTENTdm support code has been released.

We are looking for CONTENTdm sites willing to test the software. Please contact us if you would like to give it a try! (contact Michael Spalti)

Installation takes only five minutes and you can test the repository/tool integration immediately using VUE (http://vue.tufts.edu). Download the software below.

CONTENTdm OSID Support (PHP)

osidsearch-1.5.tar.gz
Download this file. Unpack the contents and move the new "osidsearch" directory to your CONTENTdm document root. Then add the address of your server to the config.xml file.

We are in contact with the developers working on the Pachyderm 2.1 release to assure that Pachyderm Flash presentations generated from CONTENTdm images are properly configured. (The file naming convention in Pachyderm 2.0 was developed with static file names in mind, not dynamic image services like CONTENTdm's.) We are also in the early planning stages of deploying the OSID with the Sakai learning management system.

Project Update: May 5, 2009

The support code for CONTENTdm OSID (version 1.3) has been released. Installing the code on a CONTENTdm server takes literally five minutes. You can see the results immediately using the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) available for free download from Tufts University (http://vue.tufts.edu/).

A library or museum site using CONTENTdm only needs to install the OSID support code below. External applications will use the CONTENTdm OSID Plugin (Java) to access your CONTENTdm collections. (Public distribution of the CONTENTdm OSID Plugin is currently available only through VUE. Additional sources will be available soon.)

The CONTENTdm OSID is currently being used at Willamette University with a modified version of Pachyderm 2.0. Members of the project team are working with the developers of Pachyderm 2.1 on minor changes in the new Pachyderm release. Special thanks to Cindy Walters at the University of Virginia for her work on Pachyderm's new OSID support and her willingness to assist us in this effort.

Work is also underway to test the CONTENTdm OSID with the latest release of SoftChalk (a tool for authoring online lessons) and with the Sakai learning management system.

Project Team

Jeff Kahn and Joshua Archer are consultants for software development. Jonathan Bucci (Collection Curator, Hallie Ford Museum), Elizabeth Garrison (Education Coordinator, Hallie Ford Museum), Mary Mckay (University Archivist), Roger Hull (Professor of Art History), and Michael Spalti (Hatfield Library) round out the team. Special thanks to Cindy Walters at the University of Virginia for her help with the Pachyderm OSID.