Minnesota Digital Library News & Events
Minnesota Reflections has a new look!!
November 1, 2011
Minnesota Reflections is now running on CONTENTdm version 6.1 software
and is easier to use and contains many new features:
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The homepage for Minnesota Reflections now features a window that allows people to scroll through all of the
contributing organization collections in this database.
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Clicking on the collection name or on the thumbnail picture by the name will take users into the collection page.
From there you may browse the individual collection. Patrons may also search either the entire collection from the
homepage or search individual collections from their pages.
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Zooming in on objects is now controlled by a slider above pictures, maps, and document pages. Moving around an image
takes only a click and a drag of the object. New features include built-in commenting and tagging tools and easier to
find information about each object.
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Visitors to Minnesota Reflections may now easily browse a pre-selected set of 18 topics. On the right side of the new
homepage, below the welcome message, is a list of frequently used topics. Click on a link to go to a results page on
agriculture, crime and punishment, and more.
We have created tutorials for using the new Minnesota Reflections. Follow the links on the right side of the homepage to
learn about "Browsing & Searching," "Viewing
an object," "Special features" and "Advice
on newspapers."
In addition, we will be offering a live virtual overview (webinar) on the new features of Minnesota Reflections. Watch for
announcements about this webinar, or check our training page.
Apply for Phase 8 Minnesota Reflections Digitization Project
September 28, 2011
The Minnesota Digital Library is now accepting applications for projects for Phase 8 of the development of Minnesota Reflections,
our digitization and database project. We will accept applications through April 30, 2012, or until we have
committed all of our digitization funding.
Consult with Marian Rengel, MDL Outreach Coordinator, as you consider applying for a Minnesota Reflections
digitization project. She will answer questions on all aspects of digitization projects with the Minnesota Digital Library, including funding
opportunities and project scope.
This is an open call for projects. Later this year, we will be issuing a second call for projects that address specific collection
development subjects. Watch for the announcement of that special call.
Teacher Guides to Minnesota Reflections
September 8, 2011
The Minnesota Digital Library is pleased to provide K-12 teachers with guides into Minnesota Reflections.
More than 35 guides are now available. An additional 15 will come online this month.
The guides were written by K-12 teachers from across the state. Each guide focuses on a specific academic standard
from the arts through the social sciences, and features between 8 and 20 links into
Minnesota Reflections. Guides also cover all ages of students from
kindergartners to seniors.
Grant authors chose their topics and areas of interest and then explored Minnesota Reflections for resources
into this growing collection. The authors, some of them kindergarten and elementary teachers and some of them
middle school and high school teachers, aimed their guides at colleagues. They shared ideas for how to use the
guides with students and how to explore Minnesota Reflections to find more resources on the topics.
An advisory group of active and retired media specialists and teachers worked with MDL Outreach Coordinator
Marian Rengel to plan the goals and format of the guides. They then chose teachers with strong interests in
using and working with online digital collections to write the guides.
The MDL will work with teachers on more guides during the 2011-12 school year. Watch for them to come online
throughout the year.
Minnesota Reflections now contains more than 80,000 digital copies of cultural heritage photographs, documents,
maps and more provided by more than 120 contributing institutions from across the state. The collection will
grow by more than 20,000 objects this fall.
Funding for Minnesota Reflections and the Minnesota Digital Library is provided by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural
Heritage Fund, part of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment allocation. Funding from
Library Services and Technology Act grants from State Library Services in the Minnesota Department of Education has
supported the digitization work for Minnesota Reflections.
What's New with Minnesota Reflections?
July 21, 2011
In June 2011, Minnesota Reflections contained more than 75,000 individual objects, a 50% increase from June 2010.
Minnesota Reflections, our online collection of digitized cultural heritage
resources from across the state, has grown dramatically in the past 12 months and will continue to grow
over the summer.
In June 2011, the collection contained more than 75,000 individual objects, a 50% increase from June 2010.
Approximately 30% of the organizations making contributions during FY11 (July 2010-June 2011) were new to
Minnesota Reflections. More than 15,000 document pages have been added during the year, and more than 20,000
document pages from eight groups will be added this summer.
Two reasons have led to this dramatic increase:
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Three projects funded by the Minnesota Historical Society's legacy grants project came into Minnesota
Reflections. St. Cloud State University, Macalester College, and Minnesota State University, Mankato
all applied for and received Historical and Cultural Grants from MHS to digitize student publications
and catalogs.
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We purchased a new rapid-capture scanner with a portion of its legacy funding. That scanner allowed
us to reduce by nearly 90% the cost of digitizing most documents. As of July 1, 2011, three projects
scanned with this device have come into Minnesota Reflections. Collections digitized with this equipment
from the Dodge and Pope county historical societies, St. Paul Public Library, and the Minnesota Department
of Transportation, among others, will be available soon. In addition to documents, we digitized more
than 2,900 photographs and maps and brought them into Minnesota Reflections.
This summer, Minnesota Reflections is undergoing a software update that will allow users to more easily view
objects and add depth to their searches within the collection. Individual collections will display more
prominently so viewers will see the materials available for their research more easily. Organizations new to
MDL, such as the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation and the Otsego Heritage Preservation Commission, will be available
to the public after this software update is complete.
Also, this summer, we will announce a call for project proposals for 2011-2012. This will be Phase 8
through which we will again work with organizations across the state to help them digitize and make
accessible to the public their photographs, maps, journal, documents, and letters to help tell the story of
Minnesota.
New Minnesota Reflections Metadata Guidelines Tutorials Now Available
July 21, 2011
The Minnesota Reflections Metadata Guidelines were revised in 2010. In order to help our Minnesota Reflections
contributors make sense of the changes to the Guidelines, our staff developed a series of instructional tutorials. They
are available at the new Tutorials page on our website.
The five tutorials in the series provide in depth instruction in specific areas of metadata creation. Topics range
from the focused examination of a single field such as "Creating Descriptive Titles" and "Writing Item Descriptions"
to explorations of how to enter data across multiple fields. In each narrated tutorial, examples from Minnesota
Reflections are used and viewers are shown how and where to enter information into the Excel spreadsheet used to
submit project metadata.
Much of the content used in the tutorials can be found in the Minnesota Reflections Metadata Guidelines.
Contact Greta Bahnemann (bahne002@umn.edu), Metadata Coordinator, with any
questions or comments.
MDL Digital Preservation Project
February 14, 2011
During Fall 2010, the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL), using funds from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, developed and
implemented a digital preservation pilot project to begin exploring ways to
ensure that the content from Minnesota Reflections and other institutions, including the University of Minnesota and
the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), will always be accessible to Minnesotans.
From September through December, MDL staff and consultants worked with HathiTrust,
a national shared digital repository, to develop a prototype project to add content to HathiTrust as a preservation archive.
During the project period, nearly 50,000 images from Minnesota Reflections and 8,000 MHS images were shipped to HathiTrust.
Drawing upon an existing partnership between the University of Minnesota Libraries and HathiTrust, the MDL tested the
procedural and technical offerings of the HathiTrust preservation service. This prototype project taught the MDL and
HathiTrust staff a great deal about the work and resources needed to bring Minnesota a significantly enhanced capacity
for preserving and accessing its digitized cultural heritage. This experience will support further development of
preservation effects to protect the state's digital heritage. Such projects will allow the MDL to reach out to
organizations in Minnesota that also have digital collections in need of long-term preservation.
The report of this prototype project is now available to the public.
The report discusses the technical details of preparing digital files to be added to the HathiTrust collection. It
also addresses the archival needs of each file, including rights management and metadata needs. Finally, the report
discusses issues surrounding the development of statewide preservation resources and alternatives yet to be explored
by the MDL.
