Oklahoma Academy of Science
Proceedings Digitization Project
The Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science represents a wealth of scholarly activity, unique to our state. Scientists have utilized this vehicle to publish quality, scholarly articles for almost a century.
Prior to the digitization of the Proceedings, access to it was limited. First, few print indexes were developed. Second, the print indexes available were limited by size with few access points. Third, the printed publication itself is only available to researchers if their library subscribed to and kept the Proceedings.
One of the goals of the OSU Library’s digitization efforts is to "expand and enhance access to published and unpublished materials of potential interest to the academic community and general public, which are of special interest, or unique to OSU or the State of Oklahoma." The Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science meet this criteria. The Oklahoma State University Library Digitization Services investigated collaboration with the Oklahoma Academy of Science to make the Proceedings available on the web.
PHASES
We proposed breaking the work into logical work phases.
- Digitize volumes & make available on the web, 1986-present (Completed 8/00)
- Digitize Table of Contents for v.1-65 (Anticipated 12/00)
- Digitize volumes, 1975-1985
- Extend Phase One by adding subsequent volumes for the 10 year proposal period
- Investigate SGML/XML possibility
- Phase Six: Digitize older volumes
PROCESS
We began digitizing the most recent volume and working backwards. The most recent issues have excellent resolution of black-to-white contrast. The scan is more straightforward and optical character recognition software enjoyed a higher degree of accuracy on newer issues.
Articles were scanned and digitized utilizing optical character recognition software. Text was marked up in HTML for presentation on the web. Tables, figures, photos, etc. were treated as images and saved in JPEG format. Links to the images are found throughout the article. Data/information in the images is not be searchable as the images are not treated as text.
Each article is available for printing in Adobe's PDF format. Pagination is maintained, but original article appearance deviates somewhat. Specifically, it is time-prohibitive to maintain columnar appearance when preparing the PDF version. Articles retain text and tables/images on each page but are presented in block text rather than columnar text.
An archival "snapshot" of each page is stored in TIFF format. Text files are saved in ASCII format for archival purposes. At this time, markup in SGML/XML is not an option as expertise is not currently available in-house and outsourcing is cost prohibitive. As staff proficiency in this markup increases, it may be desirable to revisit the project and evaluate if SGML/XML markup is appropriate.
Search capabilities are limited to keyword searching. Boolean connectors and truncation searching is available, but the search engine will query across all document texts for matches. Searching is not field specific and there will be no options for controlled vocabulary.
COPYRIGHT
Oklahoma Academy of Science holds the copyright to all articles published in print and presented on the web. For permission to reproduce, please contact the Oklahoma Academy of Science
PROJECT TEAM
Julia Crawford, Principal Investigator
Cokie Anderson, Operations Manager
Jay Decker, Madeleine Hounslow, Carol Brown, Jodi Cole, Lisa Guinn, and David Maxwell, Project Participants.
Vicki Phillips, Project Consultant
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