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Preparing a Christmas Carol Adaptations in the Guida Collection for Digital Accessibility

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Preparing a Christmas Carol Adaptations in the Guida Collection for Digital Accessibility Preparing A Christmas Carol Adaptations in the Guida Collection for Digital Accessibility The Guida Collection Team: Joshua DeOliveira Spencer McClellan Thien-Kim Nguyen Alexander Young [email protected] Prof. Joel J. Brattin, Project Advisor Prof. John-Michael Davis, Project Advisor July 9, 2020 An Interactive Qualifying Project submitted to the Faculty of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science. This report represents the work of WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review. For more information about the projects program at WPI, please see http://www.wpi.edu/academics/ugradstudies/project-learning.html Abstract Fred Guida donated an extensive Charles Dickens collection to the Gordon Library in 2019. Our team catalogued and recorded all 167 A Christmas Carol-related works and their metadata years ahead of the library’s schedule. Having this information publicly accessible via WPI’s digital archive will benefit scholarly research and cultural preservation, so we have provided prioritization and copyright recommendations for their digitization. We also documented our cataloguing process as a user guide for future archival work. ii Acknowledgements Our team would like to thank both of our advisors, Professor John-Michael Davis and Professor Joel J. Brattin, for guiding us on the development of this project. Our main contact with the Gordon Library, University Archivist Arthur Carlson, gave us invaluable help on using ArchivesSpace, and delivering the media to us when we could not access the library. Mr. Carlson’s initial contacts and introductions to digitization companies and other librarians were essential to the success of our work. He introduced us to the Access Archivist Amy Smid, and to the Digital Programs and Archives Assistant Emily O’Brien, who provided us with guidance and resources regarding metadata acquisition from the Guida Collection. iii Authorship The completion of this report was a joint effort of the members of the WPI E20 Guida Collection Team. While all members participated in a final review and edit of each section, the following chart attributes the writing of each section to those primarily responsible for its completion: Section Primary Writer Primary Editor Executive Summary All All Introduction All All 2.1: Charles Dickens Literary Thien-Kim Nguyen Spencer McClellan Legacy 2.2: The Historical Importance of A Christmas Thien-Kim Nguyen Joshua DeOliveira Carol 2.3: The Guida Collection Thien-Kim Nguyen Alexander Young 2.4: Digitizing the Physical Joshua DeOliveira Thien-Kim Nguyen Media 2.5: Metadata and Its Joshua DeOliveira Thien-Kim Nguyen Applications 2.6: Copyright and Legal Alexander Young Spencer McClellan Issues 2.7: Multimedia Accessibility Alexander Young Thien-Kim Nguyen 2.8: Educational Value and Spencer McClellan Joshua DeOliveira Utility of Digital Media 2.9: Summary Thien-Kim Nguyen Alexander Young 3.1: Reordering and Cataloguing the Collection in Thien-Kim Nguyen Joshua DeOliveira a Master Spreadsheet 3.2: Prioritization Alexander Young Spencer McClellan 3.3: Identification for Joshua DeOliveira Spencer McClellan Copyright Requirements 3.4: Library Database Spencer McClellan Thien-Kim Nguyen Integration iv 4.1: Analysis of the Guida Collection and ArchivesSpace Thien-Kim Nguyen Joshua DeOliveira Entries 4.2: Analysis of Prioritized Alexander Young Spencer McClellan List 4.3: Analysis of Data Joshua DeOliveira Alexander Young Acquisition Thien-Kim Nguyen and 5.1: Summary of Deliverables Spencer McClellan Alexander Young 5.2: Project Limitations Spencer McClellan Alexander Young 5.3: Recommendations for Spencer McClellan and Thien-Kim Nguyen Future Work Joshua DeOliveira v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Authorship iv List of Figures and Tables viii Executive Summary ix 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Background 3 2.1 Charles Dickens’ Literary Legacy 3 2.2 The Historical Importance of A Christmas Carol 3 2.2.1 Original Story and Purpose 4 2.2.2 Adaptations 4 2.2.3 Acclaim and Social Significance 5 2.3 The Guida Collection 5 2.4 Digitizing Physical Media 5 2.5 Metadata and Its Applications 6 2.5.1 An Introduction to Metadata 6 2.5.2 Metadata Uses and Importance in Research 7 2.5.3 Metadata Uses in Databases and Digital Archives 8 2.6 Copyright and Legal Issues 8 2.7 Multimedia Accessibility 9 2.8 Educational Value and Utility of Digital Media 10 2.8.1 Educational Value of Multimedia 10 2.8.2 Digital Library Integration 10 2.9 Summary 11 3.0 Methods 12 3.1 Reordering and Cataloguing the Collection in a Master Spreadsheet 12 3.2 Prioritization 13 3.3 Identification of Copyright Requirements 14 3.4 Library Database Integration 15 4.0 Findings 17 4.1 Analysis of the Guida Collection and ArchivesSpace Entries 17 vi 4.2 Analysis of Prioritized List 21 4.3 Analysis of Data Acquisition 21 5.0 Conclusions & Recommendations 24 5.1 Summary of Deliverables 24 5.2 Project Limitations 25 5.3 Recommendations for Future Work 25 5.3.1 Completing the Organization and Cataloguing of the Collection 25 5.3.2 Process Applicability 26 Appendices 30 Appendix A: Work Timetable and Distribution 30 Appendix B: Metadata Subjects 31 Appendix C: Interview with Arthur Carlson 32 Appendix D: Prioritization Ranking System 33 Appendix E: Template for Contacting Copyright Owners 35 Appendix F: Template for a Copyright Permission Contract 36 Appendix G: List of A Christmas Carol Titles in the Guida Collection 37 Appendix H: Links to Download Our Deliverables 43 Appendix I: ArchivesSpace User Manual 44 Appendix J: Online Metadata Resources 70 Appendix K: Database Summary and Biographical Information 71 vii List of Figures and Tables Table 1: The Early Canadiana Online Project’s Average Cost of Digital Production and Storage for Over 3,000 Works .................................................................................................................. 9 Table 2: Metadata Breakdown Chart ........................................................................................ 18 Figure 1: Flowchart for Determining Access Conditions ......................................................... 15 Figure 2: ArchivesSpace Hierarchy .......................................................................................... 17 Figure 3: Sample Entry on ArchivesSpace ................................................................................ 19 Figure 4: The Guida Collection’s Series Guide ........................................................................ 20 Figure 5: Example Screenshot of a WorldCat Entry ................................................................. 22 Figure 6: Example Screenshot of a U.S. Copyright Office Catalogue Entry ............................ 23 viii Executive Summary Media digitization has been a useful preservation and cataloguing process for libraries since online conversion technology became easily accessible in the late 1900s. Digitization saves antique media before they degrade over time, allows the public to access the information beyond the library, and offers more storage space for multitudes of works that may not fit in a library’s physical boundaries. However, putting hundreds of works and their metadata online can often cost thousands of dollars and months of labor to complete. At a private institution like WPI’s Gordon Library, it may take years to acquire the resources to digitize new collections, according to University Archivist Arthur Carlson. In 2019, WPI’s Gordon Library received an audio/visual collection of Charles Dickens-related adaptations from Fred Guida, a Dickens writer and scholar. The 400+ VHS tapes, cassettes, DVDs, CDs, etc. were a valuable addition to WPI’s other Dickens archives, such as the Robert D. Fellman Collection. While the media were accessible in the library’s Archives and Special Collections room, their boxes were still as disorganized as when they were first delivered to the library, and they had no public listing in WPI’s online databases. Through our IQP project, we catalogued the collection’s metadata on WPI’s online database, ArchivesSpace, and we provided various deliverables to aid the digitization process. Our objectives were as follows: 1. To catalogue the physical media from Fred Guida’s collection related to adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. 2. To make a prioritized list of the media to recommend the order in which WPI will digitize them. 3. To identify copyright owners and either apply fair use laws or obtain permissions to give public access to the works. 4. To integrate all associated metadata from the media into the Gordon Library’s archive database, WPI ArchivesSpace. Our deliverables included a prioritized ranking of the works for digitization along with a recommendation for requesting copyright permissions. In addition, we created an ArchivesSpace user guide based on our database as a reference tool for students or staff working with the library’s archives. With these tools, WPI’s digital archives can provide the public with the works’ metadata and digitized media. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our team shaped our methods in order to fulfill our project goals while following safe, socially-distanced measures. Throughout the project, our team practiced a necessary safety condition by working remotely from each team member. This precaution unfortunately meant that WPI’s Coronavirus
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