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ColumnCommunications Title Michaela Brenner and Peter Klein Discovering the of the collection, accession, and dis- with satellite imagery, maps, terrain semination of [urban] key planning and 3-D buildings to put the world’s Library with documents . that have high value geographic information at your fin- for Oregon citizens and for scholars gertips” (http://earth.google.com). Google Earth around the world” (Abbott 2005). From there, the authors provide links This collection is called the Oregon to the digitized documents in the Libraries need to provide attractive Sustainable Community Digital library catalog. Easy distribution, as and exciting discovery tools to draw Library (OSCDL) and is an ongoing well as the more playful nature of patrons to the valuable resources project that includes literature, plan- this pilot project and the inclusion ning reports, maps, images, RLIS of pictures, make the available data in their catalogs. The authors con- (Regional Land Information System) even more attractive to users. ducted a pilot project to explore the geographical data, and more. Much free version of Google Earth as such of the older material is unpublished, a discover tool for Portland State and making it available online pres- “Google now reigns” ents a valuable resource. Most of the Library’s digital collection of urban digitized—and, more recently, born- “Google now reigns,” claims Karen planning documents. They created digital—documents are accessible Markey (Markey 2007), and many eye-catching placemarks with links to through the library’s catalog, where others agree that using Google is patrons can find them together with easier and more appealing to most parts of this collection, as well as to other library materials about the than using library catalogs. Google’s other pertinent materials like books, City of Portland. The bibliographic popularity has been growing spec- images, and historical background records are arranged in the catalog in tacularly. In August 2007, Google information. The detailed how-to-do an electronic resource management accounted for 64 percent of all U.S. (ERM) system (Brenner, Larsen, and searches (Avtec Media Group 2007). part of this article is preceded by a Weston 2006). Additionally, these In contrast, the OCLC report on how discussion about discovery of library bibliographic data are regularly users perceive the library shows that materials and followed by possible exported from the library catalog to only one percent of the respondents applications of this Google Earth the OSCDL Web site (http://oscdl. begin their information search on research.pdx.edu) and there inte- a library Web site, while 84 percent project. grated with GIS (Global Information use search engines (De Rosa, et al. System) features, thus optimizing 2005). n Calhoun’s report to the Library cataloging costs by reusing data in “If we [libraries] want to survive,” of Congress, it becomes clear a different electronic environment. says Stephen Abram, “we must place Ithat staff time and resources Committed to not falling into the our messages where the users are will need to move from cataloging trap that Clifford Lynch had in mind seeking answers and will trip over traditional formats, like books, to when he wrote, “I think there is them. Today that usually means at cataloging unique primary sources, a mental picture that many of us Yahoo, MSN, and Google” (Abram and then providing access to these have that digitization is something 2005). According to Lorcan Dempsey, sources from many different angles. you do and you finish . a finite, in the longer run, traffic to the library “Organize, digitize, expose unique one-time process“ (Lynch 2002), catalog will come by linking from special collections” (Calhoun 2006). and agreeing with Gatenby that “it larger consolidated resources, like In 2005, Portland State University doesn’t matter at all if a user finds Open WorldCat and Google Scholar Library received a grant “to develop our OPAC through the ‘back door’“ (Dempsey 2005). a digital library under the sponsor- (Gatenby 2007), the authors looked Dempsey also stressed that it ship of the Portland State University into further using these existing data becomes more and more significant Library to serve as a central repository from the library catalog by making to differentiate between discov- them accessible from a popular and ery and location (Dempsey 2006a). appealing place on the Internet, a Initially, users want to discover; they want to find what interests Michaela Brenner ([email protected]) place that users are more likely to is Assistant Professor and Database visit than the library catalog. them independent from where this Maintenance and Catalog Librarian at The free version of Google Earth, information is actually located and Portland State University Library, Oregon. a virtual-globe program that can available. While there may be lots of Peter Klein ([email protected]) be installed on PCs, lent itself to valuable, detailed, and exceptionally is Aerospace engineering BS/MS at the experimenting. “Google Earth com- well-organized bibliographic infor- AuthorUniversity ID boxof Colorado for 3 column at Boulder. layout bines the power of Google Search mation in the library catalog, not 32 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES | J JUNUNE 20072008 many users (one percent) are willing providing such a powerful visualiza- The Portland State to discover this information through tion tool, the authors felt tempted Library OSCDL-on- the catalog. They may not discover to experiment with existing data what a library has to offer if “the from Portland State Library’s digital Google-Earth project library does not find a way to go to OSCDL collection and make these the user, rather than waiting for the data accessible through a virtual The authors chose ten Portland- user to come to the library” (Coyle globe. based OSCDL sub-collections as the 2007). Unless the intent is to keep our basis of this pilot project: Harbor treasures buried, the library com- Drive, Front Street, Portland Public munity needs to work with popular The King’s College Market, Urban Studies Collection, outside discovery environments— cultural heritage Downtown, Park Blocks, South Park like search engines—to bring infor- project Blocks, Pioneer Courthouse Square, mation available in libraries to users Portland City Archives, and JPACT from the outside. Martyn Jessop from King’s College in (Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Libraries are, although sometimes London, United Kingdom, published Transportation). reluctantly, responding. Google, an article about a relatively small The programming language Google Scholar, and Google Books are pilot project on providing access to for Google Earth is KML (keyhole Open WorldCat partner sites that are a digital cultural heritage collection markup language), a file format used now or soon will be providing access through a geographical informa- to display geographic data. KML is to WorldCat records. Google Book tion system (Jessop 2005). Jessop’s based on the XML standard and can Search includes “Find this book in approach to explore different tech- be created with the Google Earth the library,” and the advanced Book nologies and techniques to apply to user interface or from scratch with Search also has the option to limit a existing data about unique primary a simple text editor. Having no pre- search to library catalogs with access sources was exactly what the authors vious KML experience, the authors to the WorldCat Web record for each had in mind with this project, and decided to use both. item. “Deep linking” enables Web provided encouragement to move users to link from search results in forward with the idea of provid- Yahoo, Google, or other partner sites ing additional access to the Oregon to the “Find in a Library” interface Sustainable Community Digital in Open WorldCat, and then directly Library (OSCDL) collections through to the item’s record in their library’s Google Earth. Similar to Jessop, the online public access catalog (OPAC). authors regard it an unaffordable lux- Simply put, “Find it on Google, get it ury to put a great deal of effort into from your library” (Calhoun 2006). collecting, digitizing, and catalog- The “leveraged discovery envi- ing materials without making them ronment” is an expression coined available to a much broader audience by Dempsey that means it becomes through multiple access points. increasingly important to leverage Comparable to Jessop, the goal of a “discovery environment which is this project was to find a relatively Figure 1. Basic placemark in Google Earth outside your control to bring peo- simple, low-cost technological solu- ple back into our catalog environ- tion that could also be applied to a ment (like Amazon, Google Scholar)” much wider range of data without (Dempsey 2006b). much more investment in staff time Issues in Calhoun’s report to the and money. Library of Congress include the ques- Once the authors mastered the ini- tion of how to get a Google user tial hurdle of understanding Google from Google to library collections. Earth’s programming language, they She quotes an interviewee saying could easily identify with Jessop’s that “data about a library’s collec- notion of “project creep” as more tion needs to be on Google and other and more possibilities arose to make popular sites as well as the library the project more appealing. This, interface” (Calhoun 2006). as with the King’s College project, With evidence pointing to the was a valuable part of the develop- heavy use of Google for discovery ment process, the details of which are and with Google Earth technology described below. Figure 2. KML script for basic placemark DISCOVERING THE LIBRAry WITH GINTOOROGLEDUCIN EARGT ZOOMIH | breFYNN IMAERGE AN |D S KLEMITINh 33 A basic placemark provided by Zooming in, the placemarks show Google Earth (figure 1), copied and the locations to which the collections pasted in Notepad (figure 2), was the refer.