DTHS Digitisation Program

DTHS aims to make photos and full text information of our whole collection of documents, books, photographs, videos, and objects available online through Victorian Collections (VC) as soon as possible.

Records can be added to VC manually one at a time (as is done when entering newly donated items) or via a bulk upload (as is done when items are already recorded in another digital form.

DTHS has digitised records for about 

  • 90% of our approximately 2000 objects, 
  • 50% of our 4000 photographs
  • 40% of our 600 books
  • 5% if our 10000 documents
  • 100% of our 2000 transparencies from irvine Green

As VC, only provides a single bulk upload opportunity, DTHS intends to complete the object and book databases, before uploading all available digital records into VC.

We will then continue to add items one-by-one as we process them.

The object digitisation data consists of:

  • object descriptions in spreadsheet, text document and handwritten formats which all need to be combined in a spreadsheet/ csv file
  • multiple photos of each object which need to be uploaded as part of the bulk upload into VC and be viewable by the public.
  • scans of acquisition forms which need to be uploaded into VC but not be publically viewable due to inclusion of donor contact information
  • acquisition forms are being transcribed so that their content is searchable by our staff.  After bulk uplad, some aquisition data will also be copied record--by-record ito the publically viewable areas of the record.

The book digitisation program consists of 

  • seek permission from copyright holders of books to allow them to be fully digitised and added to our website in full text via Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Copyright so that researchers can find the text via an internet search AND, if needed download a complete scan of the original.
  • create a book record as a spreadsheet utilising online software LibraryThing.  Once completed records will be exported as csv and added to the VC bulk upload along with the photos of the front pages of each book and sometimes index pages.
The document digitisation program consists of:
  • creating records one-by-one of documents within desktop software InMagic textworks.
  • These records will be uploaded into VC during the bulk upload.  They have no associated images.
The photo digitisation program

  • creating records one-by-one of photographs within desktop software InMagic textworks and linking them to high quality scans.
The transparency digitisation program
  • The digitisation of folders of transparencies donated by Irvine Green has been completed and recorded in a spreadsheet.
  • The spreadsheet will be reformated and included in the bulk upload, along with the scan files.


AMAGA Assistance - training & bulk upload

A downloadable copy of the workshop presentation is available at the following link:  
 
You can also view a version of the presentation which includes playable screen-cast videos at the following link: 
 
Our online Helpdesk is a great place to start if you have any questions for us following on from the workshop. You can submit a ticket, you can download a copy of our Cataloguing Manual and you can also view articles, FAQs and screencast videos via the Helpdesk’s Knowledge Base section. Regarding the Manual, the VC CMS has had a visual interface refresh since the Manual was last updated. Whilst the visuals in the manual will differ from the live system, the functionality remains the same.    
 
Below are further resources which build on the workshop content: 

As mentioned during the workshop, we will set you up in the Victorian Collections Training Account, where you can practice cataloguing in a risk-free environment for the next 30 days. We will send through a separate email with instructions for how to log in to the Training Account.  
 
If during the workshop you were interested in our bulk migration process, a reminder to you to please submit a ticket to our Helpdesk so we can commence discussions with you. If your organisation has yet to apply to become a Victorian Collections contributor, a reminder that information about eligibility and a link to the application form are available via the Victorian Collections website. 




InMagic Textworks - Export procedures

As at October 2024, 

  • our records data is being added to a DBText database.
  • our library collection is in physical card index form
  • our objects database is in multiple spreadsheet format.
  • other records (such as transparency scans etc) are being processed for online access outside the DBText database
We hope to transfer all these records over time to Collections Victoria.

In the interim, we need to extract data from DBText to embed into records (esp photos) as metadata. This involves
  • Export of records using DBText export settings where field delimiters do not get confused with characters used in the item descriptions. Currently we use:
    • string delimiter as carot ^
    • field delimiter as as a semi-colon ;
    • record delimiter as a vertical line, vertical slash, upright slash, pipe x3 |||
    • Need screen captures of DBText export settings
  •  The .dmp file exported from DBText needs to be cleaned of characters that will corrupt the import into an excel spreadsheet.  A spreadsheet is needed to allow import into Victoria Collections or to create aggregated text records suitable for embedding as metadata.
    • e.g. Registration Number; Museum Code; Collection Type; Publication Name; Negative Number; Other Number; Storage Location; Supplementary File; Title; Classification; Subjects; Brief Description; Inscriptions; Image; Date; Place; Author; Photographer; Publisher; History of Object; References; Size; Source; Condition; Condition Date; Condition Details; Name Cataloguer; Date Catalogued; Date Entered into DB; Acquisition Type; Donor Name; Donor Address; Acquisition Date; Date Acknowledged; Restrictions; Other Information; Purchase Price; Address; Date Entry Altered|||^dd6af11d2^; ^VDTH^; ^Local History^; ^Document^; ; ; ^Archive room^; ; ^Johann Joseph von Schramm^; ^Family History^; ^Schramm family|Schramm, Johann Joseph von|Schramm, Heinrich Friedrich August von|Schiller, Philline Johanne Marie|Schramm, Philline Johanne Marie von|Schramm, Joseph Karl Albert Maria Philipp Heinrich|Zimmernan, Julie|Schramm, Julie|Schramm, Max|Pickering, Katherina (Kate)|Schramm, Katherina (Kate)|Schramm, Victor Karl|von Dittrich, Klara Friedricke Johanne|Schramm, Klara Friedricke Johanne|Schramm, Marie|Weinzier, Marie|Weinzier, Markus|Schramm, Lizbeth|Schramm, Rhode|Schramm, Rahel Elina|Schramm, Roda Edith|Schramm, Joseph Arthur|Schramm, Ada Marie|Schramm, Victor Philipp|Schramm, Albert Paul|Schramm, Walter Thomas|Schramm, Hubert John|Schramm, Otto Edwart Victor|Schramm Jenny|Schramm, Walter Eric|Schramm, Dorothy^; ^Six photocopies of a handwritten family tree showing the descendants of Johann Joseph von Schramm, the grandfather of Max Schramm. Heinrich Friedrich August von Schramm is the one son of Johann Joseph shown. His wife is shown, and four children, their wives and children.^; ; ; ; ; ^not known^; ; ; ; ; ^A4^; ; ^Fair^; ^25/01/2002^; ^Handwriting difficult to decipher at times. The first copy is reasonably clear, some of the extra copies of the document are very pale in parts.^; ^Mack, Kay^; ^25/01/2002^; ^25 January 2002^; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ^25 January 2002^
  • Remove line feeds. Researchers sometimes add line feeds to fields as they type.  These are interpreted by the spreadsheet as new redords. We need to convert them to spaces before import into a spreadsheet.
    • Open dmp file microsoft word. 
    • Search and replace (Ctrl-H) any line feed (^p) with a space
  • Change record delimiter to a line feed 
    • Search & Replace ||| with ^p
  • Open Excel Spreadsheet "DBText Data Massage"
  • Select Data - From Text/CSV 
  • Check that data import screen has automatically recognised that the fieled delimiter is a semi-colon.
  • Click "Load"
  • The spreadsheet will probably import the data into a new sheet.
  • Delete the data in the sheet "DBText" but leave the empty sheet to receive the new data
  • Copy and paste the new data from the new sheet to the "DBText" sheet (so that the formulas work)
  • Delete the new sheet
  • Replace all carot characters ^ with nothing to remove them.
  • Now the sheet that depend on the data will be refreshed with the new data

Transcription of museum acquisition/ accession forms

Objects in our collection have acquisition/ accession forms which are overwhelmingly hand written, often with additional notes of supporting documentation.

So that this information can be searched and easily read, we need to transcribe these forms into digital format.

Please consider assisting with this process by volunteering for offsite transcription - i.e. you do this work whenever you have time in the comfort of your own home.

We then ask you to agree to keep the data confidential, (as some data transcribed is not for publication e.g. personal details of the donor) 

Then we give you a link to view 20 forms.

You type them out on your computer while looking at the original scans, and, when finished, send us the text for inclusion in the database (the data is entered into the Collections Victoria Record, as well as into the acquisition form image file metadata).

Please contact us if you have time to help in this task.

For example: 


Files needing transcription:

  • Christine working on AccessionForms DJ2200-DJ2299 - Completed up to DJ2249 as of 20Dec2023


 DTHS Object Inventory


The DTHS Object Inventory lists every object collected in the DTHS Museum Complex.

It is continually being updated.

All acquisition records have been scanned, but they need to be transcribed so that they are searchable by DTHS volunteers and by the public (except for private information such as donor personal details).

Transcription can be manual (i.e. typing) or you could use the freely available Voice to Text online service from Google to work so much easier and faster.

As soon as we have completed the first "sweep" covering all objects, we plan to upload the database to Victorian Collections

From then on all corrections, additions would be conducted directly with the online database.

Example of an Aquisition Form needing transcription


AccessionForms DJ2250-0-N - DJ2299-0-N Lorraine -  Allocated 27Sep2024



DTHS Book Library - Transcription of Titles

 

 The DTHS Library contains many books of general interest as well as a heavy emphasis on local publications. 

All book covers and often index pages have been photographed.

We need transcription of the title,  author and year for each book. 

The easiest way to do this is to:

  • open each image on an iMac and 
  • select all text on the image (iMac's automatically convert all text in the image), 
  • copy the text and 
  • paste it into a text file.
  • when this is complete, we will embed the text in the image files and
  • convert the text to a spreadsheet so that it can be bulk uploaded into Victorian Collections

Library Digitisation

Task 1: Adding books to our online library database

Approximately 500 books.  

  • Look at the cover image.   All cover images are viewable here
  • Search LibraryThing.com for a matching record. 
  • Add "Other Call Number" (i.e. DTHS Identifier) to record.
  • Add book to LibraryThing.com.
Added task to Seek Volunteer


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