Biz of Digital — Now Streaming (with Restrictions): Migration of Audio/Video Content from CONTENTdm to Digital Commons By Michelle Emanuel (Head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives, Professor, University of Mississippi Libraries, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677; Phone: 662-915-1360) <memanuel@olemiss.edu> Column Editor: Michelle Flinchbaugh (Digital Scholarship Services Librarian, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250; Phone: 410-455-3544) <flinchba@umbc.edu>
I
n October 2018, the University of Mississippi Libraries began migration of its digital collections from a locally hosted instance of CONTENTdm (CDM) to the cloudbased Digital Commons (DC). The decision to migrate the collections was made after notification from OCLC that our version of CDM would no longer be supported starting in 2019, but the decision to combine our existing digital collections across multiple formats with our new institutional repository, all using the same platform, was made for both practical and financial reasons. We chose a subscription service, DC, instead of an open-source platform, in part, because of the consulting services and technical support included with the annual fee. We also found their new feature of streaming media with unlimited storage — which thankfully launched within the first year of our subscription — especially appealing. But the migration of our audio and video collections have not been without challenges. Unexpected limitations within the DC platform — in particular, learning that IP restrictions only applied to physical downloads — required that we rethink our access policies while still honoring the original wishes of donors in an age with new technologies. In the process of providing streaming A/V content that previously had only been available as downloadable files, we also realized that we could take advantage of the migration to reconsider the collections’ arrangement within DC, thereby solving a few discoverability issues. The migration of digital collections from CDM to DC was completed by a team that included the Head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives and a Library Specialist, with frequent input from our Collection Applications Developer who was able to manipulate CDM files into new formats as needed by using a Python script. There were 14 collections including audio/visual content of the 83 collections scheduled for the migration project, representing hundreds of files. Our first audio/video collections to migrate were the ones without any content restrictions, such as oral histories and home movies. Working with the appropriate
Against the Grain / June 2021
archivists in each collection area, we have organized our video files into multiple structures, divided by relevant categories such as date range or recording type, to facilitate viewing for patrons. Though CDM featured facets in the sidebar, they were difficult to navigate, with a limited display. The granularity of the CDM display meant that the user often had to click-through several pages to see what the various options even were. See [Image 1: homemovie_cdm_landing] and [Image 2: homemovie_cdm_list] shown above. When migrated to DC, series structures were created for the family names and for the type of film originally used, in case a researcher is looking for 8mm film instead of 16mm, or is looking for the films of a particular family. See [Image 3: homemovie_egrove_comm] and [Image 4: homemovie_egrove_super8] on the following page.
<https://www.charleston-hub.com/media/atg/>
51
