Case Study
Museums, Libraries & Institutions: The Pierpont Morgan Library
Business Challenge:
Facilitate broader online research access to the Morgan Library's historic manuscripts and other collections.
Business Team:
The Pierpont Morgan Library is the nation's premiere repository of literary manuscripts. Its holdings include correspondence, diaries, and drafts of works of major British, European, and American authors, artists, scientists, and historical and political figures. Among the highlights are Charles Dickens's manuscript of A Christmas Carol, Henry David Thoreau's journals, and Thomas Jefferson's letters to his daughter Martha. Other significant holdings are manuscripts and letters of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontė, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, John Steinbeck, and Voltaire. The Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the largest and finest collections of American historical documents in private hands, is on deposit at the library.
Electronic Scriptorium, Ltd. solves complex information management and data conversion problems for corporations, government agencies, libraries, museums and other institutions. In a business association unique to Scriptorium, cloistered monks underpin a highly educated workforce that meets exacting standards of quality and accuracy. Electronic Scriptorium provides expertise in archives conversion, finding aids automation, bibliographic services, image cataloging, document conversion, XML/HTML encoding, offshore data conversion and more.
Technical Approach:
Each year the Morgan Library attracts scholars from around the world. The library's tradition of excellent cataloging ensures that scholars have easy access to the literary treasures housed on its shelves. The Morgan Library catalog contains comprehensive bibliographic information including copious, detailed notes resulting from years of work by curators and collection managers. For example, not only are Henry David Thoreau's journals cataloged in detail, but so is the wooden box that he built to hold the manuscripts.
The same careful approach to cataloging has been used for papal bulls, royal decrees, wills, contracts and other holdings of the collection. Until recently, access to the collection has only been available through a card-based public access catalog. More and more scholars have come to expect online access to bibliographic databases, however. The Morgan Library solved the technical challenge of providing online access through the selection of an online public access catalog system (OPAC). The major challenge was conversion of the extraordinary intellectual content held in the card catalog to USMARC format for use in the OPAC. To facilitate the conversion process, Electronic Scriptorium worked with the professional staff at the Morgan Library to develop comprehensive processing specifications, which ran to 96 printed pages.
The specification development phase was exacting but ensured that the rich content of the paper based cataloging would be preserved in the online system. Periodic meetings held between Electronic Scriptorium's cataloging staff and the Morgan Library staff promoted open discussion of issues encountered during cataloging. Extensive use of electronic mail augmented the exchange with examples when cataloging anomalies were encountered.
Implementation Methodology:
The specification development phase was exacting but ensured that the rich content of the paper based cataloging would be preserved in the online system. Periodic meetings held between Electronic Scriptorium's cataloging staff and the Morgan Library staff promoted open discussion of issues encountered during cataloging. Extensive use of electronic mail augmented the exchange with examples when cataloging anomalies were encountered.
Electronic Scriptorium addressed the risk of removing the original shelf list cards through a series of procedures designed to protect the documents, including courier pick-up and return of the cards between New York and the cataloging sites, extensive inventory control methods and strict guidelines for handling the cards. Electronic Scriptorium used a series of USMARC cataloging tools and utilities to create the records locally. Completed records were thoroughly reviewed to ensure compliance with the cataloging specifications.
Electronic Scriptorium's team used its multilingual skills and a broad general knowledge to resolve ambiguities on the cards and clarify person and place names. Completed logical databases were delivered electronically to the library.
Summary:
Electronic Scriptorium's conversion allowed over 23,000 records describing collection items from the 12th to the 20th century to be loaded into the RLG Union Catalog. Prior to the project researchers were required to visit the library in order to perform research. Thanks to funding from many leading foundations the records are now fully searchable by author, title and other fields on CORSAIR, the library's OPAC. For Electronic Scriptorium, the Morgan Library conversion project represented a new threshold of excellence.
The project demonstrated the level of quality and complexity that can be achieved through a collaborative effort of library professionals and dedicated, quality-conscious staff. The humanistic value of the project is not to be understated. The documents and people represented in the collection have not only shaped world history but, in many instances, the course of human thinking. Electronic Scriptorium is proud to have played a role in such a worthwhile effort.
Facilitate broader online research access to the Morgan Library's historic manuscripts and other collections.
Business Team:
The Pierpont Morgan Library is the nation's premiere repository of literary manuscripts. Its holdings include correspondence, diaries, and drafts of works of major British, European, and American authors, artists, scientists, and historical and political figures. Among the highlights are Charles Dickens's manuscript of A Christmas Carol, Henry David Thoreau's journals, and Thomas Jefferson's letters to his daughter Martha. Other significant holdings are manuscripts and letters of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontė, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, John Steinbeck, and Voltaire. The Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the largest and finest collections of American historical documents in private hands, is on deposit at the library.
Electronic Scriptorium, Ltd. solves complex information management and data conversion problems for corporations, government agencies, libraries, museums and other institutions. In a business association unique to Scriptorium, cloistered monks underpin a highly educated workforce that meets exacting standards of quality and accuracy. Electronic Scriptorium provides expertise in archives conversion, finding aids automation, bibliographic services, image cataloging, document conversion, XML/HTML encoding, offshore data conversion and more.
Technical Approach:
Each year the Morgan Library attracts scholars from around the world. The library's tradition of excellent cataloging ensures that scholars have easy access to the literary treasures housed on its shelves. The Morgan Library catalog contains comprehensive bibliographic information including copious, detailed notes resulting from years of work by curators and collection managers. For example, not only are Henry David Thoreau's journals cataloged in detail, but so is the wooden box that he built to hold the manuscripts.
The same careful approach to cataloging has been used for papal bulls, royal decrees, wills, contracts and other holdings of the collection. Until recently, access to the collection has only been available through a card-based public access catalog. More and more scholars have come to expect online access to bibliographic databases, however. The Morgan Library solved the technical challenge of providing online access through the selection of an online public access catalog system (OPAC). The major challenge was conversion of the extraordinary intellectual content held in the card catalog to USMARC format for use in the OPAC. To facilitate the conversion process, Electronic Scriptorium worked with the professional staff at the Morgan Library to develop comprehensive processing specifications, which ran to 96 printed pages.
The specification development phase was exacting but ensured that the rich content of the paper based cataloging would be preserved in the online system. Periodic meetings held between Electronic Scriptorium's cataloging staff and the Morgan Library staff promoted open discussion of issues encountered during cataloging. Extensive use of electronic mail augmented the exchange with examples when cataloging anomalies were encountered.
Implementation Methodology:
The specification development phase was exacting but ensured that the rich content of the paper based cataloging would be preserved in the online system. Periodic meetings held between Electronic Scriptorium's cataloging staff and the Morgan Library staff promoted open discussion of issues encountered during cataloging. Extensive use of electronic mail augmented the exchange with examples when cataloging anomalies were encountered.
Electronic Scriptorium addressed the risk of removing the original shelf list cards through a series of procedures designed to protect the documents, including courier pick-up and return of the cards between New York and the cataloging sites, extensive inventory control methods and strict guidelines for handling the cards. Electronic Scriptorium used a series of USMARC cataloging tools and utilities to create the records locally. Completed records were thoroughly reviewed to ensure compliance with the cataloging specifications.
Electronic Scriptorium's team used its multilingual skills and a broad general knowledge to resolve ambiguities on the cards and clarify person and place names. Completed logical databases were delivered electronically to the library.
Summary:
Electronic Scriptorium's conversion allowed over 23,000 records describing collection items from the 12th to the 20th century to be loaded into the RLG Union Catalog. Prior to the project researchers were required to visit the library in order to perform research. Thanks to funding from many leading foundations the records are now fully searchable by author, title and other fields on CORSAIR, the library's OPAC. For Electronic Scriptorium, the Morgan Library conversion project represented a new threshold of excellence.
The project demonstrated the level of quality and complexity that can be achieved through a collaborative effort of library professionals and dedicated, quality-conscious staff. The humanistic value of the project is not to be understated. The documents and people represented in the collection have not only shaped world history but, in many instances, the course of human thinking. Electronic Scriptorium is proud to have played a role in such a worthwhile effort.
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