Purpose of the User Guide
The User Guide to the Database is here to get you started installing and using DS-Access, as well as to serve as an ongoing reference to assist you with entering and submitting your data to the Digital Scriptorium web application. This guide covers all topics related to DS-Access as listed in the Table of Contents, and is also available as a single downloadable PDF file. If you're just getting started with DS-Access version 9 we suggest you begin with chapter 2, Familiarize yourself with DS-Access. If you have questions or comments about this guide or other issues related to DS-Access, please see the contact page for further assistance.
Intellectual History of the Database
In November 1997, as part of the EAMMS project of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (http://www.hmml.org), a group of some thirty scholars (textual editors, art historians, curators of manuscripts, and technical advisors) gathered at Columbia to determine the minimum amount of information on a medieval or Renaissance manuscript that, together with images, could still prove useful to the community of manuscript users. The principle was that, on one hand, the vast numbers of surviving manuscripts of this era, and, on the other hand, limited time, funds, and expertise combine to severely constrain the ultimate goal: that scintillating spark when one person and one manuscript connect. Thus, minimal numbers of words (produced in less time, thus at a lesser cost) will allow libraries to quickly put materials into the public view; and the images will allow the expert to quickly hone in to the desired manuscript. The flexible medium that is the web will allow the newly expanded information on the manuscript to be made public in a refreshed version, while acknowledging the scholar's contribution. The revised description of the manuscript will resonate with yet another scholar, who will also contribute to the correction of the description. This is the leap: that because of the images —the next best thing to having the manuscripts on the desk in front of every scholar—the descriptions and the knowledge of the manuscripts are continuously perfectible.
Effect of DS Goals on the Database
With eyes on the goal, DS aims to absorb the smallest amount of inputting time; and yet it intends to offer the greatest number of entrance points to the manuscripts. Concretely this means that you, the cataloguer/inputter of descriptions, will find that the database insists upon information as seldom as possible, while also encouraging considerable granularity in the areas that attract the attention of manuscript specialists. The total number of fields at first appears daunting: 83 description-related fields + 30 more related to the technical aspect of the imaging, but of all these, only 21 fields are required, and the database provides mechanisms to make data entry simple and consistent wherever the number of differing segments of information is fairly small. City-Institution-Repository are handled by default values; the names of scripts and the names of countries work from lists that you yourself build up; the expansion of roman-numbered dates by century explodes automatically into the appropriate arabic-numbered years; drop-down boxes offer choices for support and for cardinal direction.
Technical History of the Database
DS-Access is a data capture utility created to facilitate the contribution of metadata for the Digital Scriptorium online web database project. Based on the Microsoft Access platform, it was originally developed in 1997 at the University of California, Berkeley by John Hassan and Merrilee Proffitt, with content specifications by Consuelo Dutschke. Since that date it has undergone several modifications, although underlying structures remain unchanged. After many small and an occasional large change in its structure and fields, it settled into the tool used through Phase II of the DS project.
With Phase III, and the movement of DS to Columbia University, the database underwent an entire reworking from the bottom up. Every table, query, form and report changed in order to make the database more readily updatable in the future (via transparency in naming conventions), less liable to human error in inputting (via automating features), and much stronger in predicting and tracking workflow patterns (those of the inputter; those of the photographer; those of the technical analyst who will merge data from many institutions). The architecture of the database thus remains identical, while its functionalities are completely rebuilt. In addition, the database has been compiled into a runtime version to avoid complications of varying versions of Microsoft Access held by the partner institutions.
Dmitri Laury of Columbia's Libraries Digital Programs Division, in consultation with other members of the LDPD team, in particular Terry Catapano (Systems Analyst) and Dave Ortiz (Imaging Specialist), envisioned, planned and executed this fundamental revision of DS-Access.
For more information about the newest version of DS-Access, see About Version 9.
