Check out the CANTUS database, which is the basic search engine for medieval musicologists. You will see that many of the MSS in the database are linked to images that can be found on other sites, a greatly useful feature. It might be a good example for you as it is heavily trafficked. Margot Fassler Keough Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy Director, Program in Sacred Music University of Notre Dame

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Gabriel BODARD Gabriel.bodard@sas.ac.uk wrote:

Dear Matija,

One example, which might or might not be the sort of thing you are looking for, is the catalogue of papyri at the University of Michigan, which is accessible both as a local catalogue ( http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis?page=index) and through the Papyri.info portal (http://papyri.info/search?COLLECTION=michigan). I think the data/metadata contained by the two sites is more or less the same, but Michigan may also maintain some catalogue data that isn't included in the APIS format that Papyri.info serve.

(I picked Michigan at random, but I'm sure at least a few of the other contributing APIS institutions [http://papyri.info/browse/apis/] also serve their collections locally as well as through Papyri.info.)

Hope this helps,

Gabby

On 27/11/2015 14:39, Matija Ogrin wrote:

...

Dear Colleagues,

Can you please give any example of a (small) digital collection of manuscript or printed primary sources which, 1) operates as an independent web-portal AND also 2) their data are in some way included/aggregated into some large collection or digital library?

I am particularly interested in what happens as data pass from a "small" into a "large" digital resource? What kind of data are most suitable and frequent object of such aggregation in our area of digital humanities: only meta-data, or also msDesc, digital images, transcriptions? How "visible" is the original small collection after the aggregation? Etc.

I hope this is not an off-topic question. Thank you for any advice,

Matija

-- Dr Gabriel BODARD Reader in Digital Classics

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Dear list members,

Sincere thanks to all of you who replied on- or off-list with information on small and large collections. My point of interest was what happens to small digital (manuscript) collections (running their own web sites or portals) when they get aggregated into some large collection or digital library. How does this double modus vivendi look like with regard to the visibility of the original small collection, once aggregated into the large one?

The examples (that you helped me to collect) prove that the answer to this question is not straightforward and unambiguous at all. There is a range of practices how the web-design of the large collection represents the original data and how it redirects (or not) the user to the original collection.

To give an example, The European Library and Europeana seem to be two similar large aggregators. But in fact, there is a serious difference: The European Library strives to represent only the minimal metadata and a small informative thumb picture of the primary material, where the links to the original collection are visibly exposed to the user, who is graphically "encouraged" to visit the original contributor. In my view, this is an example of fair balance between the interests of the aggregator and the contributor. If we have a look to the same material in Europeana, on the other hand, we find that the interface is designed rather to retain the user on the Europeana pages: it gives a bigger image and the user is "warned" that he/she will leave the Europeana pages (the link to the original collection is labelled "View item at ..."). Examples from other areas -- e.g. language technologies -- reveal even more drastic conflicts. In the area of manuscript studies however, in my opinion, MESA is by far the best aggregator. In the search-results area, a small "card" with metadata and a thumb-image invite the user to go deeper, and by one click, we come to the original collection.

In the field of Digital Humanities, there are "small" and "big players", as we can call them. This is inevitable. Often, the big players are big because they manage to attract and aggregate many small players. Yet, is is true that the detail, analysis, commentary -- most of what in Humanities constitutes the "quality" -- is provided by the small players, while the big players, on the contrary, provide evidence, quantity, and infrastructure. The two roles are profoundly different, clearly. The rules which should govern a "fair aggregation", however, are not so clear. Hopefully, good practise will establish them.

Regards, Matija Ogrin