Scriblio for civilians

Gosh, I wish I were better at coming up with post titles…

I had an email yesterday inquiring about some details of Scriblio. As I wrote back, answering her questions, it occurred to me that it was exactly the kind of thing it’s easy for me, so close to the project to take for granted while so fundamental that potential users must understand. Her question, slightly altered for privacy:

I am… cataloging our Special Collections, as well as getting a backlog of exhibition pamphlets on the shelves, or at least into a database. People have also been cleaning out their offices here and I have also been given [some] archival information, mostly newspaper clippings of very brittle nature. [A colleague suggested] photocopying the articles, and then using Scriblio to get a database of some of these items accessible to our patrons. I did attend the Library 2.0 workshop in Goffstown where you spoke, and had kept Scriblio in the back of my mind as a tool that might come in handy some time. I’m a little fuzzy on the connection between databases, cataloging, and our library’s website and wondered if you could shed some light on this or re-direct me. [Could we use] a simple database program (Access) or even just using Excel, if we were simply trying to organize the material quickly.

I’d appreciate any direction or suggestions you might have. I’m tentatively stepping into something that I think could be very exciting for our library. Thanks, in advance, for any advice you could give me!

I was flattered and impressed with her idea and happy to sit down to try and clarify where Scriblio might help and where another solution might be superior.

We have used Scriblio for Digital Library creation. For an example, check out Beyond Brown Paper. For this, you would need to scan the items to get a digital copy (instead of reproduce a physical copy as with photocopying). As for the difference or connection between databases, cataloging, and the library’s website - it’s a bit complex, which is likely why you’re fuzzy. When it comes to Wordpress, the software upon which Scriblio is built, things are different than they have been with traditional digital library systems.

First off it’s essential to understand that Scriblio is built as a *user tool* it is not intended to do any archival storage or anything beyond rendering a collection fully accessible, relevant, and usable to a visitor. I would be heartbroken if a misunderstanding of that led to disappointment with the long-term protection of materials or, even worse, their permanent loss.

That said, however, Wordpress stores all a website’s content in a database instead of within html pages, as you might know from any web development you may have done. This means that the webpages you see are largely created ‘on the fly’ as content is pulled from the database. It makes for a very efficient and easy-to-maintain web presence.

The cataloging is a bit more complex - because this is a system intended for natural language searching and not strictly the controlled vocabulary of cataloging. It is possible to do cataloging, especially for image collections, via Scriblio, but the process is different from what you’re accustomed to. It’s similar to adding tags as you might in flickr or library thing or any number of Web 2.0 tools. The method, though, is slightly more structured in order to give the tags more context and meaning. These, the cataloging data, are all housed in the database with the other content (or, as I like to call it, ‘the juicy stuff’).

Now, the relationship to the website. This is where things get really exciting for me. Traditional, and most existing, library websites, are basically collections of un-associated web components. There’s the stuff about the institution which looks and acts one way, and then the catalog that is linked from it, but looks and acts totally differently, and then, maybe, a calendar component which looks and acts different again, and so on. Scriblio gives the opportunity to entirely unite those so that what’s associated in the user’s mind as ALL belonging to the library and therefore all one unit, appears that way on the website too. It all looks and acts the same way. (See Tamworth Library for an example.) While Scriblio has that functionality, though, it also could stand entirely on its own as a separate digital collection as well (as with Beyond Brown Paper).

So, providing part of your ambitions for your project is to make the materials available to end-users on the internet, it sounds like Scriblio would be ideal.