The NANOS NOVEL Project - Summary of Progress
December 2003

Collections
Web site prototype
Databases
Goals for future
Digital image specifications
Video formats
Metadata fields

Collections

The NOVEL project has been working with the collections of William F. Hoyt, MD of UCSF and Shirley H. Wray, MD, PhD of Harvard. Work began on these collections approximately one year prior to the funding of the grant from the National Library of Medicine. We are very fortuante to have had this experience, as working directly with Dr. Hoyt and Dr. Wray has given us a much clearer idea of the issues involved in collecting the metadata (descriptive information for accuarate indexing.) This is a summary of our progress to date:

Dr. Hoyt has sent approximately 900 slides to the Eccles Health Sciences at the University of Utah for digitization. The entire collection was sent out to a local photographic studio for digitization. Dr. Hoyt has made 10 (or so) visits to the Eccles Library where he and Nancy Lombardo, Systems Librarian (PI of the grant) systematically collect metadata for each slide. This involves viewing the slides and collecting information for numerous indexing fields.

After reveiwing the entire collection, it was determined that the digital image quality was not adequate. We sent a group of slides to another digitization center on campus and got far superior quality. We returned the collection to the out-source studio and they agreed to buy new equipment and re-scan the entire collection. We now insist that the original scanned image meet accepted archival standards with minimum specifications.

Dr. Wray has sent approximately 120 patient case videos. Of these, nearly 80 have been captured, edited, credit slides added front and back, and encoded to multiple streaming formats, as well as a CD quality format. The CD quality videos will require download, but will offer a larger windows size and high quality video. Dr. Wray has made 4 trips to Eccles Library to work on the project and metadata has been collected on the 80 encoded patient case videos.

Both collections will be accessible via a Web site conducive to browsing the material and a database for seaching the material using the descriptive indexing.

Web site prototype for Hoyt collection

A prototype of a Web site for the Hoyt collection is available at http://library.med.utah.edu/neuroophth/Hoyt/. It is organized according to the subject outline created by Dr. Hoyt. It is designed to place case slides together in a logical sequence. It is intended for those who wich to browse the collection by subject. We need feedback from NANOS members on the layout, navigation, and usability.

Database prototype for Hoyt collection

While we plan to load the entire NOVEL collection into the Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) database, that project is still under development. To gain experience and insight into the issues of the database, we are using a multimedia content management database called ContentDM. Some of the Hoyt collection has been loaded into that database and is searchable. It can be found at http://content.lib.utah.edu/. Once at the site:
  • Click on Browse
  • Select "EHSL - William F. Hoyt Neuro-Ophthalmology Collection" form the drop down menu
  • To search, click Advanced Search (which is in small type in the narrow gray bar near the top of the screen)
  • All fields are searchable
There is much room for modification within the database and interface, so we would like input and feedback from the NANOS members.

Issues and goals

  • Peer review all material in collection (Most pressing need is for materials to be peer reviewed and make sure they're adequately tagged.)
    • Metadata terms - how to adequately index items without overdoing it. Major headache is how to categorize items for retrieval. No adequate neuro-ophthalmology structured language exists. ICD10 & Snomed are big and neuro-op categories are scattered. Would like to have structured language limited to neuro-op. Currently using the ContentDM database which seems OK but some problems. Eventual goal to use HEAL database tools.
    • Enhance database with references, history, etc
  • Add to the collection: cases, individual slides and videos
  • Solicit significant collections where available
  • Need to create structure for neuro-ophthalmolgy curricula and education - how to do this? This overlaps with structured language for neuro-ophthalmology. Tables of contents of neuro-op books have been perused for examples of structure.


Minimum Digital Image Specifications

  • Pixels per inch: 2,700
  • Multi-sample scanning: 4X
  • Color per channel: 8-bit
  • File format: TIFF uncompressed

Digital Video Formats

  • Quicktime
  • Windows Media
  • RealMedia

Metadata Fields

  • Title
  • Creator
  • Subject
  • Antaomy
  • Pathology
  • Disease/Diagnosis
  • Clinical signs (symptoms)
  • Imaging
  • Description
  • Publisher
  • Contributor
  • Date (Original & Digital)
  • Type
  • Format
  • Identifier
  • Source (Owning Inst.)
  • Language
  • Relation
  • Coverage
  • Rights (Copyright)


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