Montana History Portal - Folder Hierarchy

Montana History Portal - Folder Hierarchy

Create a Folder Hierarchy for a Portal Collection: Introduction 

The folder hierarchy determines the structure of the item display.  
Before you begin scanning, decide how you would like your collection to display on the Montana History Portal
If, before scanning, you already have created the folder hierarchy that will determine how the collection’s items are presented, you can quickly and efficiently save the item and begin creating your collection. 
Examples: 
  1. If you have a book, do you want the book presented as collective pages from the first page until the last or rather presented still in its entirety but with divisions by chapters?
  2. If you have a newspaper collection from 1909-1911, would you want the newspaper displayed by one item per published date or have the newspaper displayed with divisions of years or further into volumes?
These are important decisions because as soon as you scan an item, you will need to save it on your computer. Where you save the item and how it is titled will determine how the item displays on the portal. 
Note: This guide also applies to projects that use a vendor instead of in-house digitizing. Portal contributing institutions are required to set up the folder structure and file-naming schema for the vendor
To begin, here is the basic information to save items for a Portal collection: 
  1. Decide how you would like your collection’s items displayed and titled by understanding two folder-hierarchy display examples
  2. Create the collection’s folder hierarchy where digital files will be saved
  3. Save digital images after digitization 

Vocabulary for Creating a Folder Hierarchy:

Document: any object that is not yet digital. For example, a photograph, a book, a newspaper, a yearbook, a page from a diary, an entire diary, etc. that has not yet been scanned

Digital file: a document that has been scanned or digitized and converted into a computer saved file and is made up of a set of picture elements (pixels). Digital files for the Portal are saved as TIFF file types.

Digitization: The process of converting analog information into digital format

Folder: Just like real world folders, folders on your hard drive store files. These files can be documents, programs, scripts, and any other kind of computer files you can think of. Folders can also store other folders.

Collection folder: the folder where all of a Portal collection’s digital files and folder hierarchy are saved. This folder is named the same as the Portal Collection (e.g. Montana Yearbook Collection)

Folder hierarchy: how the parent and child folders are structured

Parent folder: a folder created within a collection folder that identifies a document whose digital files are stored within. May house child folders

Child folder: Child folders are stored in parent folders and can house other child folders and digital items


Above: An example of a folder hierarchy created for the Montana Yearbook Collection. The digital files are from the 1956 Yearbook child folder of the Waine county Yearbooks parent folder within the Montana Yearbook Collection collection folder.

II. Determine a Collection’s Portal Display Titles

Example 1: One-level of hierarchy (one parent folder; no child folders)
Document: Edward Hennerford’s 1912 diary
Folder Hierarchy example with corresponding display view on the MMP

The folder hierarchy is based around a single parent folder called Edward Hennerford’s 1912 diary. Digital files are saved within this folder and are titled according to the diary page number. With only one parent folder created (Edward Hennerford’s 1912 Diary) and no child folders in this folder hierarchy, this example is the simplest form of folder hierarchy. Digital files of the pages on the Portal were named as Page 001, Page 002, etc. 



Example 2: Multiple levels of hierarchy (a combination of parent and child folders) Document: Esther Webley’s 1939 field notes (compiled monthly).
A parent folder is titled Esther Webley’s 1939 field notes. Within this parent folder, child folders were made for each month (01 January, 02 February, etc.). Then, when a page of the field notes was scanned, it was saved to the appropriate month and named according to its page number. The parent folder displays at the top of the column with the child folders [Parent folder: Esther Webley’s 1939 Field Notes Child folders: 01 January, 02 February, etc. Digital files: Page001, Page002, Page003…Page015] Montana History Portal below. The scanned items are then found in the child folder where they were saved.





 III. Create a Folder Hierarchy

Based on the two examples, choose to create a single-level or multiple-level folder hierarchy.
  1. If a single-level is the best for the document (e.g. as a book, a diary, a photo album, etc.), there is no need for a more in-depth folder structure.
  2. If your documents would best be displayed with divisions (e.g. a newspaper, a collection of diaries or yearbooks, etc), create a multiple-level folder hierarchy that has a combination of parent and child folders.

To begin, follow steps 1-3 explained below:

Step 1: Create the collection folder Make sure you create a folder specifically your institution’s Portal collection. Label this folder with the Portal collection name. The collection-titled folder will store all the folders (parent and child) and digital files for the collection. This folder can be saved on the desktop, on a local drive, or wherever makes the most sense for your institution. To create a new folder, right click in empty space, select New and then Folder (This is also how all folders, including parent and child folders, are made).

To name the folder, you can either left click and highlight on the title of New Folder and begin to type, or right click on the folder and select to Rename the folder (This is how all folders, including parent and child folders, are named).






Step 2: Now that you have created the collection folder, open it up to create the parent folder by double clicking on the collection folder or by right clicking on the folder and selecting “open.” 

To create a parent folder, right click in empty space, select New and then Folder. Each parent folder will hold only one digital document and are named to represent the title of the document stored within (e.g. Hennerford’s 1912 Diary, Esther Webley’s 1939 Field Notes). To name the folder, you can either left click and highlight on the title of New Folder and begin to type, or right click on the folder and select to Rename the folder.



Step 3: Now that the collection and parent folders are created, you can create any necessary child folders. To create a new child folder, open up the parent folder. Then, to add in child folders, right-click anywhere in the folder, click New, and then click Folder. Type the new name for the new folder, and press Enter.
Remember, child folders can house additional child folders.

IV. Example of Creating a Folder Hierarchy

If there was a Portal collection being created called the Montana Yearbook Collection, the collection folder would be titled Montana Yearbook Collection and would be the first folder created. This folder will house all parent folders, child folders, and digital files.

If the 1956-1960 Waine County yearbooks were being digitized for the Montana Yearbook Collection, it could be decided to display the yearbooks so a specific year could be searched for quickly. The yearbook folder hierarchy would then be set up with the by opening the Montana Yearbook Collection folder and creating inside it a parent folder titled Waine County Yearbooks. Then, in the Waine County Yearbooks folder, child folders named 1956 Yearbook, 1957 Yearbook, etc. would be created. Within these child folders, the digital files would be saved.

The image below on the left is the folder hierarchy with saved digital files and the image on the right is the display column of the yearbooks on the Portal. 

Note: files are sorted alphanumerically. Because there are pages that precede Page001 (the cover, preface, and prologue), it was decided to use a file naming schema of 001_itemdescription, 002_itemdescription and 003_itemdescription to ensure the items are sorted in the correct order. This will also ensure the pages in the yearbook display in the correct order. 

There is also an option within the Project Client software when specifying page names to ignore information that comes before underscores. 001_Cover displays as Cover.

V. Scan and Save Images 

Note: This section of the guide only pertains to digital files that will be saved as TIFF files. Therefore, this is relevant for text and image documents but not audio files (audio files are saved in the WAV format).
Once you have scanned a document according to the Portal’s technical requirements, select to save the created digital file.
A similar screen as in the below example will open: 

The item in this example that has been scanned is page 13 of the 1956 Waine County yearbook from the Montana Yearbook Collection (the first twelve pages have already been scanned and saved in this example).
  1. The file name will be Page013. In accordance with Portal technical requirements, the file type has been selected as a TIFF file.
  2. After naming the file and selecting the type, save it to the correct folder.
    1. In this instance, the file named Page013 is saved to the child folder 1956 Yearbook of the parent folder Waine County Yearbooks which is saved in the collection-titled folder Montana Yearbook Collection
  3.  Select Save.
  4. You can now navigate to your folder hierarchy and view the digital file.

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