Libraries recognize the importance of digitizing archival material to improve access to and preservation of their special collections. This book provides a step-by-step guide for creating digital collections, including examples and practical tips that have never been published before. Illustrates concepts with an on-going case study at the end of each chapter Provides detailed technical information and practical experience Discusses practitioners’ insight in digitization Can be used as a guide for creating digital collections

Going Digital: Strategies for Access, Preservation, and Conversion of Collections to a Digital Format offers you succinct and analytic views of the problems and benefits of digital resources in the traditional academic library. Library administrators, collection managers, and librarians will learn the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and digital collections and the costs of providing local access or implementing remote access to digital collections. Originally presented at a series of five symposiums sponsored by the Research Libraries Group, the articles inGoing Digital will help you decide upon a cost-effective collection method that will meet the needs of your library, your patrons, and your budget. The chapters in this text are written by the nation’s leading librarians who pose and answer questions about hardware and software needed for digital libraries, the costs involved, establishing and maintaining access to digital collections, copyright concerns, and long-term preservation problems. Going Digital gives you insight into factors that will help you decide what will best meet the goals of your library, such as: the advantages and disadvantages of preserving microfilm and digital conversion choosing the correct hardware and software for your digital preservation program the changes required from librarians when shifting from collection development to digital resources examining the selection process for collections from perspectives of access, public service, technological requirements, and preservation ways to improve access to traditional collections cost comparisons between digital and hard copy resources devising a technical plan for successful digital conversion of projects involving the user’s wants when selecting collections for digital conversion and recognizing the central parts patrons play in the selection process In light of the changing ways we receive and keep our information, Going Digital discusses new collection preservation criteria and suggests that access and informational values, not just deterioration, should be equal factors in selecting materials to be converted to digital form. Proving that digital collections are changing every facet of library operations, Going Digital shows you the most cost-effective way to begin a digital collection and how to choose what materials to digitize in order to provide your patrons with the information they want and need.

Digital collections have already changed the ways users access and interact with an institution's materials. And small or medium-sized libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies face a unique set of challenges in regards to digital collections. They may have been unable to jump on the digitization bandwagon at its beginning due to competing priorities or lack of resources, and may now be struggling to get a digitization program in place to meet the evolving needs and expectations of their own users. The good news is that digital projects can scale down to fit the size of any organization. Providing an entry point for librarians, archivists, and curators who are new to digitization, Monson's well-researched guide shows how even smaller institutions can successfully endeavor to make their content digitally accessible. Clearing aside the jargon and acronyms to hone in on the practicals, this book will help readers get a digitization program off the ground, offering guidance on how to efficiently harness existing workflows, especially in departments seeing a decline in workload; the pros and cons of the two common service models for state and regional digital repositories; how to evaluate and choose among the digital asset management systems, comparing four proprietary and six open source systems; hardware options for image capture; choices in metadata models MODS, VRA Core, Dublin Core Element Set, and EAD; understanding the characteristics of various file formats and using them effectively to create master and derivative files; bitstream copying, data redundancy and other strategies to safeguard digital files against media degradation and technological obsolescence; and Section 108 copyright exemptions for cultural heritage institutions. This easy-to-follow guide to digitization fundamentals will ensure that readers gain a solid grasp of the knowledge and resources available for getting started on their own digital collection projects.

In April 2000, the Digital Library Federation commissioned three reports to address broader concerns about digital collections in research libraries. This report synthesizes the nearly 10 years' experience that libraries have had digitizing items from their rare, special, and general collections, and making them available online. The report demonstrates that digitization programs work best where their role within a library's collection development strategy is clearly understood, and identifies several roles that such programs can play. The author muses about the extent to which digitally reformatted special and rare collections can actually support scholarly research, and looks at whether leading research libraries in particular might more usefully focus on digitizing general as opposed to special and rare collections. The report opens with points to consider in developing a sustainable strategy. The second section addresses identification, evaluation and selection, discussing polices, guidelines and best practices, and rationales for digitization. The third section focuses on institutional impacts and discusses treatment and disposition of source materials, scalability, intellectual control and data management, coordinated collection development, funding, preservation, and support of users. A final section addresses challenges in evaluating costs and benefits, and offers recommendations. (Contains 47 references.) (AEF)

The Digital Archives Handbook provides archivists a roadmap to create and care for digital archives. Written by archival experts and practitioners, Purcell brings together theoretical and practical approaches to creating, managing, and preserving digital archives. The first section is focused on processes and practices, including chapters on acquisitions, appraisal, arrangement, description, delivery, preservation, forensics, curation, and intellectual property. The second section is focused on digital collections and specific environments where archivists are managing digital collections. These chapters review digital collections in categories including performing arts, oral history, architectural and design records, congressional collections, and email. The book discuss the core components of digital archives—the technological infrastructure that provides storage, access, and long-term preservation; the people or organizations that create or donate digital material to archives programs, as well as the researchers use them; and the digital collections themselves, full of significant research content in a variety of formats with a multitude of research possibilities. The chapters emphasize that the people and the collections that make up digital archives are just as important as the technology. Also highlighted are the importance of donors and creators of digital archives. Building digital archives parallels the cycle of donor work—planning, cultivation, and stewardship. During each stage, archivists work with donors to ensure that the digital collections will be arranged, described, preserved, and made accessible for years to come. Archivists must take proactive and informed actions to build valuable digital collections. Knowing where digital materials come from, how those materials were created, what materials are important, what formats or topical areas are included, and how to serve those collections to researchers in the long term is central to archival work. This handbook is designed to generate new discussions about how archivists of the twenty-first century can overcome current challenges and chart paths that anticipate, rather than merely react to, future donations of digital archives.

This report looks at the developing digital library practices of leading universities and cultural institutions including Cornell University, Oregon State University, the University of Chicago and the Museum of Natural History, among others. In detailed profiles based on lengthy interviews with directors of digital resources and other individuals with authority over major digitization efforts, the study details developments in content management, marketing, metadata development, collaborations, revenue generation, copyright clearance, use of social media, grants and fundraising, program assessment and metrics, equipment use and acquisition, staff development, preservation, donor management and other areas of interest to digitizers of content in libraries, higher education, government and museums. The study looks closely at the emergence of the academic library as a publisher and generator of digital content, not just as a custodian or receptacle. Increasingly, digitizers of content have entered the scholarly and educational mainstream and have propelled their content into prominent positions in their institutions.