How should a digitization effort for a library proceed?

Question

If a library is looking into forming a digitization team dedicated to digitizing your rare & special collections:

1. How should what gets digitized be determined? Should this be focused more on monographs, or should items like maps/ephemera be considered) If the librarian cannot or will not determine these decisions, who should?
2. Is there a standard that should be followed for digitization?
3. Is there a standard that should be followed for preservation?
4. Where should this unit live within the library organization - as part of rare books? part of tech services? another unit?

Answer 1

Guidelines on digitization for various materials (still images, moving images, audio...) can be found at the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines site: http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/. Their project planning materials http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/digitize-planning.html may be of some use in exploring how to tackle digitization efforts. While your organization may make some different choices, these guidelines should be a useful starting point for your organizational discussion.

Answer 2

I'd like to add some small advice on Paul Wheatley's answer regarding file formats. Archival master images should always be saved as uncompressed files, as compression comes with some problems. If i. e. just one bit in the compressed image flips, the rest of your master (behind that bit in the bitstream) is useless and lost. Also, compression uses up cycles on your archival servers that will be better used doing other things like creating downscaled copies of your master images for presentation.

Answer 3

I came across an interesting set of resources for digitization today. It's called Digital Preservation in a Box, created by the Library of Congress's National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA). Resources include tools and discussions of format and risk issues. It's too much to really encapsulate here, but it does address some of your questions. The Library of Congress Standards are on their website, but may be more technical than what you are looking for.

An additional, exhaustive set of online resources can be found on the Digital Curation Resource Guide. The list includes links to discussion groups, file formats and guidelines, sample library policies, standards, software and tools, and blogs. The list was compiled by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., formerly Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston Libraries.

Answer 4

The LIFE-SHARE Project produced a useful set of resources that help to take the reader through the process of establishing and implementing a digitisation activity, as well as guiding dissemination and preservation (See the Digitisation Toolkit). There is also an end to end case study on digitising Special Collections which made these recommendations (summarised to keep this response concise):

• Consider implementing an online form for receiving digitisation requests
• Scan all images which are to form archival master images in a repository in uncompressed or lossless compression formats
• Create technical standards for all images created and check that equipment used is fit for purpose
• If storing images digitised as part of an on-demand service in a repository, it is important to identify images for storage at the point of capture so that they can be digitised to the appropriate standards
• Try to use existing infrastructure if it can be adapted to your purpose

The project also explored consortial models, how they might be applied in order to create shared digitisation services, and what aspects of interaction were important in order to create effective partnerships (trust, communication, coordination, etc).

Answer 5

Unpacking the first part of the first question....

How should what gets digitized be determined?

Creating a policy to prioritize or queue items for digitization is nearly impossible to perfect. That's an anecdotal observation from working on digitizing special collections projects for two years as an academic librarian at 75% time with digital curation and 25% time with special collections. The primary reason is priorities will change on a near daily basis.

Factors influencing (remixed from NEDCC, JISC, NDSA, LOC, & RBMS among others) the development of a prioritization policy could include (I won't say they are ordered, as that would put into question the veracity of my already anecdotal answer):

• institutional/university policy
• organizational/departmental mission statement
• collection development policies
• collection management policies
• national laws and regulations
• user needs
• funds
• digitization equipment
• evaluation of subject experts
• condition & stability
• market trend
• value/risk

Answer 6

3.Is there a standard that should be followed for preservation?

An ALA task force is documenting the minimum recommended tech specs for digitization. It's only in draft now, but it's well-cited and concise. http://connect.ala.org/node/185648