Rebecca L. Mugridge LFO Research Colloquium March 19, 2008

Outline Issues LFO Research Grant What I planned to do What I did instead (SPEC Kit) Research results

Issues How are academic and research libraries organized to manage digital projects and provide metadata? Does one centralized unit handle the functions of selecting, scanning/digitizing, creating metadata, and archiving, or are they decentralized? If digital project management is decentralized, how are priorities determined?

Issues, cont’d Are the current organizational structures effective? Are there models of organization that are more effective than others? Have they reassigned library resources to fund new initiatives or have they obtained additional funding? Who creates descriptive metadata? Who determines metadata standards?

LFO Research Grant proposal Survey the 123 ARL libraries: “To study how libraries are organized to manage digital library initiatives and to evaluate the effectiveness of those organizations.”

Wage staff to help with: Literature search Basic word processing and survey layout Copying of survey, articles, etc., as needed Mailing surveys Assisting with compiling results Other clerical duties

Proposed plan of work July-August: Literature search and review September: Production of draft survey instrument October: Review of the survey instrument by the PSU Institutional Review Board November 1: Send survey to a subset of the ARL Library Deans/Directors with November 30 deadline

Proposed plan of work, cont’d December 1: Send survey to all ARL Library Deans/Directors with January 15 deadline January 15-April: Compile and interpret results; write article for submission

However… Only the literature review and draft survey was completed by mid-2004 Need to revise timeline and research plans Suggestion to investigate doing as an ARL SPEC Kit

SPEC Kit SPEC: Systems and Procedures Exchange Center “SPEC surveys gather information from ARL member institutions on current research library practices and policies. SPEC Kits combine the survey results and documentation from ARL member institutions to provide resource guides for libraries as they face ever- changing management problems. These guides help libraries learn about current practice in research libraries, implement new practices and technologies, manage change, and improve performance. SPEC Kits comprise four key elements:

Four key elements of SPEC Kits: Executive Summary (approximately 1,500 words) Survey Results (including a list of responding institutions) Supporting Documentation (from the responding institutions) Selected Resources (including books, journal articles, and Web sites)”

New timeline 2004: Proposed as SPEC Kit 2005: Drafted survey questions; ARL turned it into a web survey February 2006: Survey was administered by ARL April-August 2006: Compiled survey results and wrote Executive Summary

Survey to explore The purposes of libraries’ digitization efforts Where the funding comes from to support those efforts Percentage of the budget spent on materials, operations, staff, equipment, software, etc. How academic and research libraries are organized to manage digitization activities and create metadata

Survey to explore, cont’d How funding, staffing, material selection, and other priorities are determined and monitored Whether staff are full-time or part-time and how many are dedicated to selection, cataloging, scanning, etc. Whether libraries are outsourcing to vendors or doing the work in-house

Survey responses 68 respondent libraries (considered by ARL to be a good response rate) 66 of them describe themselves as “engaged in activities to select, digitize, and create metadata for materials from the library’s collections.” Focus of the survey is on the digitization of library’s collections, not on the creation of born-digital objects

Digitization efforts driving factors Grant funding became available (59%) Staff with digitization skills joined the organization (50%) Staff received digitization training (44%) Digitization was chosen as a preservation option (42%) Gift money became available (29%) Other factor(s) (62%)

Purpose of digitization efforts Improved access to library collections (100%) Support for research (85%) Preservation (71%) Support for classroom teaching (70%) Support for distance learning (36%) Other purpose(s) (24%)

Organization of digitization activities Material selection Centralized (15%) Distributed (75%) Both (10%) Material digitization (scanning) Centralized (31%) Distributed (57%) Both (12%)

Organization of digitization activities, cont’d Metadata creation Centralized (18%) Distributed (68%) Both (14%) Administration Centralized (45%) Distributed (46%) Both (9%)

Who makes decisions about allocation of staff support? Head of centralized unit (64%) Digitization team/committee/working group (55%) Head of cataloging (21%) Collection development officer (14%) Bibliographer/selector (9%) Library business office staff (3%) Other (62%)

Who makes decisions about allocation of staff support? Other: Assistant/Associate/Deputy Dean/Director (14%) Library administration (12%) Library Dean/Director (9%) Heads of units involved in digitization (8%) Head of Special Collections (6%)

Dedicated budget for start-up and/or ongoing costs Start-up costs Yes (43%) No (57%) Ongoing costs Yes (45%) No (55%)

Start-up budget Minimum: $5,000 Maximum: $366,989 Mean: $97,027

Ongoing budget Minimum: $5,000 Maximum: $1,130,000 Mean: $303,916

Formats digitized Still images, photographs (97%) Archival material (86%) Manuscripts (83%) Rare books (70%) Monographs, complete volumes (61%) Audio recordings (59%)

Formats digitized, cont’d Moving images, videos, etc. (53%) Monograph chapters or other parts (41%) Journals, complete issues (41%) Journal articles (36%) Other material (35%) Maps, newspapers, 3D objects, slides, prints, theses and dissertations, etc.

Criteria for selection Subject matter (91%) Material is part of a collection being digitized (88%) Rarity or uniqueness (79%) Material fits criteria for a cooperative digitization project (68%) Physical condition (67%) Format (64%) Other criteria (35%)

Criteria for selection, cont’d Other: User requests Faculty/student needs High demand for or use of material Research value

Outsourcing of digitization production work (e.g., scanning) Yes (60%) No (40%)

Metadata standards used Dublin Core (92%) MARC (84%) XML (75%) EAD (69%) TEI (45%) METS (38%) VRACore (31%) MODS (25%) Other (25%)

Organization of SPEC kits Executive summary -- now free on the web at ml ml Survey questions and responses List of responding institutions Selected resources (books, journal articles, web sites) Representative documents

Organizational charts Mission statements (of digitization units) Position descriptions Policy and procedure documents Selection criteria Assessment

For more information, contact: Rebecca L. Mugridge Head, Cataloging and Metadata Services 126 Paterno Library University Park PA Phone: