A Chicken or An Egg? Planning Your Digital Project Presentation to the Saskatchewan Libraries Conference Digitization 101 Pre-Conference Workshop May 3, 2007 By Carol Hixson University Librarian University of Regina https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/handle/1794/

Why, What, Who, How, When Why do you want to build a digital collection? What do you have to digitize and how do you select what to digitize? What are the challenges? Who will be involved? How do you plan? How will you implement and manage? How will you evaluate? When will you be done?

Why Build Digital Collections? Because everyone else is? No!

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials

Provide access to and awareness of materials Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Provide access to and awareness of materials

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials

Broaden access to physically fragile materials Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve at-risk materials

Preserve at-risk materials Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve at-risk materials To strengthen and build partnerships and collaborations with other cultural heritage institutions

Strengthen and build partnerships Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Strengthen and build partnerships Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve at-risk materials To strengthen and build partnerships To expand support for instructional programs

Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries Support instruction Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve some at risk materials To strengthen and build partnerships To expand support for instructional programs To explore new delivery mechanisms for content

Explore new delivery mechanisms

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve some at risk materials To strengthen and build partnerships To expand support for instructional programs To explore new delivery mechanisms for content To help shape the digital landscape

Help shape the digital landscape Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Why Build Digital Collections? To provide access to and awareness of materials To broaden access to physically fragile materials To preserve some at risk materials To strengthen and build partnerships To expand support for instructional programs To explore new delivery mechanisms for content To help shape the digital landscape To respond to user demand

Respond to user demand

What to Select Digitization projects based on federally held collections and information holdings and supported by dedicated funding should: support lifelong education and learning reinforce a shared national consciousness and informed citizenship be linked to economic growth and job creation http://www.collectionscanada.ca/8/3/r3-409-e.html

What to Select Decisions to select materials for digitization should also be based on a business-like approach that: identifies target user populations understands the needs and expectations of the users identifies measurable deliverables that will demonstrate benefits includes a promotion/marketing plan provides itemized costing takes into account the work necessary for obtaining copyright clearance for the material to be digitized

What to Select Meet your institution’s broad collection development criteria Visual impact Historical significance Illustration of a particular theme Meet needs of special user group

What to Select Copyright: The Place to Begin Intellectual Nature of the Source Materials Current and Potential Users Actual and Anticipated Nature of Use Format and Nature of the Digital Product Describing, Delivering, and Retaining the Digital Product Relationships to Other Digital Efforts Costs and Benefits

http://www.dpconline.org/docs/ handbook/DecTree.pdf

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design

Public Interface: Browsable Subject Lists for the Collections

Public Interface: Drop-down Navigation Bars at Top

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections

Context for collections

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections Building multiple collections simultaneously

Building multiple collections simultaneously

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections Building multiple collections simultaneously Technical issues

Technical issues Technical expertise Hardware and software Metadata support Interoperability User interface Digital preservation

Technical expertise Knowledge of operating systems and servers Knowledge of database structure Ability to troubleshoot Knowledge of standards

Hardware and software Open source Purchased or licensed Locally mounted or hosted externally Adequate space and infrastructure Robust backup mechanisms

Software requirements Accept variety of digital formats Allow for submission of digital objects, item-by-item or batch loading Customizable user interface Modular Flexible system administration Granular authorizations

Software requirements Underlying mapping to standards-based metadata Support controlled vocabularies Flexible metadata capture, edit, and display Global change capabilities Statistics and reports

Digital preservation Digital preservation is essentially about preserving access over time. This makes it virtually impossible neatly to segregate costs which are only for digital preservation from costs which are only about access www.dpconline.org/graphics/digpresstratoverview.html

Digital preservation Ensuring the long-term maintenance of a bitstream (the zeros and ones): backing up files and keeping a copy at an offsite location running checks to track the deterioration of storage media, files or bitstreams

Digital preservation Providing continued accessibility of the contents: viability renderability understandability

Digital preservation strategies Bitstream copying Refreshing Durable/persistent media Analog backups Digital archaeology Migration Emulation

Digital preservation components Metadata registry Format registry Checksum verification Backup procedures Persistent identifiers

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections Building multiple collections simultaneously Technical issues Costs

Can you afford it? Will you absorb the work? Can you hire new people? Will you use volunteers? Do you have the needed hardware and software to support it? Licenses and certificates Registration with other services Attending meetings and conferences

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections Building multiple collections simultaneously Technical issues Costs Copyright

What Are the Challenges? Public interface – Web design Context for collections Building multiple collections simultaneously Technical issues Costs Copyright Training staff

Who Will Be Involved? Library staff? Computing center staff? Faculty? Students? Target audience? Campus or community partners? Sister institutions? Professional marketers? Commercial vendors?

Staffing roles Coordinator with overall responsibility Web site designers Group to make policy decisions Staff to handle or review submissions Staff to set up and maintain the system and resolve technical issues Group or individuals to make contacts and market the collections Staff for subsidiary services

How to Plan? Develop a business plan Develop a project plan Document decisions Make your decisions reversible

Business plan elements Mission, Vision, Values, Goals Executive summary Product or service description Needs assessment or market research Environment and competition Markets and services Organizational structure

Business plan elements Financial plans Product evaluation and usability assessment Drawn from: Business Planning for Cultural Heritage Institutions Liz Bishoff and Nancy Allen Council on Library and Information Resources, 2004

Project plan issues Why are you doing it? Who is your target audience? Who will do the work? What do you have to digitize and how will you select? What standards will you follow? What software and hardware will you use? How will you preserve the collection? How will you pay for it? How will you manage the project? How will you evaluate the project?

Project Implementation http://libweb. uoregon

Project Implementation

Project Management Web pages Archived discussion lists Project management software Folders, spreadsheets, etc. Overlapping responsibilities

Project Evaluation Focus groups Web forms Formal surveys Use statistics Outside consultants

Evaluation: Interactive Comment Form

When Will You Be Done? When you run out of money When you run out of materials to digitize When your users lose interest When you run out of time Never

Image copyrighted by University of Oregon Libraries

Contact Information Carol Hixson University Librarian Dr. John Archer Library University of Regina 3737 Wascana Parkway Regina, SK S4S 0A2 Phone: (306) 585-4132 Fax: (306) 585-4878 email: Carol.Hixson@uregina.ca https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/handle/1794/990