Content, Context & Capacity: large-scale collaborative digitization at TRLN ALA annual 2012, OCLC panel “The Power of Groups: Collaboration and Innovation” Joyce Chapman Triangle Research Libraries Network

BACKGROUND

The CCC project 3-year LSTA funded digitization grant exploring consortial large-scale digitization 400,000 digital objects from four institutions Audio, still image, manuscript Modern 20 th century materials Thematic focus: civil rights movement in NC

Goals 1.To promote and support educational and scholarly research use of modern manuscripts beyond the walls of our physical buildings 2.To provide a proof of concept for a collaborative approach to large-scale digitization 3.To develop shared standards and practices 4.To test inter-institutional workflows between consortial partners

Triangle Research Libraries Network Mission: “to marshal the financial, human, and information resources of our research libraries through cooperative efforts, in order to create a rich and unparalleled knowledge environment that furthers the universities' teaching, research, and service missions.”

Triangle Research Libraries Network Tradition of cooperative print collecting Recent: joint licensing of electronic resources Recent: shared staff Recent: joint search and discovery interface New: joint digitization of unique primary source materials

Preparation 2008 – TRLN white paper released, “Large- scale digitization: a TRLN Agenda”Large- scale digitization: a TRLN Agenda 2009 – creation of a TRLN taskforce to explore funding for a planning grant – 1-year planning grant – 3-year digitization grant

Piloting a sites of excellence model NCSU – digitization of oversized materials Duke – digitization of still images and manuscripts UNC – digitization of audio and manuscripts NCCU – qualitative program evaluation

THE CHALLENGES

Management & communication

Intellectual property strategy One of the most ground-breaking aspects of CCC is that all materials are modern 20 th century 2011: TRLN working group authored “The Triangle Research Libraries Network’s Intellectual Property Strategy for Digitization of Modern Manuscript Collections and Archival Record Groups”The Triangle Research Libraries Network’s Intellectual Property Strategy for Digitization of Modern Manuscript Collections and Archival Record Groups The strategy provides a well-reasoned risk management approach to large-scale digitization of modern manuscripts

Shared standards and practices Developed shared workflows for preparing, shipping, receiving, and scanning physical materials, and delivering / verifying digital files Good exercise in letting go of uniformity Important lessons: documenting everything, create shared paperwork and tracking mechanisms

Self evaluation responses: biggest challenges Different levels of involvement by partners Getting on the same page about what we are trying to accomplish Accepting that we are working “near” each other; not “with” each other Designing appropriate formal assessment Constraints imposed by the language of the grant

BENEFITS

For member institutions Laid a groundwork for the future Tested and proved our ability to collaborate closely in new areas Increased publicity and visibility Brought a new subset of consortial partner staff into the TRLN fold

Biggest accomplishments in year 1? 20%: digital production 33%: collaboration, flexible partnerships, group planning, defining a shared scope

For user communities Making available an enormous quantity of 20 th century civil rights primary sources that were previously inaccessible Increased awareness of unique resources at other local institutions Increased access to unique materials, regardless of institutional affiliation

For peer library/archives communities Our goal was to provide a proof of concept for collaborative large-scale digitization that others could learn from. All of our data, workflows, and findings will be available on our website:on our website –Time and cost for our approach to each step of the process –Forms and paperwork –Workflows for transferring, preparing, scanning materials –Quantitative evaluation methodologies and results

More Joyce Chapman CCC project: TRLN: