Digital Partnerships at San Francisco Public Library: So Many Suitors, So Little Time

What we digitize Formats: books, photographs, government documents, magazines and journals, AV, maps Selection: --Unique, local materials with an emphasis on San Francisco history or gov docs --Popular, heavily used --Fragile --Public domain and orphan works

Mission driven “The San Francisco Public Library system is dedicated to free and equal access to information, knowledge, and the joys of reading for our diverse community” Digital assets freely and widely available Items bought with public money should remain public, not tied up in a subscription database or website

Constraints Technological: -- Don’t host on our page; link to digital objects on partner sites --Storage: Some in-house, some outsourced --Little IT knowledge or support Cataloging and workflow: --Initial resistance, not onboard with OPAC changes, standards and metadata Staffing: recently hired

Digitizing In-House Photographs (40,000+ online) Branch history vertical files. New model using staff and volunteers. Flatbed scanners

Partnerships that worked Internet Archive Genealogical Society of Utah/Familysearch David Rumsey

Internet Archive (IA) Several discrete contracts/projects with them: two Friends of Library grants, outside funder, one workforce grant with SFPL, recent LSTA grant, and upcoming contract

SFPL OPAC

Individual bib record

Link to IA

IA Pros and Cons Pro --Cheap (.10 per page for scanning and processing) --Easy, esp. on-site --Digitize bound materials and microfilm --They host and store, give us copy of digital files --Pull metadata from our OPAC --Experiment and innovate, train volunteers and staff Con ◦ --Early damage (led to special workflow) ◦ --Size constraints ◦ --Poor search interface on IA site

GSU/Familysearch They approached us Had one staff person on site for 2 years Digitized with a camera on a stand Agreement that each of us would receive a set of digital images to use as wanted We have 7 hard drives from them They would index and distribute on Familysearch, a free publically accessible website

Familysearch

Familysearch pros and cons Pro ◦ Many formats (large volumes to index cards) ◦ Free! with our own copy on hard drives ◦ Good quality ◦ Much is indexed with more to come Con ◦ They chose documents to digitize ◦ Not hosted on our site and no link to SFPL ◦ Poor credit/branding for SFPL ◦ Very slow indexing, depends on volunteers

David Rumsey maps, davidrumsey.com

Rumsey Pros and Cons Pro ◦ Free! And we have a digital copy ◦ Oversize, high quality with value-added frills, like georectifying ◦ Created metadata ◦ Available on his website, highlighted in blog Con ◦ Not on our site, not linked yet ◦ Not great branding for SFPL

Left at the altar

Courtships that did not work out Google books Alexander Street Press Yearbook Archives (part of MemoryLane.com, previously Classmates.com)

Tips It’s ok to start small Be sure to get a copy of your digital assets from your partner Your institution should own or share copyright to the digital assets with your partner Does the branding/credit line work for your institution? Move digitizing from grant/project funds to permanent budget item

Future Plans SFPL Digitization Center (for other libraries, cultural institutions and public photo days) Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) libraries/whats-is-the-dpla/ Manuscripts, AV materials, newspapers Private funding offers, ex. Milk Papers Permanent budget line for digital projects Digitizing doesn’t end

Happy Digitizing! Susan Goldstein, City Archivist San Francisco History Center San Francisco Public Library