1. Users and Digital Collections
Building resources for customers, clients, patrons, and users

2. Outline What is a digital collection? Types of digital collections
Considerations for building digital collections
Purpose and Mission
Scope
Content types
Metadata needs
Timeline
Workflow
Impact and Measurement
Assessment
Budget
Sustainability
Conclusions
Final Assignment
Questions

3. What is a Digital Collection?
Any items brought together on the web in order to facilitate a certain objective
Items
Links
Articles
Books
Archival Items
Images
Data
Databases
Algorithms and formulas
Combinations of these things
Objectives
Teaching and Learning
Archiving and Preservation
Scholarship and Research
Public Advocacy
Law
Business and Knowledge Management
Knowledge Transfer, Intellectual Property Management

4. Types of Digital Collections
Digital Humanities -
Library Catalog -
Scholarly Communication -
Abandonia -
Non-Profit Facilities -
Knowledgebase –
Amazon –
Twitter -

5. Considerations – Purpose and Mission
Why are we building this collection?
Part of a larger mission
Fulfill particular function within the institution
What is its purpose?
Help researchers study history
Help homeless to find jobs
How does this collection fit in with the mission of the institution?
Teaching or research
Profit
Community development

6. Considerations – Purpose and Mission
Who is the audience?
Scholars and researchers
Students
Community members
Salespeople
Administrators
Lawyers or Paralegals
Combinations
Who is using this digital collection?
How do they expect to interact with this collection?

7. Considerations – Purpose and Mission
Mission Statement
Amazon “Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
Internet Archive “Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge”

8. Considerations – Scope
What do we include?
Types of materials
Content of materials
Origin of materials - Provenance
What do we exclude?
How do we decide when there is a conflict?
Edge cases
Decided by committee
Decided by individual
Case by case
Policy governing decisions

9. Considerations – Scope
Scope statement
History of Indiana University Libraries - ct+Scope+Statement
Michigan State University – Museology -
Delta Township Public Library - Local History – history/collection-scope/

10. Considerations – Content Types
Different content types have different needs
Books
Black and White Images
OCR full-text searchability
Linking between chapters or footnotes
Manuscript
Color images
Transcriptions
Preservation issues
Video
Larger storage
Different kinds of discoverability
Copyright concerns
Computer Games
Emulation of original play
Migration to new content platforms
Unclear copyright rules

11. Considerations – Metadata Needs
How will users find content?
Catalog
Searchable database
Social tagging
What standards will you use?
Dublin Core
MARC
TEI
What tools will you use to create metadata?
Omeka
Tools designed internally
Commercial software

12. Considerations – Timeline
How long will it take to build this collection?
How much time will staff have to work on building it?
What can reasonably be accomplished?
Perfect collection with ideal metadata, imaging, preservation standards, etc. in 25 years?
Imperfect collection with good enough metadata, imaging, preservation standards, etc. in 1 year?
What are expectations of managers/funders?
Expect to see results after 3 months, a year?
How much flexibility do you have?

13. Considerations – Workflow
Who will be doing the work?
Full-time staff
Temporary staff
Are these staff going to be working on other projects?
What is existing structure of reporting?
Will this project fit into existing structures or create new ones?
How will staff communicate and know where project is, what their roles are, and what is needed?
Software –
Existing social methods

14. Considerations – Impact and Measurement
How will success be measured?
Hits to website
Citations or links
Individual user engagement
Return on Investment
What metrics will be used?
Web counter
Statistical formula
How will those metrics be reported?
On website
In reports

15. Considerations – Assessment
What did we do right?
What did we do wrong?
How will we use metrics to determine those decisions?
Will we change practices based on metric evidence?
How will we make those decisions?
Will there be further surveys or ways of assessing success?
What methods will be used to create those surveys?
How will these be integrated into other methods of assessment?

16. Considerations – Budget
How much is this digital collection going to cost?
Staff
Software
Equipment
Advertising/Outreach
How will metrics and assessment be integrated into budget?
How much do you really need?
How much do you ask for?

17. Considerations – Sustainability
What happens when project is finished?
Preservation
Maintenance
Ongoing costs
How will this be budgeted for?
How will the collection continue to be assessed?
How will collection be integrated into existing missions and workflows?

18. Conclusions Building a digital collection sounds easy
Many factors to consider
Above considerations, ideally should be utilized in building any digital collection
Some will be more relevant than others depending on collection
Also dependent on culture of institution

19. Final Assignment
Imagine Ron Day and I are important people (library directors, wealthy donors, CEOs) and your fellow students are employees
You want to build a digital collection for us
Present for minutes on your digital collection
Present Ron Day and Shawn Martin a brief 1-3 page summary of your presentation
Must utilize concepts mentioned in class
You may not be able to discuss every issue in presentation/summary, but is important to have thought through them, may be asked about them in questions

20. Questions