Creating Digital Collections

Libraries recognize the importance of digitizing archival material to improve access to and preservation of their special collections. This book provides a step-by-step guide for creating digital collections, including examples and practical tips that have never been published before. Illustrates concepts with an on-going case study at the end of each chapter Provides detailed technical information and practical experience Discusses practitioners’ insight in digitization Can be used as a guide for creating digital collections

Digital collections have already changed the ways users access and interact with an institution’s materials. And small or medium-sized libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies face a unique set of challenges in regards to digital collections. They may have been unable to jump on the digitization bandwagon at its beginning due to competing priorities or lack of resources, and may now be struggling to get a digitization program in place to meet the evolving needs and expectations of their own users. The good news is that digital projects can scale down to fit the size of any organization. Providing an entry point for librarians, archivists, and curators who are new to digitization, Monson’s well-researched guide shows how even smaller institutions can successfully endeavor to make their content digitally accessible. Clearing aside the jargon and acronyms to hone in on the practicals, this book will help readers get a digitization program off the ground, offering guidance on how to efficiently harness existing workflows, especially in departments seeing a decline in workload;the pros and cons of the two common service models for state and regional digital repositories;how to evaluate and choose among the digital asset management systems, comparing four proprietary and six open source systems;hardware options for image capture;choices in metadata models MODS, VRA Core, Dublin Core Element Set, and EAD;understanding the characteristics of various file formats and using them effectively to create master and derivative files;bitstream copying, data redundancy and other strategies to safeguard digital files against media degradation and technological obsolescence; andSection 108 copyright exemptions for cultural heritage institutions.This easy-to-follow guide to digitization fundamentals will ensure that readers gain a solid grasp of the knowledge and resources available for getting started on their own digital collection projects.

How to Build a Digital Library reviews knowledge and tools to construct and maintain a digital library, regardless of the size or purpose. A resource for individuals, agencies, and institutions wishing to put this powerful tool to work in their burgeoning information treasuries. The Second Edition reflects developments in the field as well as in the Greenstone Digital Library open source software. In Part I, the authors have added an entire new chapter on user groups, user support, collaborative browsing, user contributions, and so on. There is also new material on content-based queries, map-based queries, cross-media queries. There is an increased emphasis placed on multimedia by adding a "digitizing" section to each major media type. A new chapter has also been added on "internationalization," which will address Unicode standards, multi-language interfaces and collections, and issues with non-European languages (Chinese, Hindi, etc.). Part II, the software tools section, has been completely rewritten to reflect the new developments in Greenstone Digital Library Software, an internationally popular open source software tool with a comprehensive graphical facility for creating and maintaining digital libraries. Outlines the history of libraries on both traditional and digital Written for both technical and non-technical audiences and covers the entire spectrum of media, including text, images, audio, video, and related XML standards Web-enhanced with software documentation, color illustrations, full-text index, source code, and more

Digital information and networks challenge the core practices of libraries, archives, and all organizations with intensive information management needs in many respectsâ€"not only in terms of accommodating digital information and technology, but also through the need to develop new economic and organizational models for managing information. LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress discusses these challenges and provides recommendations for moving forward at the Library of Congress, the world's largest library. Topics covered in LC21 include digital collections, digital preservation, digital cataloging (metadata), strategic planning, human resources, and general management and budgetary issues. The book identifies and elaborates upon a clear theme for the Library of Congress that is applicable more generally: the digital age calls for much more collaboration and cooperation than in the past. LC21 demonstrates that information-intensive organizations will have to change in fundamental ways to survive and prosper in the digital age.

"This authoritative manual introduces readers to fundamental concepts and practices in a style accessible to beginners and LIS students as well as experienced practitioners with little formal metadata training"--

Theorizing digital archives : power, access and new order -- Deciding for digital archives improvement through collection management systems -- Community-based digital archives : programming alternatives -- Creating and curating digital archives : horizontal and vertical structures -- Using digital archives : online encounters, stories of impact and postcolonial agendas -- Digital archives' objects : law and tangibility -- Conclusion. Cultural production in the present with reference to the past and directed at the future.

Equally valuable for LIS students just learning about the digital landscape, information professionals taking their first steps to create digital content, and organizations who already have well-established digital credentials, Purcell’s book outlines methods applicable and scalable to many different types and sizes of libraries and archives.

Suzanne Keene's pioneering book shows how museums and other cultural organizations fit into the new world of information and electronic communications and, most importantly, how they can take advantage of what it has to offer. By using new technology museums can build knowledge bases around information about collections. A collection object can be the central link for information about past and present, places, people and concepts, technologies, ways of working and evidence of the natural world. 'Digital Collections' explains how this vision can be realized. Sound, video and animations can be digitized and developed as a central resource that can be drawn on for many varied access routes: via the World Wide Web; CD ROMs; through on-gallery screens, and other future products still in development. These technological capabilities raise many compelling issues that need to be understood in order to successfully develop information collections. In this book Suzanne Keene reviews these issues clearly and comprehensively. Her accompanying Click-Through Guide provides the latest news and links to Internet information: http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~s-keene/infoage/infoage.htm Suzanne Keene is a senior manager of museum collections and information at the Science Museum, London. She led the UK LASSI project to select a collections information system for UK museums. This, with her experience in directing information technology and multimedia projects, means that she is accustomed to translating the highly technical concepts of information technology into high level issues for senior and strategic management.