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 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.

An incisive history of the controversial Google Books project and the ongoing quest for a universal digital library Libraries have long talked about providing comprehensive access to information for everyone. But when Google announced in 2004 that it planned to digitize books to make the world's knowledge accessible to all, questions were raised about the roles and responsibilities of libraries, the rights of authors and publishers, and whether a powerful corporation should be the conveyor of such a fundamental public good. Along Came Google traces the history of Google's book digitization project and its implications for us today. Deanna Marcum and Roger Schonfeld draw on in-depth interviews with those who both embraced and resisted Google's plans, from librarians and technologists to university leaders, tech executives, and the heads of leading publishing houses. They look at earlier digital initiatives to provide open access to knowledge, and describe how Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page made the case for a universal digital library and drew on their company's considerable financial resources to make it a reality. Marcum and Schonfeld examine how librarians and scholars organized a legal response to Google, and reveal the missed opportunities when a settlement with the tech giant failed. Along Came Google sheds light on the transformational effects of the Google Books project on scholarship and discusses how we can continue to think imaginatively and collaboratively about expanding the digital availability of knowledge.

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; and Section 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.

Planning and managing a self-contained digitization project is one thing, but how do you transition to a digital library program? Or better yet, how do you start a program from scratch? In this book Purcell, a well-respected expert in both archives and digital libraries, combines theory and best practices with practical application, showing how to approach digital projects as an ongoing effort. He not only guides librarians and archivists in transitioning from project-level initiatives to a sustainable program but also provides clear step-by-step instructions for building a digital library program from the bottom up, even for organizations with limited staff. Approachable and easy to follow, this book traces the historical growth of digital libraries and the importance of those digital foundations; summarizes current technological challenges that affect the planning of digital libraries, and how librarians and archivists are adapting to the changing information landscape; uses examples to lay out the core priorities of leading successful digital programs; covers the essentials of getting started, from vision and mission building to identifying resources and partnerships; emphasizes the importance of digitizing original unique materials found in library and archives collections, and suggests approaches to the selection process; addresses metadata and key technical standards; discusses management and daily operations, including assessment, enhancement, sustainability, and long-term preservation planning; provides guidance for marketing, promotion, and outreach, plus how to take into account such considerations as access points, intended audiences, and educational and instructional components; and includes exercises designed to help readers define their own digital projects and create a real-world digital program plan. 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.

Since it was first published, LIS students and professionals everywhere have relied on Miller’s authoritative manual for clear instruction on the real-world practice of metadata design and creation. Now the author has given his text a top to bottom overhaul to bring it fully up to date, making it even easier for readers to acquire the knowledge and skills they need, whether they use the book on the job or in a classroom. By following this book’s guidance, with its inclusion of numerous practical examples that clarify common application issues and challenges, readers will learn about the concept of metadata and its functions for digital collections, why it’s essential to approach metadata specifically as data for machine processing, and how metadata can work in the rapidly developing Linked Data environment; know how to create high-quality resource descriptions using widely shared metadata standards, vocabularies, and elements commonly needed for digital collections; become thoroughly familiarized with Dublin Core (DC) through exploration of DCMI Metadata Terms, CONTENTdm best practices, and DC as Linked Data; discover what Linked Data is, how it is expressed in the Resource Description Framework (RDF), and how it works in relation to specific semantic models (typically called “ontologies”) such as BIBFRAME, comprised of properties and classes with “domain” and “range” specifications; get to know the MODS and VRA Core metadata schemes, along with recent developments related to their use in a Linked Data setting; understand the nuts and bolts of designing and documenting a metadata scheme; and gain knowledge of vital metadata interoperability and quality issues, including how to identify and clean inconsistent, missing, and messy metadata using innovative tools such as OpenRefine.

Museums and archives all over the world digitize their collections and provide online access to heritage material. But what factors determine the content, structure and use of these online inventories? This book turns to India and Europe to answer this question. It explains how museums and archives envision, decide and conduct digitization and online dissemination. It also sheds light on born-digital, community-based archives, which have established themselves as new actors in the field. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the chapters in the book trace digital archives from technical advancements and postcolonial initiatives to programming alternatives, editing content, and active use of digital archives.

Digital Curation Projects Made Easy: A Step-By-Step Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums outlines simple steps for accomplishing practical digitization and digital preservation projects for those with little experience, time, and/or resources. Following a general introduction, instructions for completing these commonplace digital curation projects are covered: Photograph collections Newspaper collection Rare books Art Collections Oral Histories Digital curation does not need to be reserved for big budgets or world-famous collections. In fact, a large part of digitization and digital preservation consists of practical projects that are done every day without much fanfare in libraries and archives around the world.

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. 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.