duke digital collections: from projects to program
DESCRIPTION
Part of ALA Annual Conference 2010 session: "To Protect and Serve: Is Digitization Good for Historical Materials?" June 27, 2010. In the presentation, I’ll start out by telling you about the mission and subject strengths of Duke’s digitization program and how it has evolved over the last 15 years. Then I’ll focus on three digital collections projects we’ve worked on over the past couple of years, and for each of them, I’ll talk about what we learned in the process: what worked well and what didn’t work so well. I’ll conclude by sharing some takeaway advice and some helpful resources I’d give folks who wants to start a digitization project at their libraries.TRANSCRIPT
Duke Digital Collections: From Projects to Program
Jill Katte VermillionDigital Collections Program
Duke University Libraries
Documentary ArtsJames Karales Photographs: “The Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March, 1965”
Duke History
Duke Football Programs: “Duke vs. University of North Carolina, 1981 Nov 21”
Advertising & Consumer Culture
Medicine and Madison Avenue: “She's a Calendar Girl - But She Has No Dates!” 1957
Transcultural ExperiencesSidney D. Gamble Photographs: “Robert Fitch & Three-Man Chair,” 1917-1919
Digital Collections
Program
Collections & User Svs
Digital Production Center
Preservation
Cataloging & Metadata Svs
Special Collections Tech Svs
Discovery & Core Svs
Digital Experience Svs Priorities
Assessment
Digital o
bjects
Conservation
MetadataMetadata
Stor
age
Tech
infra
stru
ctur
e
Web interfaces
Duke Digital Collections: Distributed model
Sidney Gamble Photographs, 1917-1932North China Union Women’s College, Library, 1917-1919
Lessons Learned: Sidney Gamble Photographs
• Digitize at-risk formats to provide access• Promote digital collections actively• Use external tools for internationalization and
mapping
Lessons Learned: AdViews
• Promote digital collections actively x2• Digitize at-risk formats to provide access x2• Take a risk-management approach to
copyright/permissions• Explore external hosting: iTunes U, Flickr,
YouTube, etc.• Be realistic about internal resources/workload
Alternative interfaces: CoolIris 3D Wall
Lessons Learned: Alternate Interfaces
• Provide one open data source (Media RSS) to enable multiple interfaces
• Separate content from presentation• Expose data using standards• Let other people do the development work
Takeaways• Let users help set digitization priorities• Digitization is just the first step• Normalize metadata, esp. names, dates,
geographic terms• In-house and home-grown are not always the
low-cost approaches• Optimize for search engines• Promote digital collections and assess use
Resources
• “Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get Into the Flow [PDF]” (OCLC Programs and Research, 2007)
• “Well-intentioned practice for putting digitized collections of unpublished materials online [PDF]” (OCLC Programs and Research, 2010)
• State Historical Records Advisory Boards; IMLS State Programs
• Consortia-sponsored digitization programs• Communities of practice
