partnerships in digitisation
TRANSCRIPT
The ups and downs of partnerships in
digitisationToni Hardy and Damian Nicolaou
Hand in Hand:
12/11/2015
Wellcome Trust• Global charitable foundation• Improving human and animal health• Supporting biomedical research
and the medical humanities• Exploring medicine in historical and
cultural contexts
Wellcome Collection• Explores connections between medicine,
life and art in the past, present and future• Exhibitions and public events• Publications and book prize• International projects• Digital projects
...and a world class research library!
Wellcome Library• Free library with focus on history of
medicine and health• One of the world's major resources
for the study of medical history • Growing collection of material
relating to contemporary medicine and biomedical science in society
Our Holdings• 700 incunabula• 8,000 journal titles• 6,300 recordings• 9,000 Western manuscripts• 16,000 Asian Manuscripts• 150,000 rare books; 800,000 modern books• 100,000 paintings, prints and photographs• 700 archives, containing 1.5m items
Transformation Strategy• To provide global access to, and expert
interpretation of, a world class collection that explores medicine in its cultural contexts:
• Targeted collecting – putting challenges in context
• Expert interpretation – engaging (new) audiences
• Strategic digitisation – online access to our collections
Digitisation Programme• Target: 50m images. 20m images
so far:• Archives 1,995,000 Rare books
4,100,000 • 19th century/UK-MHL/MHL 13,160,000• MOH 470,000 Chemist & Druggist
535,000 • Arabic Mss 69,440 Western Mss
31,109 • 990 audio-visual titles (30,000,000
images!)• Paintings, prints & photos 3,000
How we do things• We have a very sophisticated and
complex set of systems in place to ingest, store, manage and deliver our digital assets
Lots of partners
From lots of places
Chemist & Druggist• Over a year to sign contract with
publisher once agreed due to takeover• Publisher donated their set to us for
destructive scanning• Internet Archive have rigid workflow• Needed to gap fill with scans from NLW• IA content discoverable on Google• Can make freely available
London’s Pulse (Medical Officer of Health reports)• Partial JISC funding equals hoop jumping• Shipped to and digitised in Holland• LMA volumes digitised at Wellcome
Library• Work to enhance text and tables in India• Packing and shipping resource intensive• Issues with quality and accuracy of
digitisation• Zooniverse collaboration
Ancestry• Significant amount of time and effort went
into set up of project which is very small in scale for both WL and Ancestry
• Dealing with project managers in UK and USA
• Images available via Ancestry and Wellcome Library with conditions
• Contract detailed but still had unforeseen issues
• Timescales
Early European Books• ProQuest sub contracted digitisation out to
Numen• Communication difficult as ProQuest, not
Wellcome were Numen’s customer• Staff changes at ProQuest caused work to
slow then rapidly accelerate• Difficulty getting images back from
ProQuest• Restriction on availability of images for 15
years
UK MHL• Digitised by Internet Archive using
workflow established during C&D project• Jointly funded by JISC (62%) and
Wellcome (38%)• Partner libraries – 6 HE and 4 non HE
libraries• If partner libraries fail to/under deliver we
have to pick up slack or pay difference• Strict end date
External archives digitisation
• 9 archive partners• Set specific requirements for
metadata, images and sensitivity• Imported their metadata into our
systems• Importance of communication• Collaborative effort for publicising
collections• No exclusivity
Common Themes• Priorities – higher priority for one partner
over the other. Do they want what you want?• Who do they work for?• Communication and managing relationships
and expectations is key to success• Consider use cases present and future• Broader reach. Content hosted in UK, Europe
and USA• Standards and responsibilities
Things to consider• Things change over time! People, goals,
priorities• Agree everything in writing – even then
interpretation may be different• Don’t neglect internal partners• Can you live with conditions imposed by
funders or commercial partners in the long term?
• Are you prepared to do things their way? • Could you do it on your own?• Even ‘free’ things have costs
Final thoughts• Partnerships can have long lasting
impact• Allow us to reach goals more quickly
and leverages our own available funding
• Partners may have different priorities but they still want the project to succeed
• Open access on multiple platforms for multiple audiences equals more opportunities for engagement and data reuse