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Creating Digital Collections: A practical guide

Allison Zhang, Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC), USA and Don Gourley, Digital Humanities Observatory, Ireland

 - illustrates concepts with an ongoing 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

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.

ISBN 1 84334 396 7
ISBN-13: 978 1 84334 396 7
September 2008
248 pages  234 x 156mm  paperback  
£39.95 / US$70.00 / €50.00

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£59.95 / US$100.00 / €75.00

About the authors

Allison Zhang is Manager, Digital Collections Production Center, Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). Don Gourley is based at the Digital Humanities Observatory, Ireland.

Contents

Introduction
 - What are digital collections?
 - Why create digital collections?
 - Case study: the Digital Collections Production Center

Planning and managing digitisation projects
 - Key components of a digitisation cycle
 - Project management
 - Developing a project plan
 - Case study: DCPC’s planning and management

Selecting material for digitisation
 - Differences between selecting traditional material and selecting for digitisation
 - Major considerations in developing selection criteria
 - Case study: DCPC’s selection policy and service

Metadata strategy
 - What is metadata?
 - Roles of metadata
 - Metadata standards
 - Metadata strategy
 - Digital object content model
 - Case study: DCPC metadata strategies
 - Creating digital collections

Digitising material
 - Basic concepts for scanning
 - Scanning best practices
 - Image processing
 - Case study: DCPC’s scanning service

Creating metadata
 - Content rules for metadata creation
 - Standards vs. local decisions
 - Controlled vocabularies
 - Tools for metadata creation
 - Computer-assisted metadata creation
 - Metadata crosswalk (data mapping)
 - Case study: DCPC’s metadata creation

Designing a user interface for digital collections
 - Importance of user interface design
 - Related issues of user interface design
 - Principles of user interface design
 - Process of user interface design and configuration
 - Case study: designing the user interface for the DCPC’s digital collections

The complete digitisation process and workflow management
 - Workflow management
 - Prototyping and quality control
 - Maintenance

Digital collections management system
 - The digital collections production chain
 - Digital collections management system technology
 - Storage repository
 - Digital collections management system software
 - Case study: the DCPC digital collections management system

Selecting software and hardware for digital collections management systems
 - Identify organisational requirements and resources
 - Develop selection criteria
 - Research available systems and equipment
 - Evaluate candidates – a checklist
 - Hardware selection
 - Case study: DCPC software selection for the DCMS

Documentation
 - The importance of documentation
 - How to document a project and what to document
 - Planning documents
 - Management documents
 - Technical documents
 - Statistics
 - Case study: DCPC’s documentation

The knowledge and skills required for creating digital collections
 - Management
 - Material selection
 - Scanning
 - Metadata
 - User interface
 - Information technology
 - Key qualities

Conclusion