Adding a Collection:2

Adding a Collection:2 -- This is a DRAFT

Phase 2 -- Plan the approach to digitization and choose a framework for primary access

Primary Participants:
Technical Processing Staff from Collection Divisions
NDLP Digital Conversion Coordinator

Prepare a production workplan for digitizing the selected collection

The workplan will emphasize the division of labor, preparation of the physical collection for digitization, choice of digital formats, managing the digitization project (typically handled through a contract), and quality control. Various principles have guided the approaches taken to digitizing collections.

Maintain the archival integrity of the collection.
Capture for access quality unless current technology can provide a digital version which might prove acceptable as a preservation copy. For most documents and line-art, preservation quality is probably achievable in 1996, although digital versions are not accepted by the preservation community.
Where appropriate (e.g. for sound and moving pictures), generate a high-resolution intermediate copy (e.g. DAT for sound) that could be captured again at higher quality when technology allows.
Plan for several versions of items where appropriate. Currently, images are stored in at least three forms: an uncompressed version for reprocessing and future use; a reference version appropriate for general use on current networks and workstations; and a thumbnail version to support users in choice of images to access.

Distilling their experience gained through previous digitization projects, Carl Fleischhauer and Helena Zinkham have developed a detailed list of steps in the planning and production phases of digitizing a collection. See that document [4] for details of the components of the plan that are required for the production phase. Some components of the workplan have important implications for phases subsequent to production and relevant information should be shared with those involved before the production phase. These components include:

Choice of formats for presentation

To support the broadest access possible, LC attempts to choose presentation formats that are supported by viewers that are available for WWW browsers at no cost or very inexpensively. In some instances, a format may be selected because it is being adopted widely, and a viewer is expected to be available by the time the production phase is complete. For more details on factors that affect the choice of format, see [1] and Frameworks and Finding Aids: Organizing Digital Archival Collections (Carl Fleischhauer, 1994) for a description of the approach taken for intellectual access to the American Memory collections Produce the digital collection and access aids

Store the digital collection in digital archive

Enable access through chosen framework

Test and refine access framework

Release to public

Delve deeper for further discussion of:

1. Reproduction Quality Issues in a Digital Library System: Observations on the Reproduction of Various Library and Archival Material Formats for Access and Preservation (Carl Fleischhauer & Ricky Erway, December 1992) is one of three American Memory White Papers, which describe experience gained during the American Memory Project. This paper discusses the dichotomous need for high-resolution digital reproductions as a potential preservation format and for lower-resolution versions to provide broad access.
2. Elements of Digital Archive Collections: Technical Overview and Format Description (Carl Fleischhauer, October 1994) is another American Memory White Paper. It summarizes the choices made for formats and specifications for the digitized versions of textual materials, color or grayscale images, bitonal images, recorded sound, and video. These choices are reconsidered for new collections as technology advances and new standards emerge, but the approach still holds as of early 1996.
3. Frameworks and Finding Aids: Organizing Digital Archival Collections (Carl Fleischhauer, 1994), another American Memory White Paper, discusses the choices of access framework for a digital collection.
4. Steps in the Digitization Process (last updated by Carl Fleischhauer, January 1996) lists the steps in preparing a collection for digitization in more detail, emphasizing preparation of the materials, management of a digitization contract, and quality control, all very important aspects of the process. Since these aspects do not relate directly to the technical framework on which this documentation focuses, those steps have not all been detailed here. The steps fall mainly into the planning and production phases.

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Adding a Collection:2 -- This is a DRAFT
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