and the
Illinois Harvest Portal
A Presentation to the
UIUC Library Faculty
September 20, 2006
Betsy Kruger and Tim Cole
UIUC Digitization Efforts Get Big Boost!!
$200,000
• Paula, in consultation with ULs from Chicago and
Springfield, requested funding from Steve Rugg (UI
Comptroller) to help libraries move into larger
digitization projects.
$200,000
• Provost’s Office agreed to supply matching funds.
$500,000
• Rep. Naomi Jacobsson expressed interest in
obtaining state funding for UI projects. Paula sent
short proposal regarding our interest in mass
digitization project with the Open Content Alliance.
TOTAL = $900,000 for FY2007 (must be spent by June 30, 2007)
Mass Digitization Working Group
Tim Cole
Beth Sandore
Nuala Koetter
Sarah Shreeves
Betsy Kruger, Chair
Mary Stuart
Michael Norman
Tom Teper
Chris Prom
David Vess
Working Group’s Goals
• Insure funds are spent by June 30! Successfully and
purposefully!
• Coordinate Library’s participation in the Open Content
Alliance
• Explore and begin developing integrated access to UIUC
owned/created digital content via a web portal
• Develop selection criteria for digitization
• Document costs related to mass digitization
• Develop in-house expertise
• Attract future funding!
Budget Breakdown
DIGITIZATION SERVICES
Open Content Alliance scanners/staff/services
$200,000
Illinois-related content digitization (non-OCA projects)
$218,000
OTHER ALLOCATIONS
Illinois Harvest Portal development staff
$125,000
Data storage
$80,000
Metadata librarian
$42,000
Oak Street 3rd floor upgrades
$65,000
Material preparation (wages)
$80,000
Workstations
$6,000
Contingency
$84,000
TOTAL
$900,000
In November 2005, Paula Kaufman asked
Karen Schmidt to pull together a small group
of Library faculty to recommend whether or
not the Library should join the Open Content
Alliance, a program of the Internet Archive.
We said YES!
Karen Schmidt
Betsy Kruger
Beth Sandore
Mary Stuart
Nuala Koetter
Tom Teper
 Internet Archive – a nonprofit organization
founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 to build an
“Internet library” offering permanent access for
researchers, historians, and scholars to historical
collections that exist in digital format.
http://www.archive.org/index.php
 The Open Content Alliance – a program of the
Internet Archive started in early 2005
 a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and
governmental organizations from around the
world that will help build a permanent archive
of multilingual digitized text and multimedia
content. http://www.opencontentalliance.org/
OCA Goal
To bring digital and newly digitized
material online under principles of
openness.
OCA Principles
• Contributed content is free to all for
reading, viewing, listening to,
downloading, sharing, crawling, indexing
• Rehost at discretion of contributor
• Open for research and computation
• Services can be built by both
commercial and non-commercial parties
(e.g., navigation services, print-ondemand, etc.)
A Few of the 60+ OCA Participants
• University of California Libraries
• University of Toronto Library
• Johns Hopkins University Libraries
• UNC Chapel Hill
• National Archives (United Kingdom)
Contributions can be:
• National Library of Australia
• Content
• Yahoo
• Facilities
• RLG
• Services
• MSN
• Tools
• Microsoft
• Funding
Mass Digitization at UIUC
OCA’s Responsibilities:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Install two “Scribe” scanning systems at Oak Street
Hire and train staff
Keep track of our materials
Fetch descriptive metadata from our OPAC via a Z39.50 connection
Digitization: creating content files (archival and access copies,
PDFs) and structural/administrative metadata
OCR
Quality control measures
Provide access to digital content via the Internet Archive (IA) website
Long term management of content on IA website
SCRIBE Scanning System
• Non-destructive: Books are not
disbound for scanning
• Utilizes digital cameras rather than
flatbed scanners
• Book is held face up in a cradle,
open at a 90 degree angle, as
operator turns pages (snore…)
• Pages held flat by a glass platen
that is raised and lowered
• Scanning cost is 10¢ per page
• Up to 500 pages per hour
• Our production will be around 200
books per week for first year.
Mass Digitization at UIUC
UIUC Responsibilities:
• Infrastructure improvements to Oak Street 3rd floor
• Selection of materials for digitization
• Daily or weekly retrieval of books to be sent for scanning
• Charging out materials, delivering materials to scanning center,
returning material to shelves post-scanning
• Validation and ingestion of metadata and content files for preservation
storage
• Linking from Voyager record to digital content files
• Possibly some level of quality control beyond that performed by OCA
Your Input Needed on Selection for OCA!
• We
anticipate digitizing 8,500 – 9,500 volumes this first year.
• Must be in public domain or UIUC must own rights (e.g., some
microfilm)
• Uniqueness—We want to avoid duplication with the Michigan
Google Project.
• “Collections” vs. hodge-podge selection
• Faculty support/interest and curricular tie-ins particularly attractive.
• We need your suggestions NOW!
• Suggestions accompanied by a little sweat equity are particularly
attractive!
Illinois Harvest Portal
“A website combined with search, aggregation, and
discovery services that will provide organized and
thematic access to digitized and born-digital collections
of public interest from the University of Illinois.”
• In
conjunction with the Illinois Harvest portal project, we will
also digitize numerous smaller collections, through
outsourcing and some in-house digitization
• Will involve various formats (books, maps, audio, video)
• Most will focus on content about Illinois.
• We welcome suggestions of additional projects.
Illinois Projects Under Consideration
• Ilios
• Engineering Experiment Station Bulletins
• Bronze Tablets
• Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey
• Illinois counties surveys/maps
• University of Illinois Press
• Illinois Chemist
• UI Board of Trustees proceedings (1927-)
• WILL audio/video content
• Illinois county atlases
• INHS Technical Reports
• Illinois newspapers
• UI Historic Built Evironment
• Library speeches and guest lecturers
Visit the MassDigiWiki!
http://massdigiwiki.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
• Meeting agendas
• Minutes
• Project documents