Constructing the Memories
Creating a Digital Collection
Linda J. White, Digital Project Coordinator
Constructing the Memories
Creating a digital collection is more than just
putting something online. It requires planning,
funding and a lot of work.
Things to Consider
Audience
Selection
Funding
Institutional and Collegial Support
Timeline
Selection Policy and Process
Selection Policy and Process
Things to consider
Copyright and Privacy Issues
Physical Condition
Availability of cataloging information
Cost of digitization
Time required to digitize
Technology needed
Support for other institutional activities
Audience for the collections
Developing Your Work Plan
Developing Your Work Plan
Entire collection vs. selections
Collection condition
Collection Organization
Providing Access to the collections
Digitizing the Collections
Who does the digital capture?
Do you do the work in-house?
What scanning equipment do you need to obtain?
Do you have staff that can do the work?
Do you have to hire new staff?
Can you train existing staff?
Where do you put your set up?
Digitizing the Collections
Who does the digital capture?
Selecting an outside vendor
Will they be on or off site?
Will need to develop RFP’s and contract standards.
How to insure quality.
How to insure the safety of materials to be digitized.
Digitizing the Collections
Whether you work in-house or not
Color, black and white or greyscale
Unique formats
Scanning Equipment
 Targets and instructions
Text capture
Back-ups and storage of images
What kind of products you want
Digitizing the Collections
Digitizing the Collections
Quality Review
Did you get everything you were supposed to?
Did you get what you want?
Presentation
Presentation
Framework Documents
What kind of contextual information should be
available for users?
What other kinds of information is already
available that can be used?
Presentation
Determine how the collection should behave
and how things should link together
Search Engine
Page Turners
Thumbnail images
Plug-ins to be used
Presentation
Copyright Issues
If institution does not hold copyright or item is
not in public domain must get permission to use.
Must also deal with privacy issues
How to inform the users
Presentation
Final Steps
Final Quality Review
Editing for Style and Content
Look for broken links
Final testing on non-public area of server
Release to Public
Publicity Issues
The Collection is Up. Patrons love it.
But the work is not done….
Maintenance
Fixing broken links
Updating online materials
Archiving online collections
Other Allied Products
Reference Issues
Articles and Papers
For more information:
http://memory.loc.gov/