Digitization On A Shoestring: Scanning for Small Libraries
- 1. Digitization on a Shoestring Basics of Scanning for Small Libraries Dave LaCrone - Johnson County Library
- 2. Challenges Small IT departments Or depend on county/city IT? Not a lot of time to dedicate to scanning Limited staff and monetary resources Documentation produced by and for larger libraries Others?
- 3. Digitization Project Steps Select materials for digitization Choose access mechanism (software) Obtain needed software & equipment Scan items Catalog and upload Preserve archival images Market your collection Document what you did
- 4. Selection What will you scan? Photos, manuscripts, books, maps, graphics… Choose items that lend themselves to web display Start Small!
- 5. Access Systems Choose one you are comfortable with! Decide what’s most important to you Cataloging functionality? Web 2.0 tools? Ease of use? Pretty templates? Price? Every choice involves customization
- 6. Access Systems (contd.) Flickr – Regina Public Library Omeka – Ringwood Public Library Drupal – Black Archives of Mid-America CONTENTdm – JoCoHistory Greenstone – Detroit Public Library Also Wordpress, DSpace, others
- 7. Software & Equipment Scanner Computer Scanning Software* Image Editing software OCR software (if necessary)* Plenty of Storage (CD, DVD, Hard drives) See options on handout * Usually comes with scanner
- 8. Scanning Settings are listed on handout More DPI, higher bit depth = larger file size Thumbnails usually auto-generated Meaningful file-naming convention Perform quality control on scanned images
- 9. Cataloging Schema Dublin Core Controlled Vocabularies LCSH, TGM, AAT… Names Local Tags
- 10. Preservation Keep copies of TIFFs in more than 1 location CDs, Hard drives Periodically revisit & reformat
- 11. Promoting Your Collection Within the organization To persons affected by the project The Press Patrons Community stakeholders To library community Regional libraries & orgs Blogosphere
- 12. Document What You Did Meet with staff after completion Document lessons learned Note suggestions for improvement Consider presenting or publishing case study Capture user feedback Plan for the next project!