Project management report-on Digital Libraries

JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY
A Project Report on
Digitization of Library Resources and the Formation of Digital Libraries
COURSE TITLE & ID: Project Management [4204]
SUBMITTED TO
Tanjila Hossain
Lecturer
Dept. of Accounting and Information Systems
Jahangirnagar University
SUBMITTED BY
Submission Date: 22 November, 2017

Group Profile
Group Name: HARBINGER
Serial No: Group Members ID
1 G.L: Md. Mahmudul Hasan
Email: hasanaisju42@gmail.com
1688
2 Bipul Saha 1684
3 Imran Khan 1687
4 Mst. Sanzida Akter 1664
5 Mohammad Masud Reza 2664

DIGITIZATION OF LIBRARY RESOURCES AND THE FORMATION OF
DIGITAL LIBRARIES

Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. Introduction:
3. What Are Digital Libraries
4. Benefits Of Digital Libraries
5. Functional Components Of Digital Library
6. Digitization
7. Deliverables Of This Project
8. Milestones
9. Limitation:
10. Formation Of Project Team
11. Reasons To Be Considered
12. Planning
13. Network Development
14. Responsibility Matrix
15. Costing Approach
16. Implementation
17. Conclusion

Executive Summary
This project report deliberates the new activities, methods and technology used in digitization and
formation of digital libraries. It set out some key points involved and the detailed plans required
in the process, offers pieces of advice and guidance for the practicing Librarians and Information
scientists. Digital Libraries are being created today for diverse communities and in different fields
e.g. education, science, culture, development, health, governance and so on. With the availability
of several free digital Library software packages at the recent time, the creation and sharing of
information through the digital library collections has become an attractive and feasible
proposition for library and information professionals around the world. The paper ends with a call
to integrate digitization into the plans and policies of any institution to maximize its effectiveness.

INTRODUCTION:
Digital Libraries are being created today for diverse communities and in different fields e.g.
education, science, culture, development, health, governance and so on. With the availability of
several free digital Library software packages at the recent time, the creation and sharing of
information through the digital library collections has become an attractive and feasible
proposition for library and information professionals around the world.
Library automation has helped to provide easy access to collections through the use of
computerized library catalogue such as On-line Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Digital libraries
differ significantly from the traditional libraries because they allow users to gain an on-line access
to and work with the electronic versions of full text documents and their associated images. Many
digital libraries also provide an access to other multi-media content like audio and video.

What are Digital Libraries?
A digital library is a collection of digital documents or objects. This definition is the dominant
perception of many people of today. Nevertheless, Smith (2001) defined a digital library as an
organized and focused collection of digital objects, including text, images, video and audio, with
the methods of access and retrieval and for the selection, creation, organization, maintenance and
sharing of collection.
Though the focus of this definition is on the document collection, it stresses the fact that the digital
libraries are much more than a random assembly of digital objects. They retain the several qualities
of traditional libraries such as a defined community of users, focused collections, long-term
availability, and the possibility of selecting, organizing, preserving and sharing resources.
The digital libraries are sometimes perceived as institutions, though this is not as dominant as the
previous definition. The following definition given by the Digital Library Federation (DLF) brings
out the essence of this perception.
“Digital Libraries are organization that provide the resources, including the specialized staff to
select, structure, offer intellectual access to interpret, 3 distribute, preserve the integrity of and
ensure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and
economically available for use by a defined community or set of communities.” (DLF 2001).
The point in this definition is on the digital library as a dynamic, growing organism. As digital
libraries evolve and become the predominant mode of access to knowledge and learning,
institutionalization of digital libraries appears to be on the increase.
Benefits of Digital Libraries
Digital libraries bring significant benefits to the users through the following features:
i. Improved access
Digital libraries are typically accessed through the Internet and Compact Disc-Read Only Memory
(CD-ROM). They can be accessed virtually from anywhere and at any time. They are not tied to
the physical location and operating hours of traditional library.

ii. Wider access
A digital library can meet simultaneous access requests for a document by easily creating multiple
instances or copies of the requested document. It can also meet the requirements of a larger
population of users easily.
iii. Improved information sharing.
Through the appropriate metadata and information exchange protocols, the digital libraries can
easily share information with other similar digital libraries and provide enhanced access to users.
iv. Improved preservation.
Since the electronic documents are not prone to physical wear and tear, their exact copies can
easily be made, the digital libraries facilitate preservation of special and rare documents and
artifacts by providing access to digital versions of these entities.
Functional Components of Digital Library
Most digital libraries share common functional components. These include:
i. Selection and acquisition
The typical processes covered in this component include the selection of documents to be added,
the subscription of database and the digitization or conversion of documents to an appropriate
digital form.
ii. Organization
The key process involved in this component is the assignment of the metadata (bibliographic
information) to each document being added to the collection.
iii. Indexing and storage
This component carries out the indexing and storage of documents and metadata for efficient
search and retrieval.

iv. Search and retrieval
This is the digital library interface used by the end users to browse, search, retrieve and view the
contents of the digital library. It is typically presented to the users as Hyper-Text Mark-up
Language (HTML) page. These mentioned components are the important characteristic of digital
library, which differ it from others collections of online information.
Digitization
Witten and David (2003) defined Digitization as the process of taking traditional library materials
that are in form of books and papers and converting them to the electronic form where they can be
stored and manipulated by a computer.
Ding, Choo Ming (2000) has elaborated the works of Getz (1997), Line (1996) and Mckinley
(1997) on the advantages of digitization. They maintained that:
i. Digitization means no new buildings are required; information sharing can be enhanced and
redundancy of collections reduced.
ii. Digitization leads to the development of Internet in digitalized based libraries. As Internet is
now the preferred form of publication and dissemination.
iii. Digital materials can be sorted, transmitted and retrieved easily and quickly.
iv. Access to electronic information is cheaper than its print counterpart when all the files are
stored in an electronic warehouse with compatible facilities and equipment.
v. Digital texts can be linked, thus made interactive; besides, it enhances the retrieval of more
information. In the light of the following advantages, it is natural today to find more information
being digitized and uploaded into the Internet or Compact-Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM)
in order to be made correspondingly accessible globally.

Deliverables of this Project
Major Deliverables of this project is Install the digital systems in the library.
There are three sub-deliverables digital library project.
i. To preserve the Documents: That is to allow people to read older or unique documents without
damage to the originals.
ii. To make the documents more accessible: This is to serve the existing users better; e.g. to allow
the users to search the full text of the documents or to serve more users than envisaged in remote
locations, example, more than one person at a time.
iii. To reuse the documents. It means to convert documents into different formats; for example to
use images in a slideshow and to adopt the content for a different purpose.
Milestones
We started the project on 7th
November and we worked together for the final output of this project
20th
November. We will submitted this project on 22th November.
Total cost of installation of digital library would be 25000000 TK. This costing is the result of top-
down approach costing by Management body.
Resource of this project is paid online books, non-paid online books, perfect authorized websites,
and google site also.
Limitation:
Time is the main limitation to the project, another is lack of library software access. There has
short scope for as under-developed country of ours to get technological benefit of this system.
Formation of project team
Doing this project, we organize a dedicated team where all of us contribute their sector task
appropriately. A full-time project manager is designated to pull together a core
Group of specialists who work full time on the project. As it is a totally new project to our
university, we integrate cross-functional strategy to gather specialists on this dedicated team.

Dedicated Project Team Structure
Project Manager: Md. Mahmudul Hasan
Reasons to be considered
i. Is it worth digitizing?
Do the documents contain the information that is valuable enough to warrant the costs of
digitization? There is no point digitizing the documents that are already out of date, no matter how
bulky they, but it is worthy to digitize the old, unique documents that can be easily damaged so
that the people can be allowed to use them without handling the originals. These unique documents
are sometimes called the heritage documents.
ii. Who is your audience?
If there are only few users, or maybe there are large numbers of potential users, but they do not
have computers to access the digital library, they can be served by sending those photocopies. It
may be difficult to judge the demand for documents. It is, however; wise to get other people’s
opinions. Ask the potential users of the documents what they see as their priorities.
MH Inc.

iii. Do the documents form a collection?
It is important to verify if the documents form a collection. In fact, the documents in a digital
library should have something in common like a common subject focus.
iv. How easy is it to digitize documents?
Another important factor to take into account is how easy it will be to digitize the documents. Not
all the hard copy documents can be easily converted to electronic format. There is the need to
check the physical characteristics of the documents to understand how easy it will be to digitize
them. If you have a lot of documents that are hard to digitize, you might choose not to include
them in the digital library. It is advisable to put them in the image files, rather than in the searchable
text document.
According to Maxine (2000), creating a digital library collection involves the following steps:
planning, implementation and promotion. These are essential if the finished product is to
successfully meet the user’s needs and conform to the accepted quality standards.
Planning
Planning mainly involves identifying various tasks related to creating a digital library collection,
developing strategies for handling these tasks, identifying required resources and formulating a
timeline for accomplishing these tasks. If there is a need to have a large digital project, you may
consider conducting a feasibility study to assess the viability of the project before detailed
planning. The outcome of the feasibility study could be a formal proposal for obtaining
management approval or grant for the project.
a. The first step in planning a digital library collection development project is to specify the need
for creating the digital library collection, its purpose and target user community. You should
indicate if management, the users or others have expressed this need and defined what this need
is. The purpose could be improving preservation of some rare or delicate materials, improving
access to and the visibility of certain material or facilitating re-use of documents. It is important to
identify the target user community for a digital library collection and their profile
b. There is the need to define the source material that constitutes the digital library collections and
the key attributes of this source material.

Examples of source material include project reports, staff publications, working papers, theses,
dissertation, audio and video lectures, songs and musical scores etc. There is also the need to
specify what portion of the material is to be digitized and if all the material or only a sub-set will
be covered in the digital collection. Remember to assess copyright restrictions.
c. Define the key features of the digital library collection you plan to build. Identify the nature of
the collection e.g. static or dynamic. Indicate the type of usages you would allow the users to
adhere to and the kind of service delivery they should expect from you e.g. CDROM or on-line or
both. Define metadata, search and retrieval requirements.
d. The important task in creating a digital library collection is the conversion of the source
materials available in hardcopy into a digital format. There should be a clear cut statement about
the related requirements and their processes, namely:
i. How to convert the source material into required digital format.
ii. What are the digitization requirements?
iii. The workflow involved in digitizing the source material.
e. Identify the resources and money required for creating and maintaining digital collections. There
is a need to identify:
i. What type of information technology (IT) infrastructure is required for establishing and
maintaining the digital collections?
ii. What are the personnel requirements and
iii. What are the financial requirements involve for setting up and maintaining the collection.
f. Finally, there is the need to define how the project is going to be implemented and what the
major milestones and time requirements are?
Network Development:
Indexing
and storage
Selection and
acquisition
Organization Search and retrieval

Responsibility Matrix
Task Hasan Bipul Masud Shohan Sanzida
i.Establish the project
team
R S
ii. Set up the Information Technology (IT)
infrastructure
S R
iii. Procure and install digital library software R S
iv. Finalize policies and specifications R S S
v. Complete arrangement of workflow for
digitization
S R
vi. Set up the digital library collection site in
case of Internet distribution
R S
vii. Obtain copyright permissions S R
viii. Release the digital library collection for
use.
S R S
 R= Responsibility
 S= Subordinate

Costing Approach
For determining the cost of this project, University authority use top-down approach. Under top-
down approach, there has three methods. These are consensus method, ratio method, apportion
method. From these methods, authority prescribes to use apportion method for costing purpose.
Costing of project
Particulars Total cost
Promotion and Provision of Services (25%) 6250000
Different Stages in Digitizing Documents (35%)
i. Registering 14%
ii. Scanning documents 18%
iii. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) 15%
iv. Proofreading. 25%
v. Reformatting 15%
vi. Final Version 13%
Total = 100%
1225000
1575000
1312500
2187500
1312500
1137500
8750000
8750000
Technology Infrastructure and Personnel (40%)
Infrastructure 55%
Personnel 35%
Greenstone Digital Library Software 10%
Total = 100%
5500000
3500000
1000000
10000000
10000000
Total cost of Project 25000000

Implementation
Planning is followed by implementation. That is getting down to the actual steps required to set up
the collection. This means that there must be need to obtain the management approval for the plan
and the required resources before proceeding with the implementation.
There is a need to identify and designate a project manager to lead the implementation of the digital
project. For large digital library projects, it is essential to have a full time project manager for the
project period.
The Implementation of a digital library project involves the following activities.
Promotion and Provision of Services
The digital library collection created should be visible, and it should provide an easy access for
users. One-way of achieving this is to include links to the collection site in the appropriate pages
of the library website and other related on-line services in the organization.
In addition to, or in the absence of remote on-line access to the digital collection, there is the need
to explore other modes of providing access to the digital collection. These may include:
i. Setting up local public access computers on the library Local Area Network.
ii. Provision of e-mail based services and
iii. CD-ROM based distribution of the collection.
Different Stages in Digitizing Documents
Cornell University Library/Research Departments (2000), provides six stages in digitizing
documents for a digital library: Registering, Scanning, Optical Character Recognition,
Proofreading and formatting and producing the Final Version.
i. Registering
Before scanning large number of documents, there is the need to first register them and use a filing
system to keep their track. If not, you risk misplacing hardcopies, losing files, skipping steps in
the process or duplicating work, perhaps without realizing it. There is also the risk of losing

electronic versions of files because they have been misnamed or saved in the wrong subdirectory.
Moreover, a good filing system is vital, so everyone in the digitizing team knows what he is
supposed to do, and he can fill in for another person in case of absence.
ii. Scanning documents
It is necessary to clean and dust off the documents to be scanned; make sure that all the pages are
present and in the right order. If the document is in poor condition, try to find a fresh copy. If it is
a sheet fed scanner, cut the document open to get individual sheets to feed through the scanner. If
necessary, you can rebind the documents later. If you do not want to damage the documents, you
can photocopy each page and feed in the photocopy through the scanner, though this uses a lot of
paper and reduces the quality of the scan.
To scan a document on a flatbed scanner, place it face down on the scanner platen or put the pages
into the sheet feeder. Then, in the software, choose a setting, resolution and color and scan each
page of the document at the settings you have chosen.
iii. Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software converts a scanned image into a text file that a
word processor can read. To do this, it must first recognize where the text is on the page. The
software breaks the text blocks down into lines or into an individual character. It tries to match the
image of each letter against patterns it recognizes as an “a”, “b”, etc. There is a problem to
encounter with languages that use Latin scripts with accented characters. As a solution, you should
use the OCR software that is specific for language.
iv. Proofreading.
This is the act of making corrections to the document text and layout. This is done in two ways:
a. Comparing the scanned text on the screen with the hardcopy and entering the corrections directly
into the computer. The word processor’s spellchecker will help in spelling errors quickly.
b. Printing out the scanned text and comparing it with the original copy.
Mark any corrections on the printout, and then enter them into the computer. This is a slower
method, but may be the best option if there are no enough computers for each proofreader.

v. Reformatting
The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software may produce a document that consists of
straight text, no columns, no headers and footers. There is the need to reinsert these by hand or
correct where they appear on the page. There may be also need to change the typeface, heading
styles and so on, to make the document more attractive and readable. Alternatively, you may be
able to adjust the settings of your OCR program to preserve the layout of the page.
vi. Final Version
For many documents, there is a need to add some information to the text so that readers can identify
it easily. As for a book you must make sure that the book title, the author or the editor, the publisher
and the publication date are all included. As for chapter in a book, you should include the title and
the author of that chapter and the original page numbers in the printed version of the book. As for
the journal articles you should include the journal title, the date, the volume and the issue number,
the article title and the authors and the page numbers in the original printed journal. In other words
there is the need to add Metadata to describe each document.
Technology Infrastructure and Personnel
Several resources are required for the creation of digital library collections, their maintenance and
provision of services. The two major resources needed are technology infrastructure and personnel.
Infrastructure
Access to a digital library collection can be provided on-line or off-line. The On-line access today
typically means that the client uses a web browser on a desktop computer or laptop and access the
collection by connecting to the digital library website over the Internet. The On-line access requires
a connection to the Internet or to an internal network (Intranet).
In Off-line access, the digital library is not accessible over a network. One way of providing an
Off-line access to a digital library collection is to receive and respond to the user queries over e-
mail. Another way is to distribute the digital library collection on a CD-ROM. A digital library
project would typically require the following equipment:
Server computer, Desktop computers, Digitization equipment, Network connectivity and other
equipment.

Another aspect is the software to be used in digital library. The Digital library software works with
the web server in providing various digital library functionalities including creation, organization,
maintenance, indexing, search and retrieval. In choosing the software, some features should be
taken into consideration. These include: Support for different document types, Support for
customized metadata, Collection administration, Support for standards like Dublin core metadata
standard, Search and retrieval and Multi-lingual support.
Several free digital library software packages are now available which could facilitate the easy
creation and sharing of information through digital library collections. Examples of open source
free digital library software include: Greenstone Digital Library software by New Zealand Digital
Library; Academic Research in the Netherlands On-line (ARND); Tilburg University, The
Netherlands; CDSware; CERN Document server software, Geneva, Switzerland; D-space; MIT
Libraries, Cambridge, MA USA. Etc.
Personnel
Personnel are most important digital library’s resource, not only during its initial creation and set
up, but also for its operation, maintenance and provision of services.
Since the access to the digital library is easy, compared to a physical library, more users are likely
to access it. If the digital library does not meet the expectations of the users in terms of currency
and quality of content, they will lose confidence, and it is likely for them not to visit the digital
library again. It is therefore important to assign the personnel with the right skills and attitude to
handle the various tasks associated with the digital library project.
Broadly speaking, the personnel will be required for the following tasks:
a. Project management.
ii. Selection and preparation of source material
iii. Digitization and conversion
iv. Cataloguing and metadata assignment
v. Quality assessment
vi. System administration and maintenance of digital library server and website.

vii. System analysis/programming for digital library application/interface development
viii. Promotion and provisions of services.
Moreover, the rapid changes in the digital library technologies require constant re-training and re-
positioning of staff for an effective practice in technological application.
Greenstone Digital Library Software
Greenstone is a freely available suite of software for building and distributing digital library
collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or
on the CD-ROM.
The Greenstone is open source software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public
License. The aim of the software is to empower the users, particularly in the Universities, Libraries
and other public service institutions, to build digital libraries. The software has the following
features such as multi-platform availability for windows, Linux, access and distributed through the
Internet, Intranet and CD-ROM, powerful indexing from full-text and creation of indexes for
various metadata, powerful search and browse, support different file formats (html, pdf, doc rtf,
ppt etc), extensibility by allowing customization and configuration. Greenstone also allows the
building of non-textual multimedia such as audio, video and pictures accompanied by textual
description to allow for searching and browsing.

Conclusion
Digitization has opened up new audiences and services for libraries, and it needs to be integrated
into the plans and policies of any institution to maximize its effectiveness. Digitization is a
complex process with many crucial dependencies between different stages over time. Utilizing a
holistic life-cycle approach for digitization initiatives will help develop sustainable and successful
project.
It is hoped that the approach of the issues outlined, the software mentioned in this paper and the
references to more detailed source and past project will contribute to the future success of initiating
digitization of library resources.
END

Project management report-on Digital Libraries

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