Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library, describes many of the issues facing libraries – from digital books to the rising price of journals in this article published November 23, 2010 in the New York Review of books.
Tag Archives: digitization
Digital Archives Team update
In order to comply with our rule that ADs are not team members, Mike Lynch has stepped down as leader of the Digital Archives Team. Rachel Manning is the new Team Leader. Mike remains available as a resource for the Team.
Proposal: a Digital Center
In fulfillment of part of its charge, “to create workflows to allow for effective scanning, storage, cataloging, and archiving,” the Digital Archives Team has submitted to the Area Directors a proposal for the creation of a Digital Center within which all LIS digitization efforts will happen. Details about the center are described in this document.
Process for nominating and selecting digitization projects
The Digital Archives Team was charged with, among other things, creating a process for prioritizing digitization efforts.
We have conceived of a process through which Middlebury College community members can propose LIS resources for digitization, and also conceptualized a committee that would evaluate those proposals and prioritize projects.
The first step is the nomination of a project. This can be done by a curator of a collection or any faculty or staff member or student who feels an LIS resource should be digitized. The form for nominating such a project is here and we would like to get feedback on it from anyone who has it to offer. The final version would presumably be a web-based form, but this would be up to the committee.
Here are the guidelines we suggest the committee use to evaluate nominated projects. Numerical points (on a scale to be established by the committee) would be assigned to each element. (The guidelines will be made available to nominators so they are aware of the judging criteria when they fill out their nomination form.)
Please pass along your thoughts either in a comment here or email me at holzapfe AT midd….
Google Books Settlement 2.0 – The EFF Weighs In
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Deeplinks blog has an informative and balanced series of posts concerning the revised Google Books settlement that was announced last month. This settlement has the potential to provide public access to more books than most major research libraries own, but of course there are down sides as well, such as the potential for Google to impose monopoly pricing over subscriptions to institutions such as the Middlebury Library.
Anyway, the EFF posts are informative and well-written. Take a look.
Part 1, Evaluating the Pros and Cons
LIS Acquires an ILL Digitization System
Submitted by Joe Toth
LIS has acquired from DLSG (http://www.dlsg.net/) a digitization system that will simplify and speed up interlibrary loan processing. It consists of a Bookeye 2 Color Planetary Scanner with overhead scan design and scan/print electronics that include auto-focus and book-fold correction to safeguard book bindings and to increase scanning efficiency. The scanner also has automatic centering and border removal, as well as text and photographic scan modes. The second component of the system is BSCAN ILL production capture software designed for interlibrary loan departments. It permits staff to scan, review, and rescan items very rapidly, while its image cleanup features provide optimum image quality. It also reads barcoded loan request sheets and automatically sends scanned articles to requestors through Ariel or ILLiad, a highly desired combining of processing steps will make ILL staffers smile! ILL will use the grayscale and color modes sparingly, as they produce files often too large for libraries to receive; however, since this refurbished machine cost less than a new black and white model with a smaller bed, we thought the additional size and features could be used to support in-house projects. The scanner has a 400 DPI maximum, as it is not the manufacturer’s newest model.