The University of Texas at Austin School of Information Fall 2008 INF 385T: Creating Sustainable Collections Advanced Digitization Unique # 27965 Class Meetings: Friday, 9 am to 12 pm, PCL 6.120 Professor: Maria Esteva, Ph.D. Email: [email protected] The goal of this course is to learn about and obtain practical experience building sustainable collections of digitized images, video, and film. Building sustainable digital collections entails the following: having a curatorial understanding of the media to be digitized, knowledge and experience of the technical and managerial aspects of the digitization process, and creating metadata and digital preservation strategies around the projects that will allow long term access to the digital files. Class 1, August 29: Building sustainable digital collections • Introduction, goals, and course structure • Components of a digitization project in the context of a digital library • Introduction to imaging (resolution, bit depth, dynamic range, color, etc.) Class 2, September 5: Imaging • Assignment discussion • Imaging lab (setting up: production environment, record-keeping structure, file naming convention, work-flow) Readings and resources • Essays on photography and sources for photographic history of your choice to cover assignment #1. • Mandatory: Cornell University Library. 2003. Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial. Retrieved 2 February 2006 from http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/. • Besser, Howard, edited by Sally Hubbard with Deborah Lenert. 2003. Introduction to Imaging. Revised Edition. Retrieved 16 August 2008 from the Getty Institute website: http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/introimages/ • Handbook for Digital Projects, Chapter 6: “Technical Primer” (pp. 93 – 111) http://www.nedcc.org/oldnedccsite/digital/vi.htmASSIGNMENT # 1: Write on your blog about the technical process, color, texture, aesthetics, time period or other curatorial characteristics of one of the photographic materials listed below. Be prepared to talk 5 minutes about it. Think about how these characteristics can be preserved when approaching digitization. Daguerreotype Albumen print Colodyon Polaroid Gelatin Silver print Sepia Dye destruction print Nitrate negative ASSIGNMENT # 2: Write on your blog two paragraphs about your experience doing the Cornell tutorial. Class 3, September 12: Project management • Assignment discussion • Coordinating massive digitization projects (images and text) Visiting and sharing their project management experiences with us: Danielle Cunniff-Plummer, Coordinator of the Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative (THDI) and Jennifer Lee, Preservation Librarian, University of Texas Libraries. Danielle will share with us the complexities of coordinating the curatorial, technical, social and administrative aspects of an IMLS funded digitization project with big and small cultural institutions in Texas. Jennifer will tell us about the work involved in managing the UT Libraries / Google digitization project. Readings and resources • In preparation for our visitors, review the site of Texas Heritage Online, browse the collections, look at the metadata, and look through the different aspects (organization, standards, levels of digitization, grant narrative) of the Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative http://www.texasheritageonline.org/ Danielle has recommended the next readings on grant writing and evaluation: • Foundation Center's Proposal Writing Short Course: http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/tutorials/shortcourse/index.html • IMLS has a bunch of information on writing proposals and outcomes evaluation. Their NLG Project Planning Tutorial is at: http://www.imls.gov/project_planning/index1.asp. • There's also a nice page on how to get a grant from NEH: http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2008-07/GrantWriting.htmlASSIGNMENT # 3: Write in your blog a brief reaction to the North Carolina Echo Project Management Guidelines. http://www.ncecho.org/Guide/management.htm Class 4, September 19: Imaging and quality control • Assignment discussion • Imaging lab (scanners, scanning procedures, quality control) Working with us: Uri Kolodney, Manager of the Digitization Services at the University of Texas Libraries. Readings and resources • *Digitization for Preservation Reformatting Steven Puglia and Erin Rhodes, US National Archives and Records Administration (USA) - https://www.imaging.org/store/epub.cfm?abstrid=34411 (May 2007) • *Proposed Digital Imaging Standards and Best Practices Indiana Memory and LSTA Digitization Projects –http://www.in.gov/library/files/dig_imgst.pdf (February 2007) • CDL Guidelines for Digital Images http://www.cdlib.org/inside/diglib/guidelines/bpgimages/cdl_gdi_v2.pdf (November 2005) • A few scanning tips / Wayne Fulton http://www.scantips.com/ (2007) • *The next resource should be consulted every week for different modules. About workflows, equipment, and any type of digitization specifics visit: TASI http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/managing/managing.html I will send a white paper on digitization workflows and best practices that I prepared for THDI over email. ASSIGNMENT # 4: Write on your blog about one of the following topics and be ready to give a brief but precise explanation of the topic. - Digitization equipment, considerations/description (pick one) o Flatbed scanner o Slide scanner o Drum scanner o Digital camera - Components of a digitization workflow - Components of the digitization quality control program - Image management software (What is it and why is it useful?) - Image editing software - dpi in relation to the quality of a digitized image - bit depth in relation to the quality of a digitized imageClass 5, September 26: File formats and digital collection’s sustainability • Assignment discussion • File format analysis and identification lab • Imaging lab: DigiBook Working with us: Uri Kolodney and Glen Dolfi, from the Digitization Services at the University of Texas Libraries Readings and tools (we will download / use some of the tools during the class) • *Tiff viewer, http://www.tiffviewer.com/ • *DROID file format identifier, http://droid.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Introduction • *Sustainability of Digital Formats, Planning for the Library of Congress Digital Collections,