Digitization Projects at UNLV Libraries

The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee has just released a brand new digital collection of over 5,500 photographic images from the slide collections of the American Geographic Society Library. 3,284 color slides were chosen for this project from the extensive Harrison Forman slide collection. Forman’s special interest was in Asia, but his collection also covers cities across all continents. The selected images span the years from 1958 to 1978 The Cities Around the World Collection (http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/digilib/cities/index.html) focuses on the main subject areas of: City & Town Life, Architecture, Views, Transportation, and People.

UWM's digitization unit researches each of the scanned images to provide rich, high quality metadata for digitization projects. I have always enjoyed travel, but when I worked on this collection for 3 semesters while I was enrolled in the School of Information Studies, I found myself discovering the joys of armchair travel through metadata! I learned a great deal from both my studies in library school and my internship in UWM Libraries' Digital Collections and it is very rewarding to see all the hard work pay off with this exciting launch.

We have just received the DVD copy of the November Digitization Workshop. If you were unable to attend the presentations by Roy Tennant and Ann Lally, they are now available (with Powerpoint slides) on DVD. We are currently looking into the best options for making the video available, in the meantime please contact Cory Lampert for more information. Thanks!

NEW! The UNLV Libraries Showgirls Collection is now available at www.library.unlv.edu/showgirls/

The Showgirls collection documents the unique history of the Las Vegas entertainment industry. Many artists and entrepreneurs were influential in the birth of a Las Vegas icon: the showgirl. Showgirls features unique materials relating to costume design and theatrical productions associated with the history of Las Vegas entertainment.

The collection features costume design sketches, photographic prints, and illustrations featuring various productions and the theatrical artists who created them: including producers, dancers, and choreographers. There are 211 items selected from seven collections: the Donn Arden Collection, the Las Vegas Show Costumes Design Collection, the Las Vegas News Bureau Collection, the Jean Devlyn Design Scrapbook, the Harold Minsky Collection, the Sands Hotel Collection, and the José Luis Viñas Collection. All collections are housed at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the Special Collections at the University Libraries.

Acknowledgements

Collection Development: Peter Michel, Director of Special Collections
Metadata Consultant: Kathy Rankin, Special Collections Cataloger

Project Team:
Cory Lampert, Digitization Projects Librarian
Annie Sattler, Digitization Technician/Indexer
Linda Ittenbach, Graphics/Multimedia Designer
John Fox, Information Systems Specialist
Kee Choi, Web Technical Support Manager
Michael Yunkin, Web Content/Metadata Manager
Hong Zhang, Application Developer

This afternoon, I joined our Subject Liaison librarians at a meeting where I was asked to talk about potential roles they might play in working with faculty on digitization projects.
Here are some notes from my handout:

Roles
1. Main Contact with faculty- Role identifying collections, opportunities, proposing projects

2. Information Source- Role communicating campus/school issues, priorities, interests of faculty

3. Subject Specialist- Collection Development role: selection, identification, organization and description to help create useful metadata

4. Research Expert- Usability/Instruction Role: understanding of faculty and students research needs should be part of designing collection web pages, custom searches, and database design.

5. Cheerleader- Role promoting digital collections and the original primary resources, help provide context and relate digital collections to other resources.

6. Eye on the Marketplace- Role interacting with vendors, database providers, publishers of other online resources (including other digital collections).

Tips:
So you’ve heard tidbits about a potential project…what next?

Tip 1: Call your friendly Digitization Projects Librarian; for support, to brainstorm ideas, or for therapy!

Tip 2: Remember, exuberance shown by faculty at the onset, is a sign that you are going to need a thoughtful plan. There are many steps in planning and I can help get you on the right track.

Tip 3: Collaboration means that you will probably have to work with a variety of personalities along the way- it is important to talk to key people early on in the process. Most digital projects at our institution will involve at minimum 8-10 people. These people all have unique communications styles, work styles, and “agendas”.

Tip 4: Selection is a key part of being a librarian. Just as Liaisons work within a budget when selecting materials, we also need to be selective about what to digitize. Your help is requested in the process of determining what is really important; for instance, in that generously donated collection from the faculty member’s attic.

Tip 5: So what if you didn’t sign on as a cataloger? Metadata is not a four-letter word. Yes, it is important, and yes, you might just find yourself getting more intimately acquainted with it! Don’t be afraid, catalogers are standing by to help.

Tip 6: There is no perfect system. If you keep hearing your faculty member rave about a particular software program, rant about ours, or propose that the Libraries design a brand new open source solution, beware! No tool will be perfect but it is important for you to understand and advocate for what we’ve already got, if possible.

Tip 7: The project needs to end in your lifetime. Back to the planning thing…we need to be realistic and persuade faculty to see things our way. There is always time for Phase 2.

Digitization projects can only benefit from the involvement of subject liaisons and engaged faculty members, I hope these notes help those of you on the "front lines" get involved in the process!

Digital library leaders were recently featured on a May 11, 2007 Science Friday broadcast on National Public Radio. This podcast focuses on various projects including the Encyclopedia of Life and speakers Gary G. Borisy, Brewster Kahle (The Internet Archive), Michael S. Hart (Project Gutenburg), and Michael Keller (Stanford University).

Recently, I helped out with a presentation for our Hot Topics discussion group that involved coming up with some web use statistics. There were some very interesting ones that indicated that in addition to research help, which we expect the site is used for, unique materials are another key feature that consistently brings in users from the web. For instance, Howard Hughes has been and continues to be a popular search term that delivers users to our site!

Interestingly, the meeting coincided with the publishing of a timely article titled, Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections, which details the efforts the University of Washington has made to include links to their digital collections in relevant Wikipedia articles. I think this is a great idea and I have added a general link to UNLV Digital Collections on Lied Library's Wikipedia page and also added specific collection links on pages like the Hoover Dam and Showgirl pages. Since many people now turn to Wikipedia as a first source for general information I will be monitoring web statistics to track whether these links show a new trend of users linking in from Wikipedia.

Announced to the CONTENTdm-listserve this week:

The University of the Pacific Library is home to the papers of John Muir, who as a famed naturalist writer, founder of the Sierra Club, and forefather of the environmental movement, is a significant figure in California and American history. Digital images of all of John Muir's journals and drawings in the Library's Special Collections are now accessible online. The journals consist of 78 volumes and over 7,000 pages written between 1867 and 1913. The drawings consist of 371 images. The journals in particular demonstrate the usefulness of creating additional zoom levels in CONTENTdm.

Just another example of the power digitization has to free content for a larger audience. Enjoy!