de conferentie 2007 - jim michalko

RLG Programs

Mass Digitization and Cultural Heritage: Imperative and Opportunity Jim Michalko

Vice PresidentRLG Programs

Dutch Digital Heritage Rotterdam12 December 2007

Thanks to Ricky Erway, Jen Schaffnerand Roy Tennant for contributions

RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007

OVERVIEW

Disclaimer and pre-emptive apology

I’m an American i.e. by definitionimperfectly knowledgeable about whatis important to Europe…

Thesis

• Digitization of our unique and special collections is an imperative• Inertia is not a strategy

• Digitization is as much a part of our mission as collecting• So is disclosure

• Digitization must become one of our standard processes and resourced as a regular and continuing activity• It is not a project

• Digitization is a high-value activity that creates distinctive institutional impact• More than lots of other things we do

• Funding must come from redirection of resources• Not just project monies

To be discussed• Current information context• What our users expect• Where we are investing our effort• State of mass digitization projects• Opportunity for digitization of

unique and special collections• A radical change in our approach

Current Expectations

• Information consumer behaviors• Network-level aggregation of supply and

demand• Patterns of learning, research, information

production and consumption

• Personal collections and data production

• Social networking

2005 2006 2007

6,657 in Netherlands 184,483 overall traffic rank

Social networking - explosion

Rijksmuseum

Top sites by traffic rankNetherlands United States

google.nl Search engine - local

hyves.nl Social networking

live.com Search engine (Microsoft)

youtube.com Video sharing

google.com Search engine

msn.com Search engine

partyflock.nl Social network-music

yahoo.com Directory

markplaats.nl Shopping site

yahoo.com Directory

google.com Search engine

myspace.com Social networking site

youtube.com Video sharing

facebook.com Social networking site

ebay.com Shopping site

live.comSearch engine

(Microsoft)

msn.com Search engine

wikipedia.org Encyclopedia wiki

The 200 most successful web sites

Now: Attention is scarce, resources are abundant

Then: The user built workflow around institution services

Now: The institution must build its services around user workflow

Then: Resources were scarce, attention was abundant

Collections GridA framework for representing content

digital

HIGH LOW

stewardship

Published Content• Books• Journals• Newspapers• Gov. docs• CD, DVD• Maps• Scores

Special Collections• Rare books• Local/Historical newspapers• Local history materials• Photographs• Archives & Manuscripts• Theses & Dissertations• Museum objects

Source: OCLC Office of Research 2003

Institutional Content• ePrints/tech reports• Learning objects• Courseware• Local government reports• Training manuals• Research data

Open Web Content• Freely-available

web resources• Open source software• Newspaper archives• Images

digital

HIGH LOW

stewardship

Institutional Repositories

Public – Private Digitization Partnerships

Internet Archive Institutional projectsNational initiatives

Public-Private Mass DigitizationAppearance vs. reality

• They are non-exclusive deals – • not really

• The private partner bears all the costs• not really

• Institutions are free to serve the content to users• not really

• They are only limited term deals • not really

“There’s an illusion being created that all the world’s knowledge is on the web, but we haven’t begun to glimpse what is out there in local archives and libraries. Material that is not digitized risks being neglected as it would not have been in the past, virtually lost to the great majority of potential users.” - Ed Ayers

Professor of History and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia

– a leading authority on digital scholarship

digital

HIGH LOW

stewardship

Public – Private Partnerships

THE OPPORTUNITY

Unique and special collections In vanilla world, the institutionally unique

becomes more important Digital visibility creates use

Focus on material that is unique or rare is in a variety of formats will only be acquired once need only be cataloged once supports our local users will be accessed by remote users

Scale up digitization to avoid marginalization

How do we achieve large-scale digitizationfor unique and special

collections?

Not the way we’ve been doing it!

Unique and special collections Getting into the flow

• Focus on access• Stop selecting• Do some, monitor use, do more• Programs not projects• Describe further up the hierarchy• Emphasize quantity• Discovery happens elsewhere• Get funding without compromising

Which do you prefer?

Access vs. Preservation

— Access Wins!

Access Wins!

• No one has been throwing away originals…so preservation needs are best served by them

• Only by surfacing presently ignored collections can we justify their preservation

• Our brave new world shows we can go back do it again

Selection has already been done

Selection Has Already Been Done

• Capture materials as accessioned• For important collections, capture it all• For others, sample and allow user

interest to guide your choices• Capture on demand• Capture “signposts” and devote

more attention where warranted

Do it Once(then

iterate)

Do it Once (then iterate)

• Capture as you accession (don’t let new acquisitions enter the backlog)

• Compromise on image resolution and metadata as needed to achieve throughput requirements

• Create a single unified process• Have usage guide any additional

effort

Programs not projects

Programs Not Projects

• Digital capture must be embedded in our basic procedures

• Hand-crafted digital presentations are largely ignored — we must expose our collections systematically in web search engines

• Forget “special projects” — it’s long past time to make this a basic part of our everyday work!

Describing unique and

special collections:

engage your community

Describing Special Collections

• Do not describe everything in painstaking detail

• Start with basic description, then…• …allow serious researchers to

contact you for more detail, and…• …engage your user community with

adding to the descriptions

Quality vs. Quantity —

Quantity wins!

Quality vs. Quantity

• The perfect has been the enemy of the possible

• Any access is better than none at all• Instead of measuring the output of

curator/cataloger/archivist we should be measuring impact on users

Discovery happens

elsewhere

Discovery Happens Elsewhere

• People don’t discover our content by coming to our lovingly crafted web sites

• We must work hard at exposing our content to web crawlers, OAI harvesters, and other aggregators

Online access- Any kind of online access -

creates interest in the real object

Unique and special collections Getting into the flow

• Focus on access• Stop selecting• Do some, monitor use, do more• Programs not projects• Describe further up the hierarchy• Emphasize quantity• Discovery happens elsewhere• Get funding without compromising

digital

HIGH LOW

stewardship

Public – Private Partnerships

THE OPPORTUNITY

THE IMPERATIVE

Thank you.

Email: michalkj@oclc.org

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