digitizing the aldo leopold papers
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Digitizing the Aldo Leopold Papers. Cooperating with a Non-Profit and the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center David Null, Director, University Archives and Records Management Services, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Who is this Aldo Leopold?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Cooperating with a Non-Profit and the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Center
David Null, Director, University Archives and Records Management Services, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Considered by many as the father of wildlife management and of the United States’ wilderness system, Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer, and
outdoor enthusiast.
Author of A Sand County Almanac
Includes essay “The Land Ethic”
“A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an
ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects
a conviction of individual responsibility for the
health of land.”
Donated to University Archives in 1960s
Some from Department of Wildlife Management, some from Leopold family
Collection consists of 27.6 cubic feet, 3 reels microfilm, 5 folios, 3 cases, 7 diaries, 12 journals, 1 scrapbook, 1000+ photos.
Founded in 1982, by Leopold’s children: Starker, Luna, Nina, Carl, and Estella
Family’s literary rights assigned to the foundation
Who should apply: University Archives or Leopold Foundation?
Leopold Foundation was conducting a $7,750,000 fundraising campaign
Few private foundations seem to apply for these types of grants
Less paperwork if ALF got grant
Aldo Leopold Foundation applied for grant, in cooperation with the University Archives
Awarded two-year, $110,530 matching grant, Jan. 2007
The ALF hired the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center to do the digitization
UW-Madison General Library System/UWDCC agreed to donate $25,ooo in scanning costs
UW Digital Collections Center in existence since 2001, currently funded by UW-Madison and UW-System
At the time of the application had digitized over 1,300,000 pages of text and over 40,000 images. Very good at estimating costs, timelines, etc.
So had very good infrastructure for the project
Already had an EAD guide to the collection, but needed revision
Hired a graduate student to go through the physical collection and also revise the EAD guide
Began digitization with Leopold’s journals and diaries, which are heavily used and fragile
No additional metadata was added
Online equivalent of paging through a folder or a journal
Digitized using UWDCC’s Electronic Facsimile Text (Pageturner/EFacs)
Images were done in JPEG 2000, so can zoom in closely
High resolution tiffs and metadata stored in 3 locations.
Estimates from the UWDCC for digitization have been pretty accurate, actually somewhat lower than expected
Running about $ 1.42 per page (varies with type of material, e.g. journals vs. letter)
Includes actual scanning, plus document preparation, metadata, project management, quality control, etc. (total of 17 items)
Most textual material is digitized (27,000 pages up so far)
Photos are the major remaining thing
Leopold Foundation will do their own web page to get people to the site
Leopold Foundation will do some modules aimed at school children and other groups
Will do more publicity this fall
Don’t have much feedback yet
Do some evaluation/assessment
Will post more on costs, feedback, etc. on the web site
“I should add that the beauty of having this archive on-line was made abundantly clear when I looked into the Charles Elton papers at the Bodleian, with Julianne Warren. Nothing whatsoever is on-line, except a list of what they have, some of which looks potentially very important to her project and to mine (they are somewhat related). So one of us is going to have to go to Oxford to dredge this archive, and that's even harder than going to Madison. The contrasting experience with the 2 archives made me realize how digitizing archives will revolutionize research and make archives much more valuable.”
The Aldo Leopold Archives http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AldoLeopold/
EAD Guide
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-lib- leopoldpapers
Aldo Leopold Foundation
http://www.aldoleopold.org
David Null, UW Archives