Bringing Special Collections into the Large-Scale Digitization Milieu project

Through various communication channels, we are helping to raise awareness in the special collections community of the implications of digitizing the widely-held material and how this will impact special collections. We work with partner staff to enable more efficient digitization of special collections.

We're investigating the large scale digitization of special collections and the challenges in getting some of the vast amounts of unique content in special collections into the user flow. 

• A forum on digitization in archives and special collections was held on August 29, 2007, and we have begun to put this information into the hands of special collections curators and surface issues for further action.
• We've begun an investigation into format-specific scanning stations (for fairly uniform flat formats, such as slides, postcards, documents) and ways to get them into the community.

Resources

• Erway, Ricky. Seeking Sustainability (.pdf: 87K/15 pp.). Report produced by OCLC Programs and Research. Published online at: www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2008-03.pdf.
• Erway, Ricky, and Jennifer Schaffner. 2007. Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get Into the Flow. Report produced by OCLC Programs and Research. Published online at: www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007-02.pdf.
• Digitization Matters: Breaking Through the Barriers—Scaling Up Digitization of Special Collections Workshop, August 29, 2007. Forum overview and mp3 files of presentations and discussions.
• RLG Webinar, "Out of the Stacks and onto the Desktop: Rethinking Assumptions about Access and Digitization" (.wmv: 73.5MB/54min.)
• Mass Digitization and Partnership Agreements, a Web resource site about mass digitization, public/private partnerships and the agreements that govern them, and matters of policy and other related topics.