de conferentie 2007 - jim michalko
TRANSCRIPT
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
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OVERVIEW
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Disclaimer and pre-emptive apology
I’m an American i.e. by definitionimperfectly knowledgeable about whatis important to Europe…
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Rank
31
9
14
4
2005 2006 2007
6,657 in Netherlands 184,483 overall traffic rank
Social networking - explosion
Rijksmuseum
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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The 200 most successful web sites
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Collections GridA framework for representing content
digital
HIGH LOW
HIG
HLO
W
stewardship
uniq
uene
ss
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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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digital
HIGH LOW
HIG
HLO
W
stewardship
uniq
uene
ss
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
Institutional Repositories
Public – Private Digitization Partnerships
Internet Archive Institutional projectsNational initiatives
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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“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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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digital
HIGH LOW
HIG
HLO
W
stewardship
uniq
uene
ss
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
Public – Private Partnerships
Internet Archive Institutional projectsNational initiatives
Institutional Repositories
THE OPPORTUNITY
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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How do we achieve large-scale digitizationfor unique and special
collections?
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Not the way we’ve been doing it!
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Which do you prefer?
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Access vs. Preservation
— Access Wins!
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Selection has already been done
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Do it Once(then
iterate)
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Programs not projects
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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!
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Describing unique and
special collections:
engage your community
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Quality vs. Quantity —
Quantity wins!
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Discovery happens
elsewhere
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Online access- Any kind of online access -
creates interest in the real object
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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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
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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digital
HIGH LOW
HIG
HLO
W
stewardship
uniq
uene
ss
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
Public – Private Partnerships
Internet Archive Institutional projectsNational initiatives
Institutional Repositories
THE OPPORTUNITY
THE IMPERATIVE
RLG Programs Mass Digitization and Cul;tural HeritageDutch Digital Heritage Conference, Rotterdam, 12 December, 2007
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Thank you.
Email: [email protected]