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Digital Technologies and Access At Cornell University. Peter B. Hirtle Cornell Institute for Digital Collections pbh6@cornell.edu. Overview . Describe some of the activities of CIDC Lessons learned Projects are more than just scanning Collaborative projects work well.
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Digital Technologies and AccessAt Cornell University Peter B. Hirtle Cornell Institute for Digital Collections pbh6@cornell.edu Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Overview • Describe some of the activities of CIDC • Lessons learned • Projects are more than just scanning • Collaborative projects work well Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Explores the use of digital technologies in teaching and research Cornell focus, but with a broader perspective Educates, through workshops and publications Digital imaging workshops; DigiNews; D-Lib Magazine What does CIDC do? Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Representative projects • Image collections • Slide libraries; Japanese theater; Contemporary African Art; Birds • Textual materials – printed and MSS • Textiles and costumes Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Museum Online project • collaborative project with H. F. Johnson Art Museum • digitize 25,000+ objects in the museum • purchase of high-end digital cameras • staffing and systems support • two year time frame • add subject terms to public access catalog Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
SagaNet • Collaborative project with the National Library of Iceland • Scan 400,000+ manuscript pages, 100,000+ printed pages • Create a comprehensive resource for Saga studies Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Making of America • Previous Cornell project to scan 750,000 pages of 19th-century journals • New project to OCR and index the text, provide word access to the contents Available at <http://cdl.library.cornell.edu> Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Lessons learned • Projects are still difficult – no “off the shelf” solutions • Projects involve more than just scanning • Only a small portion of the tasks Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Importance of the full digitization chain • Benchmark capture requirements • Purpose Preservation? Access? For how long? • Nature of documents • Capture and conversion • QC is hardest part Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
More digitization chain • Metadata creation • File management and storage • Backups, migration • Network infrastructure • Display derivatives • Output options – print, etc. Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
2nd Lesson Learned: Importance of Collaboration • Almost all our projects involve collaboration • Museum, slide libraries, faculty, Computer Science, other schools • Not a natural act… • Differ over access, fear of loss of control Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Value of collaboration • For maintenance and support • Museum Project is one example • Library provides technical support • Bits are bits… • For technical exertise and advice • no one has all the answer • SagaNet good example Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
More benefits to collaboration • To create an integrated resource • Can’t think in terms of collections • Can’t think in terms of repositories • Researchers use everything • As a service to users Cornell Institute for Digital Collections
Summary • Digitization is more than scanning • Need a commitment to the full digitization chain • Recognize that your level of indexing will probably be higher than before • Collaboration can be an effective way to decrease cost and increase value Cornell Institute for Digital Collections