Laying the Groundwork

Digital imaging procedures have evolved steadily over the past decade. Technological advancements have resulted in higher quality hardware and software, and now many imaging options exist. The following principles come from Procedures and Practices for Scanning, Howard Besser’s highly regarded 1997 paper on digital imaging. These principles remain sound and provide a solid foundation for those embarking on digitization projects. The list has been revised here and uses Digitization as the broader concept.

General Principles

• Digitize at the highest resolution appropriate to the nature of the source material.
• Digitize at an appropriate level of quality to avoid redigitizing and rehandling of the originals in the future.
• Digitize an original or first generation (i.e., negative rather than print) of the source material to achieve the best quality image possible. In the case of art prints, the developed print is considered the original piece.
• Create and store a master image file that can be used to produce surrogate image files and serve a variety of current and future user needs.
• Use system components that are non-proprietary.
• Use image file formats and compression techniques that conform to standards within the cultural heritage community.
• Create backup copies of all files on servers.
• Create meaningful metadata for image files or collections.
• Store digital files in an appropriate environment.
• Monitor data as necessary.
• Document a migration strategy for transferring data across generations of technology.
• Plan for future technological developments.

Questions to Ask Before Starting a Digitization Project
Carefully thinking through the many components of a digitization project will go a long way towards ensuring a successful outcome. Consider how digitization fits into your institution’s overall strategic plan, technology plan and project workflows.

The CDP Project Management Questions to Ask provides a full discussion of the following questions to ask before beginning a digitization project. See Appendix A.

• What is your purpose?
• Who is your audience?
• Who owns it?
• What are the physical characteristics of the collection?
• What is your timeframe?
• How is the project being funded?
• Who will be responsible at different stages of the project? 

Documentation
Documentation of the choices your project has made can be a key factor in the long-term success of digitization efforts. Good documentation can offset the impact of staff turnover and allow future staff an ability to deal with digital collections created by their predecessors. Among the items to consider documenting:

• Local guidelines and benchmarks for image quality and resolution
• Resources that contributed to local practice guidelines
• Types of metadata captured
• File naming schemes
• Sustainability plans and procedures (storage, archiving, refreshing media, etc.)
  

Staffing
In practice, many digital imaging projects will not have unique staff working on the project, but will utilize existing staff from other areas in the organization, student assistants or volunteers. It may benefit the project coordinator(s) to look at "transferable skills" that project staff members already possess that would be useful in any digitization project. Sufficient time for training, and opportunities to receive further education, should also be provided. Metadata creation and operating high-end scanners and/or digital cameras are labor-intensive activities.

Digitization projects require a combination of skills from a variety of staff with different areas of expertise. The following areas and skills may be important to any digitization project:

• Project management skills
• Knowledge of cataloging, registration methods or metadata schema
• Familiarity with conservation methods
• Understanding of photographic techniques and methods
• Subject matter specialists (curators, archivists, scholars, librarians, faculty, etc.)
• Database development and administration skills
• Computer programming skills
• Web design and development skills
• Artistic/graphic design skills

By nature, digitization projects require a team approach, bringing together diverse sets of skills from different areas of the organization, perhaps more than any other project. Administration, technical services staff, cataloging specialists, the information technology department, subject specialists, curators, librarians, preservation/conservation staff, faculty and others may all be involved.
Sample project staff and their roles:

• Project Manager
• Selector, Conservator, Preparations Technician
• Cataloger, Metadata Analyst
• Scanning Technician or Photographer, Quality Control Technician
• Programmer or other Database Developer to integrate metadata and images
• Systems Administrator, Network Administrator
• User Interface Developer or Designer
  

Training
Many organizations around the country offer workshops and training on digital imaging, and many conferences are held each year addressing imaging issues.

• BCR offers workshops and seminars in digital imaging and metadata creation.
• "School for Scanning,"  Northeast Document Conservation Center.
• American Associations for State and Local History (AASLH) offers Digitizing Historic Collections around the country.
• AMIGOS Bibliographic Council provides digital imaging workshops to institutions in the Southwest.
• Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial, Cornell University Library/Research Department, 2000-2003.
• Several professional organizations often host workshops and conferences on issues related to digitization:
• American Library Association (ALA)
• Library and Information Technology Association (LITA)
• Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS)
• Society of American Archivists (SAA)
• American Association of Museums (AAM)
• Museum Computer Network (MCN)
• Archives & Museum Informatics (A&MI)
• Institute for Museum and Library Services

In-house or Outsource?
Every organization should carefully consider the pros and cons of outsourcing digitization projects or conducting them in-house.  For projects being considered for outsourced digitization, a vist to vendor facilities is recommended to ensure that the workspaces provided meet the criteria above.
Following are some points to consider for both strategies:
In-house pros:

• Development of digital imaging project experience by “doing it” (project management, familiarity with technology, etc.)
More control over the entire imaging process as well as handling, security and storage of originals.
• Requirements for image quality, access and scanning can be adjusted as you go instead of defined up front.
• Direct participation in development of image collections that best suit your organization and users.

In-house cons:

• Requires large initial and ongoing financial investment in equipment and staff.
• Longer time needed to implement imaging process and technical infrastructure.
• Limited production level.
• Staffing expertise not always available.
• Institution must accept costs for network downtime, equipment failure, training of staff, etc.
• Need to enforce standards and best practices.
  

Outsourcing pros:

• Pay for cost of scanning the image only, not equipment or staffing.
• High production levels.
• On-site expertise.
• Less risk.
• Vendor absorbs costs of technology obsolescence, failure, downtime, etc.
  

Outsourcing cons:

• Organization has less control over imaging process, quality control.
• Complex contractual process: image specifications must be clearly defined up front, solutions to problems must be negotiated, communication must be open and problems must be accommodated.
• Vendor may know more than client or may presume a level of understanding on part of library/museum/archives that they may not have.
• Lack of standards with which to negotiate services and to measure quality against.
• Originals must be transported, shipped and then also handled by vendor staff.
• Possible inexperience of vendor with library/archival/museum/historical society.
  

Costs
It is difficult to predict just how much a digital imaging project is actually going to cost, and little hard data on the cost, cost effectiveness and costs over time of digital projects is readily available. Generally, capture and conversion of data often comprises only one-third of the total costs, while cataloging, description and indexing comprise two-thirds of the total costs. Upfront and ongoing costs can be significant, and economic advantage may be better realized through collaborative initiatives or cooperative/regional digitization initiatives, where costs, resources, goals and expertise can be shared. Initial investment in equipment, staff training, capture and conversion, handling, storing and housing originals, producing derivative files, cataloging, building the image database system and developing web interfaces are all possible areas of cost for any digitization project. However, the costs of a project do not end after conversion. Some ongoing costs that an institution must commit to include the costs of maintaining data and systems over time, including media migration costs and infrastructure costs.

Rights Management
Federal law determines copyrights, trademark and patents, which protect original, creative works done by individuals and corporations. Copyright relates to the distribution, creation of derivatives, performances, display and exhibition and the reproduction of original works.  Copyright applies the moment a creative work is published in any physical form. Works protected under copyright include literary work, artwork, multimedia works, music, photographs, correspondence (emails), in any format, electronic or non-electronic, among others. As appropriate, projects must be careful to obtain copyright permissions from repositories or copyright holders prior to distribution.

Before beginning a digitization project, establish which objects are in the public domain and which objects will require permission from the copyright holder. Items in the public domain may in fact drive the selection of digital images for a digitization project because the issues of copyright are already resolved.

If a collection has been chosen for digitization and copyright is not yet cleared, locating the copyright holder and obtaining permission can be a lengthy and costly process.  It is important to allot staff time and to document the procedures followed along with any results in order to demonstrate due diligence. 

Due to the rapidly changing U.S. and international rights management laws, monitoring of legislation is an important activity.

See Appendix A, BCR’s CDP Documents and Online Resources List for additional resources, Legal Issues to Consider When Digitizing Collections

Digital Commons @ UNL. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ir_information/14/

NTAC (Nebraska Technical Assistance Center), 1997. http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/consumered/ec808.htm