Digitizing Collections

Digitizing Collections considers the complexities of creating digital versions of collections and the benefits of facilitating widespread access through digital copies. This module asks the following questions: 

  1. What are the impacts (positive and negative) of the easy, widespread access digitization allows? 
  2. What does the process of digitization entail? What ongoing work needs to be done to host and maintain digitized collections? 
  3. When is it important to view the original? Are there ways that digitization can enhance our understanding of objects? 

Downloads:

The documents for this module include a powerpoint presentation and accompanying moderator notes. The moderator notes include a slide-by-slide script, guidelines for facilitating the integrated discussions, ideas for customizing the presentation, and suggested supporting activities. The presentation may be delivered as written, but you are also encouraged to adapt or excerpt it for use in different contexts.

Digitizing Collections (All)

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Suggested Readings:

Short Reading:
Paqua, Meghan. “Beyond Digitization: Planning for Open Access Collections.” November 6, 2018.
 

  • What is the distinction between digitization and making museum collections open access? 
  • What are the challenges and benefits of museums placing the digital images of their collections in the public domain?  

Academic Article:
Coyle, Laura. “Right from the start: The digitization program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.” The Public Historian 40.3 (2018): 292-318.

  • Since the NMAAHC was a new museum, Coyle notes that they had the opportunity to “get digitization right” (p. 294). What does she mean by this statement?  
  • Why do you think that Coyle talks about record-keeping, databases and cataloguing before she talks about imaging?  
  • What types of objects/records were the most challenging to digitize? What kinds of solutions did the NMAAHC team utilize?  

Academic Article:
Prescott, Andrew and Lorna Hughes. “Why do we digitize? The case for slow digitization.” Archive Journal, September 2018.

  • What do Prescott and Hughes see as the difference between “slow” and “mass” digitization? 
  • As digitization of medieval manuscripts has expanded, what has been digitized and why? What do Prescott and Hughes think of the approach to date?  
  • Why do Prescott and Hughes emphasize the importance of collaborative relationships with scholars when planning digitization projects?  

Professional Resource:
Guidelines for Planning the Digitization of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 2014.
 

  • What are the different stages of planning and executing a digitization project? 
  • Why is digitization resource-intensive?