Copyright © 2008 www.palinet.org

Building a CommonWealth Collaborating on

Pennsylvania’s Digital Library

Tom Clareson, PALINETDecember 5, 2008

Copyright © 2008-2009 PALINET3000 Market Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA

19104

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Program Components

• Digital Creation• Digital Collection Development• Metadata Standards• Discovery of Digital Collections• Digital Preservation

Through the work of leading institutions and cultural heritage professionals in Pennsylvania

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Digital Collection Development

• Scope: To develop a collective, communal approach to digitization of and access to historically important resources housed in collecting institutions across Pennsylvania

• Audiences: For digitization—Libraries, museums, historical societies, schools, other cultural heritage and educational organizations, and the funders that support them

• Audiences: For use—Everyone!

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Digital Collection Development:

Context and Charge• Context: Association of Research

Libraries Task Force on Hidden Collections• Funded by Office of Commonwealth

Libraries in 2007-2008 through Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) monies

• The charge: – To identify audiences, topics, and material

types for digitization– To provide practical guidance on best

practices and next steps

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Digital Collection Development Working

Group• Executive directors/staff of three library

consortia: PALINET, PACSCL, PALCI• Chair of PALCI cooperative collection

development task force (Bob Kieft)• Director of the State Library (Caryn Carr)• Consultant Katherine Skinner, Digital

Projects Librarian, Emory University• PACCD, Pennsylvania Advisory

Committee on Collaborative Digitization

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Project Advisory Panel

• In a series of meetings, provided guidance on the needs of a range of potential audiences

• College and university faculty• K-12 educators from Pennsylvania

Department of Education and school districts

• Representative of the Office of Cultural and Heritage Tourism

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Project Advisory Panel

• College and university librarians• Staff from historical societies• The State Archivist and the

regional administrator of the National Archives

• Plus interviews with public librarians, special collection librarians, Pennsylvania historians

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Audiences for digitization

• Middle and high school students and teachers/National History Day participants

• Local and family historians• College students• Scholars and researchers• Heritage tourists and tourism

professionals• Funders

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Priorities for digitization

Topics are suggestive, not prescriptive• The environment and land use• Population groups from 1850 to the

present• Transportation and industry• Pennsylvania’s role in major 19th- and

20th-century conflicts--and the communities of conscience that have reacted to war, injustice, and intolerance

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General topics for digitization

• The economy• Politics and government• Society: race, gender, native

populations, religion and social justice, slavery and the Underground Railroad

• Technology, science, and medicine• Culture

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Materials for digitization

Among the range of material types, give special consideration to the following:

• Historical sound and moving images, especially where preservation is an issue

• Materials not currently being digitized by major programs, such as vital records and land records

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Going forward

• Guidelines website, http://padl.pbwiki.com/Guidelines

• Brochure in development• Conduct regular review of subject guidelines• Conduct statewide survey of digital projects• Join other consortial projects• Begin statewide conversations on

digitization and on key issues such preserving sound and moving images;

• Build capacity and infrastructure

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Best practices for digitization

• Getting started – PACCD metadata guidelines available at AccessPA website (http://www.accesspadigital.org)

• Copyright; accessible design; training, equipment, and funding

• Standardized metadata and access• Pennsylvania Digital Library

metadata repository (http://padl.pitt.edu/)

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PADL metadata repository

• Pennsylvania Digital Library, metadata repository and search interface for Pennsylvania digital collections

• Co-developed by University of Pittsburgh and PALCI

• Any collection using Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) can be included

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PADL

• All collections in Access PA Digital Repository adhere to this protocol and are harvested by the PADL

• Collections from libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, cultural heritage agencies, et al., may be included

• http://padl.pitt.edu

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Mass Digitization Collaborative: BackgroundPALINET is establishing a collaborative digitization service to assist members

with their digitization needs and support access to the rich cultural

heritage materials of PALINET member institutions

Funded by the PALINET membership and supported in part through a grant

from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

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Overview

• 1st component of the collaborative digital collection strategy: – Mass digitization of text– Approx. 60,000 books/20,000,000

pages into digital format• Books, serials • Microfilmed books, serials and

newspapers

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Mass Digitization Collaborative

• Partners– PALINET members

• content• service fee

– PALINET staff• coordination and collaborative model

– Sloan Foundation• grant funding

– Internet Archives (IA)• digitization and preservation

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Pilot Participants

• Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

• Goucher College • Independence

Seaport Museum   • Lancaster County

Historical Society • Lycoming College • Paterson Public

Library • Penn State

• St. Mary’s College of Maryland  

• University of Maryland

• University of Pittsburgh  

• University of Scranton

• Villanova University   • West Virginia

University

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Benefits of MDC Participation

• Centralized coordination • Collaborative collection

development • Visibility • Sustainability • Model for collaborative regional

mass digitization

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Questions?

• For further information:– John Barnett, barnett@palci.org – Laura Blanchard,

lblanchard@pacscl.org– Laurie Gemmill, gemmill@palinet.org– Tom Clareson, clareson@palinet.org

Presentation developed in conjunction with John Barnett, Assistant Director, Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. (PALCI), and Laura Blanchard, executive director, Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL)