Digital Commonwealth: "This is a great opportunity for collaboration"

That's what Steven Dalton had to say about Digital Commonwealth - www.digitalcommonwealth.org

The DC portal will be live around July 2007 - stay tuned! In the meantime, there's plenty of good information on their site.

Digital Commonwealth is seeking member institutions. Please visit their membership page to learn more: http://www.nmrls.org/digitalcommonwealth/fee-schedule.htm

This session is jam-packed with information. Here's a small taste.

Digital preservation - Steven Dalton
DC is *not* providing preservation services, but will provide information resources to help members. Example: http://www.nmrls.org/digitalcommonwealth/digital-preservation.htm

Many things can go wrong

• poor quality image/sound
• inadequate metadata
• obsolescence of hardware/software, or hardware/software failure
• loss of functionality
• proprietary file formats
• deficient back-up, poorly implemented migration strategies
• human interference

How to address these problems?

• address digitzation programmatically: know your collections, users' needs, and let products define creative process
• codify selection policy & follow
• comply w/ standards, best practices
• establish quality benchmarks for digital products
• commit to ongoing education

"This is a great opportunity for collaboration"

Decisions to be made

• digitize in-house, or outsource
• build a repository, or outsource

These programs cross departmental, institution, even disciplinary lines - involve appropriate stakeholders!

Virtual archives: Digital collections Gregor Trinkaus-Randall

Benefits

• Users retrieve info w/out human intervention
• Enhance access
• Remote retrieval of images
• Extraordinary image quality
• Possibility of full-text search, cross-collection indexing
• Improve control over collections
• Alternative format for fragile objects

Risks

• Time and money
• Investment in equipment
• Institutional commitment to traditional preservation of source materials
• Commitment to full integration of technology into info management processes
• High risk of loss!

Project considerations

• What purposes will digitized products serve?
• ID characteristics of source docs - size, type, etc.
• Capabilities of available technology
• In-house or contracted out

As a library school student with a keen interest in digital collections, I greatly enjoyed this session. I'm looking forward to seeing the live portal this summer! Thanks very much to our presenters.