DIGITIZATION FRAMEWORK
1. Purpose and Scope The Digitization Framework outlines the University of Minnesota Libraries’ approach to undertaking digitization of analog materials in all formats. It provides broad guidance in understanding how digitization reflects and supports collection development and management strategies in the Libraries. Digitization refers not only to scanning or capture of analog content, but a suite of activities that enable discovery, delivery, access, and preservation. The Libraries engage in digitization activities to enable or increase access to content, to preserve the content of rare, fragile, or at-‐risk collections, or for both reasons. The Digitization Framework identifies the mission and goals of the Libraries’ digitization program. Second, it describes core principles that emphasize sustainability and responsibility through good stewardship of cultural heritage materials and university resources, and by engaging with content producers and other stakeholders. Third, it establishes broad categories of criteria for selection of materials for digitization, which can be applied across all types of digitization requests to create a consistent, structured approach to reformatting materials. Finally, it outlines strategies for undertaking digitization, for promoting discovery of digitized materials, for ensuring legitimacy of digitized materials, and for preserving analog materials and their digital surrogates. The Digitization Framework serves as an overarching, long-‐term guide as the Libraries’ priorities and strategies change to meet current and future user needs. While the framework will change little over time, it should be linked to explicit, evolving policies, guidelines, and other documentation related to digitization, discovery, preservation, collection development, and collection management. 2. Mission & Goals The University of Minnesota Libraries digitizes materials to further the University’s three-‐fold mission to support research and discovery, teaching and learning, and outreach and public services. Through a strategic digitization program, the Libraries: •
Enable broad access to and use of the Libraries' collections by diverse user communities.
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Facilitate end user discovery through production and maintenance of high-‐quality, standards-‐driven metadata.
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Preserve and improve access to rare and/or fragile collections and those at risk of format obsolescence by providing digital surrogates of the originals.
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Contribute to the development of shared digital collections by collaborating with partner organizations and institutions to leverage the Libraries’ digitized content. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LIBRARIES www.lib.umn.edu
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Build a critical mass of digital content to support research and help deepen the Libraries’ education and exhibits programs.
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Develop staff and technological efficiencies that enable the Libraries to increase support for its digitization efforts.
3. Principles The Libraries’ digitization program is guided by a set of core principles: 1. Selection: Projects are selected for digitization intentionally according to the criteria outlined below and are prioritized strategically in the context of the Libraries’ goals. 2. Integration: Support for digitization is an ongoing programmatic commitment that is fully resourced and integrated into the Libraries’ overall collection development, management, communication, and marketing strategies. 3. Coordination: The digitization program is responsible for coordination and oversight of distributed scanning and metadata creation activities, ensuring that uniform standards are applied and that all digitized materials are managed in a manner that aligns with our long-‐term programmatic strategy. 4. Legitimacy: Most digitization projects implicate the interests of individuals, entities, and groups outside of the Libraries and the University along multiple dimensions. The digitization program critically and intentionally engages with these issues to provide the broadest possible access to every potential user, while respectfully considering the interests of rightsholders, producers, and individuals or communities depicted in, or whose interests are otherwise affected by, the content to be digitized. 5. Stewardship: The digitization program encompasses all aspects of the digital life-‐cycle, including creation, organization, delivery, management, and preservation of digital content. 4. Criteria for Selection The Criteria for Selection are meant to be applied whenever digitization takes place, whether at the object level or at the collection level. They reflect many of the same factors used in collection development and preservation decision-‐making processes. The following categories of criteria have been identified for use in the selection of materials for digitization. Each broad category includes a number of specific examples below. Materials that meet criteria in one or both of the first two categories, Value and Use, will be prioritized for digitization. It is also likely that materials that meet criteria in one or both of the first two categories plus criteria for Preservation and/or Access will be considered amongst the Libraries’ highest priorities. However, some of the criteria may compete or conflict with others, and most materials will not, and need not, meet all of the criteria described below. As the Libraries’ strategic goals change over time, so too will digitization priorities. Regardless of specific priorities, the foremost consideration in selecting materials will be impact, including both the potential benefits of digitizing an item or collection, as well as the potential risks of not digitizing materials. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LIBRARIES www.lib.umn.edu
Value
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Unique or rare materials. Materials of significant historical value. Materials of regional significance that document the Twin-‐Cities, Minnesota, and Upper Midwest Region. Collections of distinction: materials or collections that are subjects of strength at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Materials not well-‐represented in other digital collections or projects at UM or other institutions. Materials of significant educational value to students and faculty at UM; materials that meet regional, national, global research, teaching, and e-‐learning needs. Materials likely to be of high public interest.
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Materials known to have high use, or high potential for use once they are digitized. Materials for which a digital surrogate has been explicitly requested. Materials that present few legal or other barriers to full public online sharing.
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Use
Preservation • Materials which are too fragile or damaged to be handled safely. • Content that is at risk for loss due to the inherent instability of the format or format obsolescence. • Content that is scarcely held in print format nationally or in WorldCat and has not been converted to digital format and managed in a publicly accessible digital archive. Access • Collections that promote open access to the University’s unique and distinct collections. • Materials of value to open access scholarship. • Materials or content that would benefit significantly from value-‐added enhancements, such as search capabilities, text manipulations, interpretive commentary. • Materials that would benefit from the creation of virtual collections or the linking of geographically dispersed originals. • Materials that have yet to be digitized and made openly available by a trusted digital repository; materials that have digitized but the available surrogate contains errors or other quality issues that affect use. • Materials for which digitization will increase usability for users with disabilities. • Materials of potentially high interest to users who are geographically remote. Continuity/Critical Mass • Collections or materials that build upon existing University digital holdings and projects. • Materials that expand coverage of a subject or theme available as digital content at other institutions. Collaboration • Collections or materials identified for collaborative projects with other institutions. • Collections or materials identified to contribute to a shared digital corpus.
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Development • Collections or materials with the potential to attract donors and support Library Development. • Collections or materials with the potential to receive support through grants and other forms of external support. 5. Strategies The Libraries will leverage its digitization program to both support the existing preservation framework and to heighten the value of its collections through broader discovery aimed at faculty, students and researchers throughout the world. This second strategy will be accomplished through focused efforts in support of unique and distinct content digitization that adds additional impact and value to existing digitization programs and scholarship. The Libraries will seek out opportunities for collaboration and shared resource discovery in order to realize these goals. The Libraries strives to align digitization efforts with existing best practices and standards, and seeks to strike a balance between high quality digitization and an acknowledgement that all projects must be judged in terms of fitness for purpose. The Libraries will actualize this strategy in the following ways: 5.1 In-‐House and Vendor-‐Sourced Digitization University Libraries materials may be digitized in-‐house, either by the Digital Library Services (DLS) department, or in other units under the coordination of DLS. The Libraries may also contract out for digitization through vendors or other organizations. Vendor-‐sourced digitization may occur on or off-‐ site. Regardless of the venue, there will always be in-‐house components of a digitization project, including determining user needs, establishing specifications, and performing quality control. Once suggestion occurs, the decision to digitize materials in-‐house or to outsource the work will take place largely on a project-‐by-‐project basis with consideration to a number of factors: • •
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Format: Do the Libraries possess the equipment or expertise to digitize a given item or collection? Uniqueness or Rarity: Does the artifactual or historic value of an item or collection make on-‐site digitization preferable or necessary to ensure proper security, handling, and storage of the original materials? Project Scope and Nature: Does the size of the project, or the amount of time allotted for completion, make it feasible and/or cost-‐effective to digitize in-‐house, or is the project better suited for vendors accustomed to handling large quantities of materials of similar format and size?
5.2 Discovery Digital content may flow to the Libraries from a variety of sources. As noted previously, materials may be digitized in-‐house or externally. Regardless of the source, it is critical that digitized content be both discoverable and accessible to users. In 2010, the Libraries’ Discoverability Phase 2: Final Report (Hanson, Hessel, et al.) cited metadata as critical to discovery of resources. The report noted the importance of metadata integration and exposure to discovery, as well as the need to share metadata with external aggregators to enhance the user’s ability to find resources wherever they search. The following strategies for discoverability are recommended based on findings outlined in the report:
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Metadata integration: Metadata from internal, external , owned, licensed, and freely-‐available data sources selected by library staff should be integrated into the Libraries’ discovery system whenever possible. Metadata exposure: Well-‐described metadata should be made available for crawling by external systems to allow users to find resources wherever they are searching. Metadata sharing: Allow the broadest possible dissemination of metadata for discovery in other venues, such as WorldCat, HathiTrust, Digital Public Library of America.
5.3 Legitimacy As mentioned in the Principles section, digitization projects implicate interests of individuals, groups, and organizations outside the Libraries and outside the University across multiple dimensions. These interested third-‐parties may be creators or rightsholders of materials to be digitized, or may have other interests in the materials to be digitized (i.e., they or their relatives appear in the materials, their cultural objects or practices are depicted in the materials, etc.) But users of digitized collections are also interested third parties, and their needs should also be considered an equal priority. Legal and Moral Rights • Communicate ownership and rights status transparently, both internally and externally, to the best of our ability with available information. • Digitize only with due concern for the legal rights of rightsholders and moral rights of creators. • Commit resources to investigation of rights status, in order to surface more materials in the public domain available to all. • Commit resources to rights acquisition for materials of unique public value. • Undertake respectful community involvement/engagement when materials to be digitized implicate the interests of cultural groups or communities, such as through depictions of their cultural objects or practices. Privacy and Identity • Make materials containing sensitive and/or highly personal information available to the public only with the permission of individuals or groups portrayed within, when the information is sufficiently dated enough that it is unlikely to significantly affect living individuals, or when a determination is made that some unusual or unique value of public access outweighs the interests of individuals or groups portrayed within. In applying this strategy, the Libraries will adhere to existing best practices followed by the Archives and Special Collections (ASC) unit as it pertains to restrictions for material use and access. • Implement the Libraries’ best practices on patron privacy for users of publicly available digitized content. Usability and Access • Make all digitized materials available as unrestrictedly as possible. • Communicate clearly about both usage rights and usage limitations. • Commit to providing interfaces that are accessible to users with disabilities, as a fundamental part of every digitization project. Accessibility is not an add-‐on or “later, if we have the money” priority.
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Make digitization project results available through interfaces that are usable by a wide variety of users, and in multiple formats (text, audio, video) wherever possible and appropriate.
5.4 Copyright Copyright will very rarely hinder digitization for preservation purposes. The Copyright Act explicitly authorizes libraries to make preservation copies of unpublished works (17 USC § 108(b)), and of published works if they are damaged or deteriorating and no unused replacement can be found at a reasonable price (17 USC § 108(c)). But while these provisions authorize preservation copying in many circumstances, they also limit the ability to distribute digital copies outside the premises of the holding library. Most distribution beyond the premises of the Libraries will require other copyright justifications. There may be occasions when digitization even without the legal ability to provide online access will be an appropriate strategic choice, especially for materials where even in-‐house access to digitized materials will provide increased usability for researchers and scholars. However, digitization when there is no legal ability to provide online access will not usually be a preferred choice. 5.5 Preservation Digitization is part of a comprehensive approach to preservation and access in which all of the institution’s assets are addressed in a single, unified effort: providing repair and proper housing of original materials, creating high-‐quality copies in digital form where appropriate, and preserving digital files. Protect the originals. The digitization workflow process includes triage, or assessment of the condition of digitization candidates, by Preservation staff. If necessary, professional conservation will be involved in the initial planning to determine whether it is necessary to stabilize rare materials before scanning them. Except in instances where destruction of the original materials is permissible, necessary actions will be taken before scanning to minimize the possibility of damage to the original item. •
Treatment, basic stabilization, or disbinding will be undertaken by Preservation staff or professional conservators as necessary and appropriate to minimize the possibility of damage to the original item during digitization, and additional treatment may take place after treatment. Determine whether content is appropriate for digital preservation before digitization. Digitization creates new institutional assets requiring conscious choices for preservation, as opposed to access only. Choices made at the beginning about capture methods, metadata extent, and storage media all directly affect the Libraries’ ability to carry out preservation. •
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