How a Digital Collection Grows: Mass Digitization Creates Digitization Mass

From a modest beginning of 2,000 photographic images from the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections in 2002, the number of digital objects created and offered by the Libraries for learning, teaching, and research has grown to over 104,000.

By most standards, that is an impressive growth in just a few years time. We’ve created a bountiful digital garden.
But as the garden of digital resources expands daily, the demand to increase digital output becomes more prominent. While 104,000 items seems like a large number, it is only a fraction of the potential resources that could be digitized from Archives and Special Collections alone, and the fraction is even smaller when library-wide, campus-wide, and community-wide materials are added to the equation.

Increasing the digitization of analog materials creates opportunities and challenges for libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural and educational organizations. Changes in financial resource allocations, job responsibilities, and even physical space often become necessary as institutions address these opportunities and challenges. Our gardens change with the seasons. If our visitors expect more digitization efforts to make more resources available from our collections, then what is the best way to meet those expectations?

At a recent professional conference of archivists, one approach addressed by the keynote speaker and other program participants was mass digitization. The concept of mass digitization is as it sounds: a program that digitizes in mass. This approach is a familiar processing technique that archivists have employed for years to handle massive volumes (and backlogs) of paper that need to be organized, described, and made available for research. It is a way to deal with large volumes of materials in a timely manner with minimum descriptive information.

The advantage of mass digitization, like mass archival processing, is that it makes the materials available more rapidly. The problem, if you ask any librarian, is the lack of descriptive information. In the case of digital objects, this means less metadata. In turn, less metadata means that some objects may not turn up in your searches.

The proponents of mass digitization projects argue that it is better to have the digital object on the Web where it is accessible globally today than to wait for one or more months to have it searchable through more robust metadata. That is the same argument that many archivists have used for mass processing. As the call goes out for more digital resources, the mass digitization approach gains appeal to some.

The first 2,000 photographs made available by Ball State University Libraries are an example of the mass digitization approach. We had very little metadata because we did not have a librarian to prepare it, and what we had followed very few standards. Since then, the collection has been redone with appropriate and accurate metadata and even rescanned to follow better standards.

Have these improvements increased the usability of the objects or the satisfaction of the users? While the use has not increased in percentage significantly, the satisfaction of the users has improved.

While mass digitization may be an answer worth exploring in some cases, it does not mean that quality and standards should suffer.
The University Libraries will continue to increase their production of digital resources to meet the growing demands of students and faculty while continuing to ensure a high quality product for “mass satisfaction.” Visit our digital collections at http://libx.bsu.edu.

Goals for Ball State University Libraries' Digital Initiative

As the availability of digital content grows and expectations of the users of digital resources increase, the need for careful planning for the growth and development of the University Libraries’ digital initiatives is vital.

It is incumbent upon librarians, archivists, and information technology specialists involved in developing the digital future, or the Next Generation Digital, to build on achievements, continue current projects, and prepare strategies for accomplishing new and expanded initiatives.

The University Libraries’ digital initiative goals include:

· Providing global access to an ever-widening range of digital resources to enhance and enrich learning, teaching, and research
· Increasing the number and range of digital resources available for Ball State students and faculty
· Creating signature digital collections to meet the diverse needs and expectations of the Ball State community and scholars around the world
· Promoting and supporting the scholarly use of digital content by Ball State students and faculty

Libraries’ Current and Continuing Initiatives

Already, the University Libraries have come a long way in developing the digital resources to support these goals. Examples of current and continuing digital initiatives include:

· Cardinal Scholar: institutional repository to support the University’s research and publication distribution strategies by making faculty and student intellectual property globally accessible and searchable via the Internet
· Conferences: focusing on various aspects of digital activities, CONTENTdm, and initiatives dealing with issues relative to specific types of digital content (audio, video, newspapers, etc.)
· Digital Commons: providing access to thousands of digital resources, including signature collections of other institutions, videos, e-journals, Web sites, and other assets via the Internet
· Digital Media Repository: over 102,000 digital objects now accessible to support teaching, learning, and research
· Digitization Center and Mobile Digitization Unit: digital processing area and mobile digital equipment to allow off-site digitizing of materials from partner institutions
· e-Archives: providing access to the University’s records
· Grant-Funded Projects: Three Library Services and Technology Act digitization grants have been received; two LSTA grant applications have been sent out for this year; Institute of Museum and Library Services grant pending.
· Publications and Professional Outreach: articles in a forthcoming book on Digital Scholarship; conference presentations and papers on digital topics by University Libraries’ personnel
· University Libraries’ Second Life Project: ongoing development of Middletown Digital Library and Archives and a virtual interactive Middletown (Muncie) in the 1920s
· Virtual Press: digital online publishing of Ball State products by students, faculty, alumni, and others
· Workshops for librarians, archivists, and other information professionals on digital management topics

Exciting Future Directions for the Digital Initiatives

Plans for the future development of the University Libraries’ digital initiatives will include the expansion of these important activities. Future directions include development in the following areas:

· 3D Modeling and Data Capture: Second Life project; What Middletown Read project; 3D modeling to support instruction, simulation, and educational gaming
· Data Acquisition Technologies: expanding Cardinal Scholar as a data acquisition tool
· Development of Digital Media for Comodification of Cultural Heritage: transformation of cultural heritage artifacts into an educational commodity through digitization; packaging analog information and traditional paper-based documentation in digital format as a potential revenue generator
· Digital Visual and Oral History Project: expansion of this signature program for the University Libraries’ Digital Initiatives
· e-Learning Using Resources of the Digital Media Repository: online tutorials, lesson plans, workshops and other outreach activities to align digital resources with curriculum, academic disciplines, instruction, and classroom use
· Multimedia, Data Management and Archiving: acquisition and management of digital video in the Digital Media Repository
· Virtual Reality Applications: further development of Second Life and other virtual reality projects

For more information, contact John B. Straw, Ball State University Libraries’ Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, 765-285-5078.

University Libraries Premiere Cardinal Scholar Institutional Repository to Provide Global Access to Ball State Faculty and Student Work

Cardinal Scholar, Ball State University’s institutional repository, is now ready for business at www.bsu.edu/cardinalscholar. A project of the University Libraries, Cardinal Scholar serves as a means for faculty and students to make their intellectual and creative work globally accessible. The vision for Cardinal Scholar is to

· Promote open scholarly communication
· Preserve access to scholarly work produced at Ball State University
· Promote Ball State’s intellectual capital to a worldwide audience

By achieving this vision, Dr. Arthur W. Hafner, Dean of University Libraries, says that “Cardinal Scholar has the potential to be a key element in the University’s research and publication distribution strategy.”

Materials deposited in Cardinal Scholar are made available through the system’s interface, search engines like Google, and other indexing tools. This broad accessibility has been proven to increase the number of citations of such work.

Cardinal Scholar includes both published and unpublished articles, lectures and other presentations, reports, papers, and other research or scholarly work that faculty and students choose to make available. Supported formats range from text to video to maps to photographs of artwork and more.

Faculty and administrators can easily add annual reports, meeting minutes, and other documentation. Students can add their work and link it to their portfolios. Student works sponsored by faculty will be openly accessible to a worldwide audience to demonstrate the positive impact and contribution of the faculty’s teaching and guidance.

All members of the Ball State community are welcome and encouraged to add materials to Cardinal Scholar through the easy-to-use interface. Helpful pages like Getting Started, Guidelines, FAQs, and Help are available on the site. The site also includes specific information for administrators, faculty, students, and publishers. To begin using the system, go to the “Getting Started” page on the Web site. The University Libraries are pleased to offer assistance in using Cardinal Scholar.

For information, contact John B. Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections at JStraw@bsu.edu, or Philip J. Deloria, Archivist for Digital Projects and University Records, at PJDeloria@bsu.edu, or call 765-285-5078.

Oral Histories with Muncie Labor Leaders Available Online through the University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository

Students and scholars can now access oral history interviews that document the history of organized labor in Muncie, Indiana through the Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository. The Muncie Labor Oral History Project Collection includes 15 interviews with prominent labor leaders from the Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections’ Muncie Labor Archives.

Inspired by former Indiana state legislator and union leader Hurley Goodall, these interviews were conducted as part of the Center for Middletown Studies’ effort to document recent economic changes and the history of labor unions in Muncie. Participants from all the major unions in Muncie were interviewed by C. Warren Vander Hill between December 2005 and February 2006.

The digital collection consists of recordings, transcripts, and photographs. Representatives from major employers, such as Chevrolet-Muncie, the Ball Corporation, and the Borg Warner Corporation were interviewed. Topics discussed include union activities, the importance of unions in the lives of workers, and the future of unions.

The collection can be accessed in the Digital Media Repository, http://libx.bsu.edu/, under the “Middletown Digital Oral History Collections.”

For more information, contact Maren L. Read, Assistant Archivist for Manuscript Collections, Ball State University Libraries, MLRead@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5078.