Going Digital: Strategies for Access, Preservation, and Conversion of Collections to a Digital Format / Edition 1

by Donald L Dewitt

Overview

Going Digital: Strategies for Access, Preservation, and Conversion of Collections to a Digital Format offers you succinct and analytic views of the problems and benefits of digital resources in the traditional academic library. Library administrators, collection managers, and librarians will learn the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and digital collections and the costs of providing local access or implementing remote access to digital collections. Originally presented at a series of five symposiums sponsored by the Research Libraries Group, the articles inGoing Digital will help you decide upon a cost-effective collection method that will meet the needs of your library, your patrons, and your budget.

The chapters in this text are written by the nation’s leading librarians who pose and answer questions about hardware and software needed for digital libraries, the costs involved, establishing and maintaining access to digital collections, copyright concerns, and long-term preservation problems. Going Digital gives you insight into factors that will help you decide what will best meet the goals of your library, such as:

• the advantages and disadvantages of preserving microfilm and digital conversion
• choosing the correct hardware and software for your digital preservation program
• the changes required from librarians when shifting from collection development to digital resources
• examining the selection process for collections from perspectives of access, public service, technological requirements, and preservation
• ways to improve access to traditional collections
• cost comparisons between digital and hard copy resources
• devising a technical plan for successful digital conversion of projects
• involving the user’s wants when selecting collections for digital conversion and recognizing the central parts patrons play in the selection process
  
  In light of the changing ways we receive and keep our information, Going Digital discusses new collection preservation criteria and suggests that access and informational values, not just deterioration, should be equal factors in selecting materials to be converted to digital form. Proving that digital collections are changing every facet of library operations, Going Digital shows you the most cost-effective way to begin a digital collection and how to choose what materials to digitize in order to provide your patrons with the information they want and need.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780789005212
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/26/1998
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Donald L Dewitt

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction

• Part I: Strategies for Access and Preservation
• Introduction
• Partners and Alliances
• Local or Remote Access: Choices and Issues
• Building Xanadu: Creating the New Library Paradise
• Return to the Valley of the Dolls: Reflections on Changing Lanes Along the Information Superhighway
• Digital Preservation and Access: Liberals and Conservatives
• From Analog to Digital: Extending the Preservation Tool Kit
• Long-Term Intellectual Preservation
• Transforming Libraries Through Digital Preservation
• Part 2: Strategies for Selecting Collections for Conversion to a Digital Format
• Why Make Images Available Online: User Perspectives
• Options for Digitizing Visual Materials
• The Role of Digitization in Building Electronic Collections: Economic and Programmatic Choices
• Mapping the Intersection of Selection and Funding
• What Will Collection Development Do?
• The Technology Context
• The Access Context
• The Copyright Context
• The Preservation Context
• The Collection Management Perspective
• The Public Services Perspective
• The Systems Perspective
• The Preservation Perspective
• Institutionalizing Digitization
• Index