Session 402: Digitizing Entire Collections: Project Planning, Cost, and Collaborations

Friday, August 29, 2008 - 2:30 PM-4:00 PM

Session Description from SAA Site

Speakers and Presentation Titles:
Lucy Barber (Leader), Director for Technology Initiatives, National Archives and Records Administration

David G. Null, Director, University Archives, University of Wisconsin-Madison - "Digitizing Aldo Leopold Papers: Cooperating with a Non-Profit and the Digital Library Group"

Mark E. Harvey, Archives of Michigan - a downloadable version of Driving Lessons - Presentation on the Thank God for Michigan Project is available at: http://archivesnhprc.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/driving-lessons/

Kaye Lanning Minchew, Director, Troup County Georgia Archives - "A County’s Court Records on the Web: Cooperating with Volunteers, Part-time Workers, and the Digital Library of Georgia"

Comments, Discussions and Further Information:
In Fall 2006, the NHPRC funded three projects that will be discussed at this session. We welcome comments and also encourage people to go explore the websites before the session. Live demos will not be possible but presenters will highlight features and limitations of the sites and will welcome comments.

Each of these projects has a website, but none of them have completed the linking of digitized materials to finding aids.

The Aldo Leopold Foundation and the University of Wisconsin have started releasing scanned materials. Select Browse the Collection (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AldoLeopold/) to see what is available online. They will be adding materials as the scanning and quality control is completed. There are also links from the finding aid on the same page.

Troup County (Georgia) has project materials and reports at: Troup County Court Records Scanning Project http://www.troupscanning.blogspot.com/).

The Archives of Michigan has materials at their partner's website, the University of Michigan Digital Library: Online Finding Aids (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/archivemi/).

In addition, thanks to funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Archives of American Art have been engaging in the practice of digitizing entire collections or series and has many examples of the results. Browse the Collections Online at http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/.

The NHPRC accepted the most recent round of applications on June 2, 2008, but the grant announcement is still available (http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/digitizing.html. In addition, after conference calls with potential applicants, the NHPRC staff prepared some clarifying FAQs (http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/digitizing-faqs.html).