Illinois State Library

Planning  |  Selected Resources  |  Information for Newspaper Digitization Projects  |  Illinois Digitization Workshops  |  White Paper on Digital Imaging Best Practices

ILLINOIS STATE LIBRARY DIGITAL IMAGING PROGRAM

Planning for Digital Imaging Projects

The key to a successful digital imaging project is: PLANNING, PLANNING, PLANNING.

The success of a project is generally in proportion to the time spent in planning the project. Digital imaging projects are complex, time-consuming, and costly. To help you avoid some of the pitfalls here are some recommendations and resources for planning a digital imaging project.

Some key components of a digital imaging project:

• Selection
• Standards
• Access

Selection - Issues to consider when selecting material for digitization:

• Collection development plans your library may already have in place
• Intellectual value of the collection to researchers
• Demand from current (or potential) users
• Historical or geographic area covered by the collection
• Has another institution digitized the same, or similar, materials?
• Physical condition of the collection, is the material suitable for digitization? (Issues to consider: will preservation work need to be done prior to digitization?; bound volumes should be able to be opened to at least a 90 degree angle to be scanned; maps may need to be significantly reduced to display online resulting in a loss of fine detail and spatial context)
• Copyright permission (if the materials are not in the public domain you MUST have permission from the copyright owner to digitize the material)

Standards for digitization:

There are many best practices recommendations for digitizing materials. Remember that these guidelines may require adaptation to particular projects, dependent upon source document characteristics such as font size, photographic detail, and physical size.

The Illinois State Library Digital Imaging Program uses the following best practices for scanning:

Archival images:

• File saved in uncompressed TIFF format
• Printed black & white text or maps: bitonal, 600 ppi
• Black & white photographs: 8-12 bit grayscale or 24-36 bit color, 300-600 ppi
• Color photographs, manuscripts: 24-36 bit color, 300-600 ppi

Access (or display) images:

• File saved in JPEG format, with medium quality compression
• 150 ppi
• 1024 pixels in length

Thumbnail images:

• File saved in Compuserve GIF format
• 72 ppi
• 150-200 pixels in length

Access - issues in organization, management, and delivery of your digital image collection:

• Metadata: cataloging and technical data associated with digital images either embedded or as associated text, crucial for searching and access
• Storage: where will the images reside, will you need to purchase a server? Backup/disaster recovery: two copies of all digital image files are recommended, one stored off-site
• Rights managment: copyright notices, licensing agreements, digital watermarking
• Viewing software: will your users need to download a plug-in to view the images?
• Finding aids/indexing: will creation of indexes/finding aids be necessary to assist users in accessing information?
• Reformatting/media refreshing to avoid data degradation: plan ahead, it's inevitable

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Selected Resources

Project Planning:

Colorado Digitization Program: Digitization Resources
Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial (Cornell University)
Project Planning Checklist (Library of Congress)

Standards/best practices/recommendations for digitization:

Building Digital Collections: Technical Information about American Memory Collections (Library of Congress)
Digital Formats for Content Reproductions (Library of Congress)
Electronic Text Center: Archival Digital Image Creation (University of Virginia)
Technical Recommendations for Digital Imaging Projects (Columbia University)

Digital Libraries: Metadata Resources
Introduction to Metadata (Getty Institute)

Digitization Equipment (Product Reviews and Evaluations):

Imaging Resource
Overview of digital cameras (Berkeley Multimedia Research Center)
ZD-NET--Computing product reviews

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Information for Newspaper Digitization Projects in Illinois

If the newspaper is not in the public domain you MUST get permission from the publisher or copyright owner.

If you plan to simply digitize the newspaper you must include an indexing element.

If you are planning to use the OCLC historic newspaper digitization service:

• For best digitization results, the quality of the original newspaper or original microfilming is very important.
• OCLC can work with the original newspaper, but using microfilm copies is more cost-effective.
• When digitizing microfilm, best results are achieved using silver positive copies made from the master negative. Silver negative copies from the master negative may also be digitized successfully.
• Diazo microfilm copies have been successfully digitized, but again the quality of the original microfilming process is crucial for best results. If the original filming was low-contrast the results of the digitization process will probably not be successful.
• Digitizing a working copy of microfilm from your collection is likely to yield poor results. Assessment of up to three rolls of microfilm from your collection can be requested from the OCLC production facility in Bethlehem, PA (TIFFs on CD may also be sent for evaluation.)

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Illinois Digitization Institute Workshops

Digitization has become an important component in linking users with rare and inaccessible library collections. The Illinois Digitization Institute has worked to develop a mixture of hands-on and Internet-accessible training materials which will be used to develop digitization skills and knowledge for use in Illinois cultural heritage institutions.

Training will address the following topics:

• Appropriate treatment for materials
• Project planning
• Care and handling of fragile materials
• Copyright and intellectual property issues
• Image scanning and editing
• Storage, description and retrieval of images
• Indexing and description (Metadata)
• Access and delivery via the Internet
• Archiving and preserving digital images

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White Paper on Digital Imaging Best Practices
Illinois State Library
Digital Imaging Program
September, 1999

The Illinois State Library recognizes the growth of the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, and its corresponding potential for increase in the widespread access to information. The Illinois library community has a valuable role in providing meaningful, significant content and information management to the citizens of Illinois and the broader Internet community.

All libraries have a responsibility to the future citizens of our state to preserve the intellectual heritage of Illinois. Much of the printed record of the last 150 years is recorded on disintegrating acid paper. Fragile materials may only be available to digitize once; for this reason, the Illinois State Library advocates creation and preservation of the best possible electronic master file. Once a high-quality, high-resolution electronic file is created, derivatives can effectively and efficiently be made from it. In fact, lower resolution derivatives of a high resolution scan are better quality than a lower resolution original scan.1 Still, a balance must be found between manageable file size to allow maximum access for the user and quality of resolution.

The Illinois State Library, by virtue of its position in state government, has a responsibility to the taxpayers of Illinois to ensure that grant funds are wisely spent. It is in the best interest of all involved to direct spending and grant awards in such a way as to coordinate incentives with emerging best practices. Setting high benchmarks now will encourage commercial providers to develop high-quality services to offer the library community. Instituting minimum guidelines at this time will promote quality, interoperability, and planning.

While no national or international standards have as yet been formally adopted in the areas of archival imaging, some assumptions can be made on the basis of current best practices at leading research institutions. On that basis, a bias toward high resolution scanning should be encouraged. The current trends in telecommunication and electronic storage would indicate that file download speeds from the Internet will continue to accelerate and storage of large amounts of digital data will become increasingly cost efficient. The guiding principle should be scan once, scan well--a principle that ensures high-quality masters of disappearing materials and savings in labor costs.

¹ From the "Digital Imaging for Libraries And Archives" workshop Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, October 1998.

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