Digitizing flat media : principles and practices

Here is a concise guide to the nuts and bolts of converting flat media (books, papers, maps, posters, slides, micro formats, etc) into digital files. It provides librarians and archivists with the practical knowledge to understand the process and decision making in the digitization of flat media. Instead of having to learn by trial and error, they will get a well-rounded education of the practical aspects of digitization and have a better understanding of their options. This is the stuff they don't teach you in school.



People can be lured into thinking that all it takes to digitize something is a scanner and some metadata. This guide illustrates the practical aspects of digitization such as:



the physical challenges of scanning books without cutting the spine, the differences between a "scanner" that uses a scanning head vs a "scanner" that uses a camera, the different options for workflow for digitized items, and the reasons for choosing one scanner over another for reasons other than price.



Digitizing Flat Media: Principles and Practices is intended to give librarians and archivists the benefit a seasoned digitization professional guiding them and helping them figure out exactly what needs to be done when.

• List of Illustrations p. ix
• List of Tables p. xi
• Preface p. xiii
• Organization p. xv
• Results p. xvi
• Acknowledgments p. xvii
• 1 Principles for Starting a Digitization Project p. 1
• Why Is the Item Being Scanned? p. 2
• What Information Is Being Captured? p. 3
• What Is More Important: Speed, Quality, or Price? p. 4
• A Note on Outsourcing p. 5
• A Real-World Example p. 7
• Bibliography p. 7
• 2 Principles for Different Material Types p. 9
• General Digitization Principles p. 9
• Principles for Scanning Different Flat Media p. 11
• Bibliography p. 23
• 3 Scanners p. 25
• Principles for Buying Scanners p. 25
• Types of Scanners p. 33
• A Real-World Example p. 43
• Note p. 44
• Bibliography p. 44
• 4 Other Equipment p. 45
• Computers and Monitors p. 45
• Photography-Related Equipment p. 49
• Room Supplies p. 52
• Cleaning Supplies p. 53
• A Real-World Example p. 54
• Notes p. 55
• Bibliography p. 55
• 5 Digital File Basics p. 57
• Digital File Principles p. 57
• Digitization Standards and Guidelines p. 66
• A Real-World Example p. 69
• Bibliography p. 70
• 6 Software and Processing p. 73
• Software p. 73
• Processing Principles p. 77
• Quality Control p. 84
• Example Software Workflows p. 85
• A Real-World Example p. 87
• Bibliography p. 87
• 7 Metadata in Practice p. 89
• Metadata Principles p. 89
• Workflow Management for Metadata Creation p. 92
• A Real-World Example p. 99
• Bibliography p. 100
• 8 Digitization Project Planning Principles p. 103
• Planning Digitization Projects p. 103
• Digitization Workflow Principles p. 111
• A Real-World Example p. 114
• Bibliography p. 116
• 9 A Digital Collection's Life after Digitization p. 119
• Digital Collection Marketing p. 119
• Digital Collection Assessment p. 121
• Linked Data p. 124
• Digital Preservation Principles p. 124
• Collection Curation and Maintenance p. 126
• A Real-World Example p. 129
• Bibliography p. 130
• Index p. 133
• About the Author p. 137