SI 675 - Digitization for Preservation

Description

Digital imaging technologies are replacing the microfilm camera and photocopier as the primary mechanisms for reproducing print and graphic resources. Digitization practices do not necessarily accomplish preservation goals; only a portion of digitization programs in cultural heritage institutions produce preservation-quality results. In 2004, the Association of Research Libraries issued a position paper that supported the creation of preservation-quality digital images, citing the abundance of available standards and best practices. This course concentrates on the state-of-the-art of standards, techniques, metadata, and project requirements for the production of preservation-quality digital images. The course will consider such standards and practices within the larger context of the representation of information through technological remediation.

Required and Optional  Readings

There are no required textbooks for this course. Required readings (published articles, technical reports, websites) average 150 to 250 pages per week, with optional reading determined by each student’s interests and knowledge. All required readings are either on the World Wide Web (WWW) or accessible through the CTools site for the course.

Resources

Weekly lecture slides and additional resources for class assignment will be posted on CTools.

Grading

• Attendance, class preparation, and participation   20%
• Guidelines Comparative Review    25%
• Digitization Quality Group Project    25%
• Final Examination       30%

Academic Integrity

Academic honesty and responsibility is fundamental to our scholarly and professional community. Students are responsible for maintaining high standards of conduct while engaged in course work, research, dissertation or thesis preparation, and other activities related to academics and their profession. It is expected that students will abide by the provisions of the Rackham Graduate School Policy Statement on Academic and Professional Integrity:http://www.rackham.umich.edu/StudentInfo/Publications/GSH/html/APPC.html#1

Students with Disabilities

Any student who feels that he/she may need an accommodation for any sort of disability, please see me during office hours or email me to make an alternative appointment.

Classroom Etiquette

Students are encouraged to bring notebook computers to class and to use them actively as learning tools. Students should:

• Use laptops for taking notes, conducting research required for activities, and other specific classroom tasks as assigned by the instructor. During class, students should not check e-mail, chat, IM, play games, or perform other off-task activities.
• Engage in class activity as actively as they would in any other class. The computer should not become a barrier to one-on-one interaction, but instead should help facilitate the exchange of ideas and engagement in classroom contact.
• Demonstrate sensitivity to others. Students should not display screen images, including wallpapers and screen savers that might be distracting or offensive to other members of the class.

Office Hours

Students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of at least one office hour session during the course. The instructor is available and willing to advise on project topics, specialized readings, and professional contacts in the digitization area.

• Understand and interpret standards and best practices for applying technologies of image conversion
• Identify and describe emerging approaches to preservation quality imaging
• Determine optimal quality parameters for two-dimensional bitmap imaging
• Establish the advantages and disadvantages of imaging and text markup protocols
• Understand  approaches to digitization project management
• Read and interpret emerging descriptive and technical metadata standards for still images

Week 1: Digitization and Preservation — Overview and Issues

Bolter & Grusin. [1996] “Remediation.” Configurations 4.http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v004/4.3bolter.html

Erway and Schaffner. [2007] Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get Into the Flow. OCLC. [CTools]http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007-02.pdf Related Website:http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/collectivecoll/harmonization/specia...

Mitchell. [1992] The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era. Chapter 3, “Intention and Artiface,” pp. 23-58. [CTools]

Primary Research Group. [2010] Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects, 2011 Edition. [CTools].

Smith. [1999] Why Digitize? CLIR. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub80.html

Week 2: Image Digitization and Imaging Guidelines

Conway. [2008] “Best Practices for Digitizing Photographs” Archiving 2008 Proceedings. [CTools]

Frey and Reilly. [1999] Digital Imaging for Photographic Collections: Foundations for Technical Standards. [CTools]

NISO . [2007] A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections. 3rd edition. Bethesda, MD: National Information Standards Organization, December. Chapter on Initiatives, pp. 85-96.http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/framework3.pdf

Sassoon. [2004] “Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” In Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, edited by Elizabeth Edwards, pp. 186-202,217-18. [CTools]

Williams/Burns. [2009] “Preparing for the Image Literate Decade.” In IS&T Archiving 2009 Proceedings. [CTools]

Week 3: Digitization Guidelines Today

US Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative. Still Image Working Group. [2010] Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials. http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/stillimages/documents/Technical.html
     Associated Website: http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/stillimages/

National Library of the Netherlands. [2010] Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines. Test Version 0.8 July 2010. [CTools] http://www.metamorfoze.nl/en/methodiek/Metamorfoze Preservation Imaging Guidelines_Version_0.8_July_2010.pdf
       Associated Website: http://www.metamorfoze.nl/en/methodiek/conversion.html

Week 4: Color in Scanning and Scanner Benchmarking

Benchmarking: Kenney/Rieger. [2000] Moving Theory Into Practice – Tutorial [MTP]
• Conversion: http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/conversion/conversi...
• Quality Control: http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/quality/quality-03....

Burns/ Williams. [2007] "Ten Tips for Maintaining Digital Image Quality." In IS&T Archiving 2007 Proceedings. [CTools] http://imagescienceassociates.com/pubs/50Arch07BurnsWilliams.pdf

Stelmach/Williams. [2006] “When Good Scanning Goes Bad: A Case for Enabling Statistical Process Control in Image Digitizing Workflows.” In IS&T Archiving 2006 Proceedings. [CTools]

Süsstrunk. [2002] “Managing Colour in Digital Libraries,” in Colour Engineering: Achieving Device Independent Colour, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [CTools]

Süsstrunk. [2002] “Color Encodings for Image Databases,” Proc. IS&T/SPIE's Electronic Imaging: Internet Imaging, Vol. 4672, pp. 179-185. [CTools]

Week 5: Text and Image in Digitization

Chapman, S. [2003] “Managing Text Digitization.” Online Information Review 27 (1): 17-28. [CTools]

Buzzetti . [2002] "Digital Representation and the Text Model." New Literary History 33(1): 61–88http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v033/33.1buzzetti.html

Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. [2010] “From Gutenberg to the Internet: How Digitization Transforms Culture and Knowledge,” Logos 21 (102): 12-39.

Renear, A. [2004] "Text Encoding." Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemans, and John Unsworth (eds.) A Companion to Digital Humanities. 218–239. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/.

Week 6: Digitization Project Management and Vendor Relations

Fleischhauer. [1996] “Steps in the Digitization Process.” Library of Congress.http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/award/docs/stepsdig.html

Hughes. [2004] “Managing a Digitization Project,” Chapter 7 in Digitizing Collections: Strategic Issues for the Information Manager, pp. 163-207. [CTools]

Kenney/Rieger. [2000] Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial. Chapter 9. Management and Chapter 6a. Digitization Chain. http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/contents.html

Week 7: Metadata for Image Objects and Wrap-up

Metadata for Images in XML Standard (MIX). http://www.loc.gov/standards/mix/

International Imaging Industry Association. DIG35 Initiative Group. http://www.i3a.org/technologies/metadata/

OCLC. [2004] Automatic Exposure: Capturing Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images.http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/past/automaticexposure/ae_whitepape...

Buonora/Liberati. [2008] “A Format for Digital Preservation of Images: A Study on JPEG 2000 File Robustness,” D-Lib Magazine (July/August). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july08/buonora/07buonora.html

Library of Congress. Digital Project Roles and Responsibilities. [PowerPoint slide] [CTools]

OCLC. [1998] RLG Guidelines for Creating a Request for Proposal for Digital Imaging Services (Including Text Conversion and Encoding). http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/past/digimgtools/RFPGuidelines.pdf