This paper is focused on projects regarding the digitization of documentary collections in academic libraries. It's based on processes regarding physical materials (books, documents, multimedia files, etc) and it’s not to be confused with the born digital area or with the open repositories.
The aim of the work is to suggest a valuation of digitization projects by using a set of parameters deduced by the observation of national and international models.
To create this valuation scheme it has been necessary to look at the recent national and international academic literature and compare different case studies. The parameters were created by thinking about the whole process of digitization and also taking into consideration a user centred valuation.
The parameters identified are:
• Stakeholders
• Economics
• Collections
• Resources’ visualization
• Preservation over the long term
• Privacy and copyright
• Accessibility
• Portal architecture/ Project structure
• Interoperability
• Metadata
The valuation scheme created has been tested on a sample of digitization projects of Italian, European and American academic libraries. Selected projects include:
• DigitUniTo, University of Turin
• Impronte digitali, University of Florence
• Sapienza Digital Library, Sapienza University of Rome
• Salernum, University of Salerno
• Harvard College Library Digitization Program
• Cambridge Digital Library
• Bibliothéque numérique patrimoniale, University of Strasbourg
With this kind of analysis it was possible to check the validity of the valuation scheme created, to identify points of strength and of weakness within the Italian system and to compare it with the international best practices analyzed.
Libraries have been digitizing old stock for several years now – mostly for a specific and restricted scientific user group. But what about the social obligation to preserve, and therefore call to mind digital cultural heritage in a contemporary manner?
Flora Graeca is a masterpiece of printing, engraving, color and design of the plants of Greece in the late 18th century comprising ten volumes. It was discovered in Darmstadt’s University and State Library three years ago. Encouraged by the overall good condition and the almost one thousand finely crafted, hand-colored illustrations, the library conducted a high-quality digitization of the whole work in order to make it digitally available to the public. The key question was how to reach a circle beyond scientific users, i.e. botanists and historians, and draw the general public’s interest to this wonderful masterpiece. The offer should ideally address the student library patrons, who use the library in hundreds as place of work and communication. Why not making them curious in the libraries treasures while coming here every day? So, the idea was to enrich the illustrations by further information about the botanic illustrations by linked open data from the semantic web, such that entities could be linked semantically, and the digital copies could be connected to additional information. In combination with a presentation platform developed in a former project particularly for mobile usage, a virtual edition of Flora Graeca was formed, implemented as an edutainment application with responsive design and exploratory search for an intuitive and ludic handling. It breaks fresh ground by leaving the classic search and find paradigm towards digital strolling: just like a physical visit to a library or a museum, it allows strolling through a collection, discovering and comparing objects, and getting inspired.
