Digitization Committee - April 2, 2002 Minutes

Present: D. Napoli, M.Waterson, J. Hug, N. Korpal, J. Hill, J. Kovach, J. Spencer

Report from technology sub-committee: Both Dave and Mr. Napoli recommended links to websites featuring different equipment vendors for the committee to review.

Dave’s Links:
http://www.rod-neep.co.uk/books/production/scan/
http://www.archiveindex.com/LFormat/Bookeye.htm

Mr. Napoli’s Links:
http://www.iii.com/pdf/inntouch/inntouch_1201.pdf
http://www.i2s-vision.com/

One piece of equipment we had a handout for was from a company called i2s featuring the DigiBook 6000 RGB Scanner. The workstation includes both a flatbed scanner and a camera mount.

It was determined that we will need to demo some equipment or go to a nearby university where they are using scanners and see how it works for them. The committee would like to look at the differences between a flatbed scanner versus a digital camera. We also considered that we might need two types of equipment: both a flatbed scanner and a scanner for books. Or can we find one that will do it all?

Joyce reported that UMI uses flatbed scanners since they are mostly digitizing newspapers.

Cleaning up the Clippings File: There was a brief discussion about the clippings file and how involved we should get in cleaning it up before digitizing. One consideration was to separate each article (per page) so it was its own entity. Currently, there are about 3-4 articles per page. Each article is in various stages of deterioration (discoloring, etc.).

Mr. Napoli expressed that he was not interested in correcting pages for this project. We should just digitize the collection as it is. John noted that there were not very many articles that needed enhancement. However, laminated items might be a bit of a problem with the glare. It was suggested that you could get a non-reflective plate to put over the clipping to avoid the glare. Mary expressed some concerns about the project, without correction, would just be a "slop job." Mr. Napoli noted that you could scan the entire page and then index the various individual articles separately.

Report from the indexing/taxonomy sub-committee: There are a couple of indexing options. One is to create our own program using Filemaker Pro. Innovative Interfaces also offers a system with Millennium circulation that assists with indexing and integrates the items with your library card catalog.

The sub-committee presented their indexing recommendations. They include:

-ease of use is an important criterion in decisions about setting up the database
-users should be able to search by subject, headline, date or date range, and keywords
-recommend using the current S.B Tribune Index subject headings
A lively discussion about the process of assigning subject headings followed. Mr. Napoli demonstrated the process of creating an individual record and showed how many subject terms can be assigned to a one entry giving a variety of access points.

To Do: Mr. Napoli will contact some vendors to set up a demo of equipment for our next meeting. He will also take about 100 items from the LH clippings file and create a database to see how it will work.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, May 14 at 2p.m. in the Presentation Room

Submitted by Julie Hill
April 5, 2002