Procedures
Digital initiatives are coordinated by Digital Research & Publishing, in cooperation with Libraries departments such as Preservation, Central Technical Services, Collection Management, Applications & Web Services, and Public Relations.
Information Arcade Classroom Scheduling Procedure
The Information Arcade classrooms are intended primarily as a research and development facility for courses and instructional sessions that: (1) teach about or make extensive use of digital collections and/or incorporate e-research and e-scholarship into the curriculum; or (2) emphasize information literacy and the integration of diverse information sources into research and learning.
All sessions must be sponsored by the University Libraries. Formal academic courses may be taught in the classroom in conjunction with University Libraries-sponsored digital library or information literacy initiatives. Faculty interested in learning more about digital library or information literacy initiatives should contact one of the following:
Subject Liaison (see http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/services/subspecialists.html)
Digital Research & Publishing (319) 335-9275 or lib-digital@uiowa.edu)
Reference and Library Instruction (319) 335-5299 or lib-ref@uiowa.edu)
Selection
Selection decisions for digital projects are made in consultation with Libraries subject specialists and curators and with University faculty and researchers. The Libraries follows established digitization selection criteria, including: collection development (meets information needs of UI faculty, students, and scholars);
value (high-value, at-risk materials); condition (damaged or fragile items); use (high demand, high retrieval costs); and added functionality (OCR scanning of print to allow full-text searching).
Project Development
DRP guides projects through a series of steps that can include the following: pre-production (meetings with content providers to determine project scope, staffing resource needs, content delivery options, metadata description levels, potential copyright concerns, project workflows and timelines); production (reformatting, uploading to content management software, metadata creation or migration,
home page creation); and post-production (publicity, project assessment, collection updates).
Infrastructure
With a commitment to the development and maintenance of a robust, scalable, and sustainable digital library infrastructure, DRP employs a combination of commercial, open source, and locally created solutions. DRP collaborates with the Libraries’ Applications and Systems Administration units, campus partners such as Information Technology Services, and peer institution consortium members to provide efficient and accountable management of systems, services and resources in support of digital initiatives.
Reformatting & Preservation
DRP can provide production, consultation and training, or outsourcing referrals for reformatting of materials, including scanning of images and text, and digitizing of audio and video. Services include document structuring of image files and optical character recognition (OCR) scanning of text files. Digital capture, editing and quality control are performed to create high quality master files in accordance with national standards and best practices, as well as derived access copies. File names are created according to established name schemes incorporating project and item sequence information. Master files are stored on servers with tape back-up and are accessible only to authorized personnel.
Metadata
DRP works with content providers to create sustainable, scalable strategies for the creation of quality metadata that makes digital resources easy to find, use and preserve. When available, descriptive metadata is re-used from existing sources such as catalog records and finding aids, while technical and preservation metadata is added by staff during the reformatting process. Metadata records are structured to follow national standards and best practices, using established schemas and thesauri when possible. DRP values customer service and efficiency in metadata production, implementing a flexible, project-based approach to balance standardization with customization.
Rights Management
DRP maintains a commitment to protecting the rights of intellectual property holders, as well as public rights of educational fair use. Specific rights management and contact information is included in digital object metadata, and security banding is attached to the bottom of digital images. Images with digital watermarks will not be included in the Iowa Digital Library.
Resource Discovery
Digital collection interfaces are designed with input from subject specialists and curators, web designers, content providers, and users. Digital collections are disseminated through a variety of tools and resources, including the Iowa Digital Library website, the Libraries’ online catalog and metasearch engine, Google sitemaps, and WorldCat. Promotional strategies for collection launches include press releases, blog entries, and web banners and screen savers.
