New Online: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Publishes Self-Guided Curriculum for Digitization
From the Digital Public Library of America:
Through the Public Library Partnerships Project (PLPP), DPLA has been working with existing DPLA Service Hubs to provide digital skills training for public librarians and connect them sustainability with state and regional resources for digitizing, describing, and exhibiting their cultural heritage content.
During the project, DPLA collaborated with trainers at Digital Commonwealth, Digital Library of Georgia, Minnesota Digital Library, Montana Memory Project, and Mountain West Digital Library to write and iterate a workshop curriculum based on documented best practices. Through the project workshops, we used this curriculum to introduce 150 public librarians to the digitization process.
Now at the end of the project, we’ve made this curriculum available in a self-guided version intended for digitization beginners from a variety of cultural heritage institutions. Each module includes a video presentation, slides with notes in Powerpoint, and slides in PDF.
Please feel free to share, reuse, and adapt these materials.
- Planning for Digitization
- Selecting Content for a Digitization Project
- Understanding Copyright
- Using Metadata to Describe Digital Content
- Digital Reformatting and File Management
- Promoting Use of Your Digital Content
These modules follow the flow of the digitization process and each is presented by different members of the curriculum writing team. Many thanks to the hubs who collaborated to develop and test this curriculum, the PLPP participants for providing us with feedback on how to improve it, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its generous funding.
UPDATE: The Mountain West Digital Library Has Posted About Their Involvement in the Project
Filed under: Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, Funding, Interactive Tools, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Public Libraries
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.