Australia: Inside the New South Wales State Library’s $72 Million Digitisation Program

Note: $72 million Australian dollars currently converts to approximately $51 million in U.S. dollars.
From iTnews:

The 188-year-old State Library of NSW is grappling with how to preserve and access content through its 10-year centre of digital excellence digitisation program.
The program launched in mid-2012 and has been pledged $72 million over 10 years by the NSW state government.
The first stage of the program, which is nearing completion, was a $10.2 million refresh of the library’s infrastructure and systems.
It includes the implementation of the Ex Libris Rosetta digital preservation system, which when finished will provide an integrated platform for library and archive management, digital preservation, and for customer search and access.
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According to [NSW chief executive and state librarian Alex] Byrne, the biggest challenge has been finding vendors that could meet the library’s quality requirements.
“It’s managed through an internal team, but a large proportion of the work – 80 percent roughly in dollar terms – is external,” he said.
“Many companies do mass copying or scanning, but it’s for legal or government, where volume is more important than quality, so it’s a challenge for some of our business partners.

Read the Complete Article (944 words)
See Also: New Looking Coming Soon to State Library of NSW Website

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Digital Preservation, Ex Libris, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Preservation