PCCdigitalprogramplantemplate.doc
Introduction
Organization: Pasadena City College
The College Archives was established by the Library prior to 1950 to collect, arrange, describe, and preserve the historical documents of Pasadena City College. It is the repository for a wide variety of material including advertising, artifacts; catalogs; correspondence; committee and departmental meeting minutes; newsletters; newspapers; and periodicals; photographs and post cards; reports; audio and video cassettes, slides, and yearbooks.
The purpose of planning for a digital archive program is to
§ Increase access to PCC’s unique historical documents
§ Decrease the wear and tear of the original documents
§ Preserve documents that are starting to disintegrate
§ Provide a self-discovery system for student, faculty, staff, alumni, and community users
§ Increase staff use of the collections in answering reference inquiries
(check this out… http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/cdc/pag/digselec.html )
1. Organizational Vision & Mission
Supporting the Vision. Aligning your digital collection program with your organization’s vision, mission, strategic plan, goals, and objectives is essential for long-term success. Restate your Organizational Vision & Mission here to reflect the connection it has to the Digital Collection goals and objectives.
The Library’s digital collection program reflects PCC’s commitment to its heritage as identified in its vision statement:
§ A Recognition of Our Heritage of Excellence: We recognize that we draw upon the college’s rich tradition of excellence and innovation in upholding the highest standard of quality for the services we provide to our students and community. In addition, the Library’s mission statement also “promotes the Shatford Library as the focal point of quality information resources, regardless of format, for the college community.”
This commitment to the college’s heritage is exemplified in the following activities and documents:
§ The 75th anniversary celebrations in 2004 focused on the college’s rich history including identifying 75 distinguished alumni and traveling historical exhibits throughout the community
§ A book was commissioned by the College to chronicle the history of the college: Pasadena City College : a history commissioned on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary by Mark Dodge.
§ A PCC history web page was developed for the 75th anniversary
§ Library’s unit planning processes as well as the Library’s 3-5 year strategic directions continue to elucidate the need for a digital program: [add in from 3-5 year strategic directions from the unit plan].
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2. Program Goals & Objectives
State & relate your long-term digital collection development program goals & objectives, with reference to how they forward the Organizational objectives and strategic plan(s). include any collaborators.
In 2006, a study was done of digitization efforts in the California community colleges. (Laun, 2007). This study, as well as a study on needs for Pasadena City College (PCC) demonstrated the lack of emphasis and activity for digitization of local history resources throughout the community college system.
At PCC, the need for preserving these resources, however, was clearly expressed by management: 73.3% indicated that a the goal of a digitization project would be to Preserve materials of importance or value and 40% indicated the need to provide access to collections, materials, files as well as minimize damage to original materials. In addition to assessing priorities, managers were asked to provide descriptions of resources they would like to see digitized. The extensive list provided an initial inventory of resources that management would like to see digitized.
PCC managers were asked to identify priorities for digitization (assuming that money and staff were funded). Their responses (60% of the management team responded) were parallel to responses of other community colleges in the state:
- Historical documents/archives 56.7%
- Photographs 56.7%
- Videotapes 36.7%
- Course material 33.3%
Truly vital to the success of your new program is a well-founded understanding of your target user(s) and their access requirements. Briefly describe your intended uses and note which are key/core users of digital collections and which are general users. What usage information about your patrons do you already have or can you obtain?
The value of digitizing local resources in a community college library study was strongly identified in a question on the target audience who would benefit from the resources.
- Students at my college 72.6%
- College’s Faculty or Staff 57.8%
- General public who have Internet access 27.5%
In the PCC study, managers noted the following as target audiences:
- College’s Faculty and Staff 76.7%
- Students at my college (PCC students) 53.3%
- Alumni 50%
- General public who have internet access 40%
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Target Audience for Digital Archives
|
PCC
responses
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PCC
%
|
Numbers of CC
Responses
|
2007
CC
Study
%
|
2004
IMLS
Study
%
|
|
General public who have Internet access
|
12
|
40%
|
28
|
27.5
|
n/a
|
|
Students at PCC
|
16
|
53.3%
|
74
|
72.6
|
n/a
|
|
Students at other colleges
|
6
|
20%
|
4
|
3.9
|
n/a
|
|
PCC’s faculty or staff
|
23
|
76.7%
|
59
|
57.8
|
n/a
|
|
Other researchers, faculty or staff
|
9
|
30%
|
21
|
20.6
|
n/a
|
|
Alumni
|
15
|
50%
|
22
|
21.6
|
n/a
|
|
Don’t know
|
1
|
3.3%
|
4
|
3.9
|
n/a
|
|
Other
|
5
|
16.7%
|
3
|
2.9
|
n/a
|
Community College data extracted from Fig. 8 of Onramps to Digital Resources (Laun)
After reviewing usage information, what conclusions can you draw about your patrons, and what inferences can you make about why, how, when, and where they will want to access your digitized materials?
Annual Archives research requests:
Archives Research Requests referred to Archivist (excludes questions answered by Reference)
2004/05 32
2005/06 21
2006/07 50
2007/08 39
Asked Pat Rees about how many hits on the college’s history site:
http://pasadena.edu/about/history/index.cfm
If your patron base is comprised of more than one group (e.g., faculty, staff, & students; or adult learners as well as preschoolers), who are you trying to reach?
Why?
Rationale by user?
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General public who have Internet access
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Public relations;
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|
Students at PCC
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Curricular needs; Public relations
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|
Students at other colleges
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Curricular needs; Public relations
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|
PCC’s faculty or staff
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Research needs; Support for Public relations
|
|
Other researchers, faculty or staff
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Research needs; Public relations
|
|
Alumni
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Public relations; Fund raising
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Can you relate the digital program objectives to users needs? Will the specific actions transform your goals and user needs into reality?
Needs-à Activities -à Outcomes -à Re-Evaluation cycle
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3. Program Evaluation
Webster’s1 defines metrical as “Of or pertaining to measurement; as, the inch, foot, yard, etc., are metrical terms (…).”
Which evaluation metrics will be useful to understand if you have succeeded in meeting your program goals and objectives? List at least three key indicators to measure outputs, i.e. number of page visits per month? Number of digital items added to collection annually?
- Number of page visits per month?
- Number of requests of collections to be digitized
- Number of digital items added to collection annually?
- Resources used in exhibits?
- Greater liaisons with local historical societies, the public libraries, the Huntington?
- If we harvest to Worldcat, gather use statistics?
- Visual status bar for project(s)? (see e-Asia Digital Library: http://e-asia.uoregon.edu/) (jb)
How will you assess your program in measurable outcomes for your key users?
- Feedback forms from users?
- Surveys? (jb)
- Small Focus Groups as test users (volunteers?) with direct feedback to designers? (jb)
- Key users are?: Students, Alumni, Faculty/Staff, Public (jb)
- Outcomes are ?: Access, Findability, Interaction, Ease of navigation, Attractiveness, User satisfaction (jb)
Is it possible that as we build this database, that we may not see its full outcome until PCC’s 100th anniversary? Or an anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth? Or for exhibits? We might need to “blog” use of the collections as we go along to capture anecdotal and wel;l as quantative evidence
How can you communicate the successful results most effectively?
- Promotion on the webpage?
- Unit planning evaluations?
- Secondary impacts from the creation of the database (involvement of alumni and retireesà continued engagement in the college)
There are four levels of evaluation information that can relate to the effectiveness of digital collections for clients, including getting their:
- Reactions and feelings (i.e. satisfaction, feelings are often poor indicators that your service made a lasting impact)
- Learning (enhanced attitudes, perceptions, or knowledge)
- Changes in skills (applied the learning to enhance behaviors)
- Effectiveness (improved performance because of enhanced behaviors)
Such measures can be gathered using feedback forms, surveys, stories, conversations and other means to communicate with users.
The Importance of Quality.
Before, during, and after developing digital collection items, how will you evaluate outputs and outcomes against your quality standards? What are your quality standards?
Not identified yet…..
Establishing quality control processes will be useful and effective for evaluating both collection quality and the development of staff skills and knowledge.
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4. Organizational & Staffing Plans
The best digital libraries are the products of collaboration – and knowing the roles and responsibilities required is critical. Clarifying who will be responsible for which tasks, and setting expectations clearly, is very important to the success of your program.
Continuing, expanding, and new organizations each need to be managed somewhat differently.
Will this work be the continuation of an existing digitization or metadata unit within your organization?
- We will have to consider some possibilities:
- Reorganization of Tech Services activities to more shelf-ready materials and records. This will release some staff to work on digital projects
- Grant funded positions
- Library technician field practices—will need a program coordinator and trainer
- Use of student assistants and college assistants at times when they are not busy at the desk.
If so, will current employees be transitioning to new policies and procedures as set forth in this plan?
- Honestly, this is my vision…
Or will this plan serve to document and communicate informal policies and procedures already in place?
- No this is a new activity
In either case, what are your plans for training employees, collaborators, and any subcontractors on how the digital collection program will be executed?
- Grant funding to outsource
- Train lead staff first and then train student assistants and college assistants; Library Tech students
Include an organization chart as well as the name and a description of each staff member’s qualifications and responsibilities regarding collection digitization.
- This will require a reexamination of Tech Services first with an establishment of new, revised workflows
or
Will this work be an expansion of duties for an existing unit within your organization?
- Since staff is at peak loads now, we need to rethink what we are doing
If so, will some current activities be eliminated or outsourced in order to take on these responsibilities?
- Pre-processed books and media
Or will you hire more staff in order to continue all current activities and expand to perform the collection digitization duties?
- Without a grant, this is not realistic
Include an organization chart as well as the name and a description of each staff member’s qualifications and responsibilities regarding collection digitization.
- This will require a reexamination of Tech Services first with an establishment of new, revised workflows
or
Are you creating a new unit/committee to manage the digital collection program and its unique projects?
- Only if grant funded as a demonstration project
If so, to whom will the head of the new unit report?
Will the new unit include existing staff to facilitate interactions with the rest of the organization? Where are you in the start-up process?
- Library director will have to take the lead
Have you already written new job descriptions?
Have you gotten funding and Human Resources’ approval?
Will there be any new workers, including students or volunteer staff?
- Possible tap into retirees association and alumni organizations; also PTSA
- Grant funding; library tech program
Include an organization chart as well as the name and a description of each staff member’s qualifications and responsibilities regarding collection digitization.
- Not ready for primetime yet
In-house vs. Outsourcing. What are your general policies regarding types of tasks that would be likely candidates for outsourcing vs. those performed in-house?
Do you have strategic reasons for those performed in-house? For example, you anticipate increasing volume in Chinese/Japanese/Korean items and metadata across all content formats and therefore need to develop staff skills in this area, resulting in your outsourcing lower-volume languages and keeping the CJK work in house.
- Newspapers, yearbooks to be digitize out of house
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Note from Mary Ann:
This section will be developed later, after Contentdm training…
5. Program Planning & Management
Thousands of books and articles have been written on effective program planning and management. We suggest resources specific to collection digitization for your consideration.
Front-end Analysis. Know your users!
Given the projected access requirements of your key/core user(s), what implications does each of these requirements have for collection selection and the digitization process?
- Key user profile [can you create a user straw-man to represent typical use?]
- CONTENTdm Web site customization – list potential features
- Scanning, including OCR – sizes or file types
- Metadata - fields of data
- Quality Assurance process
- Marketing – to communicate new resources for key users
Legal Issues. Do any of the collection materials have copyright, licensing or access issues to be aware of, or to be noted in the rights metadata?
Materials Selection Criteria. Will you launch your program with a prioritized list of collections or parts of collections already targeted for digitization?
- PCC Committee will decide priority based on priorities identified by the PCC digitization study
Digitization Priorities
PCC mangers were asked to identify priorities for digitization (assuming that money and staff were funded).
- Historical documents/archives 56.7%
- Photographs 56.7%
- Videotapes 36.7%
- Course material 33.3%
Note: List of resources to digitize available
If so, state your rationale for allocating resources to these materials. Researcher /student/faculty demand is often the primary determinant, with preservation concerns running a close second, especially for fragile materials in high demand.
or
Will you launch your program with high-level guidance regarding selection, leaving development of a prioritized collection-digitization list to program staff?
If so, what traits will target collections or target parts of collections share?
Will target materials have been created during one or more particularly important eras for your organization?
or
Will your digital collection development effort proceed chronologically?
- No, more likely by type of material, e.g. photographs bu collections; yearbooks; etc.
Will your digital collections be about or by one or more people or groups of people?
- Mostly groups….except for the Stan Gray Collection and Louis Creveling collections
Which, if any, other organizations hold the same materials or those that complement your materials?
- None on PCC; Pasadena Historical Society and PPL on Pasadena historical connections
If any, have you consulted with these organizations?
What did you agree on or disagree on regarding digitization?
- We might share a database
If you have not yet consulted with other interested parties, what are your plans for doing so?
What were the results when you searched the OCLC Digital Registry for existing materials on your potential targets?
- Did not search; may consider searching for repositories on Jackie Robinson; Harbeson, Jack Scott, Stan Gray, distinguished alumni, etc.
If some or all of your targets are already available digitally, will you digitize them again in order to manage access for your researchers?
- Our resources are fairly unique so I do not expect duplicates
Or will you collaborate with other organizations to create a complete virtual collection among yourselves?
Suggested Online Resources
Scanning & Metadata. Taking time up front to determine and define guidelines for each type of item your organization will be adding to its CONTENTdm collections will facilitate communications, increase efficiency, and help control costs. The key areas to define in advance are scanning and metadata:
- Webinars to provide initial information
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Process. While each organization defines its own optimal workflow, the digitization process often looks like this, with blue indicating Program Management tasks, green indicating Middle Management, and brown indicating other Staff:
1. Research
2. Plan Program
3. Fund Program
4. Plan Project
5. Assign/Hire
6. Prepare Materials
7. Scan & Name Files
8. QC Sample Scans
9. Add & Configure Collection
10. Build Test Collection
11. QC Test Collection
12. Build Production Collection
13. QC Production Collection
14. Publish Collection to Web
15. Market
16. Evaluate
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Budgeting & Funding
In light of your vision, mission, strategy, goals, objectives, digitization priorities, and sustainability plan, how much will you spend on digital collection development annually?
What items will you list in your budget for Years 1 through 3?
What is your organization’s total cost of online-collection ownership annually?
How will you cover the ongoing cost of a digital collection-development program?
- Collaboration and grant funding
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Appendix A – 1st Pilot Project
Project Guidelines
This is where planning meets production. Include detailed guidelines for processing and presenting each type of format in your collection (e.g., photographs, postcards, manuscripts, books, yearbooks, newspapers, etc.).
The Project Manager will edit the generic guidelines into project specifications to reflect the unique nature of each collection’s materials and requirements.
The next page presents a table titled CONTENTdm recommendations by type of material, which may serve as a useful starting point for creating your detailed project planning template.
Following that table is a worksheet that may be useful in communicating CONTENTdm 5 collection definitions and project settings among project team members.
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