This two-hour online class will explore the components of a strong digital collections policy and how to make strategic decisions about selecting and prioritizing materials for digitization.
For many of us, our special collections and archives include correspondence, diaries, research materials, family photographs, scrapbooks, oral histories, audio and video materials—and much of it is wonderful. Over the years our predecessors may have arranged and roughly organized the materials, but when it comes to digitization it is difficult for even the most sophisticated institution to know where to start.
Even if your institution has been digitizing materials for years it may be in a very ad hoc way and at some point in time most organizations need to pull back and set some guidelines, policies, and put strategies in place to prioritize their digitization work.
This class will help you walk through that process.
Learning Outcomes
Create a digital collections development policy focused on unique and special collection materials
Identify strategies for content selection
Recognize hazards to physical collections and understand how digitization workflows may enhance preservation efforts
Understand how to set digitization priorities
Instructor: Leigh Grinstead
Leigh Grinstead has more than 20 years of experience working in museums, overseeing collections and conducting collection inventories. During her nearly half decade with the Collaborative Digitization Program (CDP) Leigh's love of project management, grants work and administration has been well tested. She has extensive experience in digital projects. Her years working with museum collections gave her the drive to be a hands-on advocate for digitization, and her project management experience has allowed her to add discipline to the planning, budgeting, implementation and analysis stages of digitization projects. In addition, Leigh has been responsible for training many library and cultural heritage professionals in the use of digital technologies, including CONTENTdm. Leigh currently conducts in-person, as well as online courses. She has also managed National Endowment for Humanities and Institute for Museum and Library Services grants, including the Colorado Statewide Connecting to collections grant; and is consulting on three others. She is well versed in collaborative techniques and is an enthusiastic and highly skilled professional. LYRASIS is thrilled to have her on staff to support libraries, archives and others as they discover, share and experience the benefits of digitization.
