Skip to main content

The Digitial Dungeon

My work consists of rapidly learning about every aspect of digitization for libraries. In my fast paced required learning, I’ve realized that a lot of what I need to know is spread out over the vast information landscape. Very little of it is combined into a cohesive single location that is easily referenced or discussed. So, I wanted to start this blog as a place to review my learning, and offer it to the community for discussion and reference.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting about the basic knowledge I’ve had to become familiar with. Most of it will be training documentation that I’ve written for the students who I manage. After I get through that, I’m going to start going through the problems and solutions that my coworkers and I have had to tackle in regard to digital library initiatives.

I hope this blog is a useful and informative place for anyone interested in the topic.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Atiz scanner and Kirtas scanner aren’t playing nice with eachother

I love the Atiz scanner for it's simplicity, good design, and utility. I love the Kirtas scanners for their speed and their "wow" factor when people see the things work. The only problem I have at the moment is taking our current Kirtas workflow (using Kirtas's software Bookscan Editor, Superbatch, and OCR manager), and finding a way to make the Atiz scanner workflow work with it. The Atiz machine came with a hefty batch editing program that does a great job of cleaning up the images and making them wonderfully presentable. The machine even came with a PDF maker, but it doesn't OCR on its own, and it doesn't give you the options that Kirtas' OCR manager do. So, I want to process the Atiz scanner finished images using Kirtas’s OCR manager. However, that seems to be more difficult than I had first expected. For the next month, I’ll be trying to figure out how to make this marriage of Atiz and Kirtas systems work. If it ends up failing, then I may have t...
4 comments
Read more

Ex Libris Digital Preservation system

Today I attended a webinar from Sun Microsystems about the new Ex Libris Digital Preservation system. You can view the webinar here . The talking points are they handle all the hardware and they can handle the software. They claim it’s secure and built with redundancy. The major problem is that they say you can’t provide access to the files without getting Primo (Ex Libris’s new Amazon-like catalog toy-which is looking fun). They won’t convert the files for you when the formats out of style, but they make it so that you can maintain and upgrade the files. All and all, I like the idea of a comprehensive digital preservation system being handled by people who know hardware. I Just think it is going to be too expensive for most libraries. Time will tell how many libraries pick this up.
5 comments
Read more

Microfilm and Microfiche scanners

I have been researching high speed microfiche and microfilm scanners for the last year. There are four major companies that produce microform scanners. Mekel (a Crowley Company), Wicks and Wilson , nextScan ,and Sunrise . They each have their advantages and disadvantages. Both nextScan and Sunrise have 3-in-1 or 2-in-1 models, where you have one machine (~$100,000) that comes with one attachment, and you buy other attachments for different types of microform (Microfilm, Microfiche, and Aperture card). Each attachment costs extra. I never figured out the cost for the attachments. nextScan also has a dedicated roll film scanner , that I’ve heard good reviews from the Newspaper Digitization Project in Australia . In general, I have heard that the 3-in-1 or 2-in-1 machines are fine, but they tend to go slower than dedicated machines. They really are built for versatility and marketed toward libraries who can only afford one machine that can do all types (Paying $100,000+ for one...
4 comments
Read more