Statewide Digital Consortia

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Statewide Digital Consortia

• Establishing and Sustaining the
• Mountain West Digital Library

Kenning Arlitsch Head of Digital Technologies,
Marriott Library University of Utah
kenning.arlitsch_at_library.utah.edu
Sarah Michalak Director of the Marriott
Library University of Utah sarah.michalak_at_library.
utah.edu
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The Mountain West Digital Library mwdl.org

• The Habit of Cooperation
• Developing the MWDL
• Structure
• Why the MWDL Works
• Building and Sustaining
• Challenges
• The Future
• Some Suggestions

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Utah Academic Library Consortium www.ualc.net

• Fourteen Higher Education Libraries and the Utah
  State Library
• Public and Private Institutions
• Community Colleges to Research Universities

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The Habit of Cooperation

• Statewide ILS implementation
• Shared Electronic Resources Catalog
• Statewide coordinated collection development
• Pioneer electronic library in partnership with
  state superintendent of education and public
  libraries
• Utah Article Delivery

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Developing the Mountain West Digital Library

• UU Pilot Project with State Historical Society
• Proposal to UALC
• Buy-in from LSTA
• Creation of Regional Centers and Partners
• How the MWDL Works
• Selecting Digital Projects

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Historical Society Pilot Project

• Grant to scan 200 glass plate negatives
• Planned to send to Nebraska for scanning
• No database solution
• UU scanned 400 negatives (no shipping costs)
• Offered space on CONTENTdm server
• Tested concept of remote support
• Eventual total of over 10,000 images
• Project gave us confidence
• Fees paid for 2 high-end scanners

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Proposal to UALC

• Build a digital collection about the region
• Include resources from cultural and educational
  institutions in Utah
• Make content accessible to all citizens
• Build on existing expertise in collaborative
  digitization (UU and BYU)
• Offer local control and low-cost
• Standardize metadata for interoperability

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Start-up Budget - 100,000

• CONTENTdm software for USU and SUU
• 10,000 x 2 20,000 (Level 2 licenses)
• Flatbed scanners and computers for USU and SUU
• 20,000 x 2 40,000
• Aggregating server and license
• 10,000
• PT scanning technicians
• 7,000 x 4 28,000
• Training
• 2,000

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Utah State CONTENTdm Server (Solaris)
MWDL Structure
MWDL website http//mwdl.org
U of Utah CONTENTdm Server (Windows)
BYU CONTENTdm Server (Linux)
Multi-Site Server (Windows)
SUU CONTENTdm Server (Linux)
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Regional Centers and Partners

• Utah State Historical Society
• Murray City Library
• Uintah County Library
• UU Fine Arts Museum
• UU Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence
• UU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
• BYU Fine Arts Museum
• Delta City Library
• Great Basin Association
• Topaz Internment Camp Museum
• Westminster College
• Snow College
• Utah Valley State College
• UU Eccles Health Sciences Library

• Utah
• University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
• Brigham Young University (Provo)
• Utah State University (Logan)
• Southern Utah University (Cedar City)
• Nevada
• University of Nevada Las Vega
• University of Nevada - Reno

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MWDL Digitization Process
Partner identifies Collection and secures
funding
Multi-Site Server Harvests Metadata from Center
Regional Center scans images
Center provides software and training
Partner/center creates project website
Partner enters metadata and uploads to center
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Buy-in from Library Services Technology Act
(LSTA)

• 2002 UU server grant
• Introduced concept of state-wide support
• Partners digitization proposals supported
• Liked that digitization hardware is centralized
• Required that MWDL standards be followed
• 2003 formal documentation
• Use of LSTA funds for digitization projects in
  Utah

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Advantages of the MWDL Model

• Partners retain their identity
• Collection access
• Local website
• MWDL website
• Object stored in only one place
• Digitization occurs in a uniform manner
• High-end equipment, standards
• Revenue stream for regional centers
• Structure is semi-self-sustaining
• Partners trained to apply metadata
• Contribution and control

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Building Constituencies

• Greater Western Library Alliance
• Western Waters Digital Library funded by IMLS
• Western Trails
• Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas
• Helped develop and adopted metadata standards
• Nevada
• UNLV, UN-Reno

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Utah Digital Newspapers

• Developed new digitization method
• 136,000 newspaper pages digitized
• 290,000 more by 05
• Will distribute and aggregate collection
• MWDL infrastructure

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Utah Constituencies

• Newspapers brought citizen participation
• State-wide representation
• Breaking down ivory tower barriers
• Thomas Billis story

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Some Words About Consortium Life

• Leading efforts like this requires a long view
• Some participants need to be brought along based
  on faith that they will get there
• Personnel issues, lack of resources/motivation
• Foster and encourage small acts of leadership
• There must be something for everyone

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Challenges

• Support/Training
• Partners sometimes have very little computer
  experience
• Partners sometimes dont pay attention to what
  theyre posting
• Effort
• Not all centers make equal effort

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Selecting Digital Projects

• Digital projects committee
• Couldnt make a decision
• Same is true in consortia
• Need a decider
• Collection Development
• Someone must step up to lead
• Selfless decisions
• Expect this, but dont get hung up
• No decision is a decision, too

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Looking Ahead

• Digital publishing and the creation of new
  knowledge
• Improving interfaces
• Ecommerce
• Selling prints

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Some Suggestions

• Assess your strengths
• Start with what you have
• Adopt standards right away
• Aim at an early success and capitalize on it
• Outline a role for everyone
• Avoid overly elaborate organizational structures
• Pick projects that will be important to your
  constituencies
• Keep communicating