Matthew C. Mariner - Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources

Practical Guides for Librarians

About the Series

This innovative series written and edited for librarians by librarians provides authoritative, practical information and guidance on a wide spectrum of library processes and operations.

Books in the series are focused, describing practical and innovative solutions to a problem facing todays librarian and delivering step-by-step guidance for planning, creating, implementing, managing, and evaluating a wide range of services and programs.

The books are aimed at beginning and intermediate librarians needing basic instruction/guidance in a specific subject and at experienced librarians who need to gain knowledge in a new area or guidance in implementing a new program/service.

About the Series Editor

The Practical Guides for Librarians series was conceived by and is edited by M. Sandra Wood, MLS, MBA, AHIP, FMLA, Librarian Emerita, Penn State University Libraries.

M. Sandra Wood was a librarian at the George T. Harrell Library, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, College of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA, for over 35 years, specializing in reference, educational, and database services. Ms. Wood worked for several years as a Development Editor for Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Ms. Wood received a MLS from Indiana University and a MBA from the University of Maryland. She is a Fellow of the Medical Library Association and served as a member of MLAs Board of Directors from 1991 to 1995. Ms. Wood is founding and current editor of Medical Reference Services Quarterly , now in its 35th volume. She also was founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet and the Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries and served as editor/co-editor of both journals through 2011.

Titles in the Series

1. How to Teach: A Practical Guide for Librarians by Beverley E. Crane.

2. Implementing an Inclusive Staffing Model for Todays Reference Services by Julia K. Nims, Paula Storm, and Robert Stevens.

3. Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources: A Practical Guide for Librarians by Matthew C. Mariner.

Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources

A Practical Guide for Librarians

Matthew C. Mariner

Practical Guides for Librarians, No. 3

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Copyright 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mariner, Matthew C., 1984

Managing digital audiovisual resources : a practical guide for librarians / Matthew C. Mariner.

pages cm. (Practical guides for librarians ; no. 3)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8108-9103-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8108-9104-3 (ebook) 1. LibrariesSpecial collectionsAudio-visual materials. 2. Audio-visual materials Digitization. I. Title.

Z692.A93M37 2014

025.17'7dc232013040159

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to several persons and creatures. First to my awesomely supportive and patient wife, Dina, who reminds me constantly that Im no dummy. Second to my parents, John and Jude, who knew without doubt Id eventually write something worthwhile. Third to my two hilarious cats, Ivan and Betts, who snuggled me while I wrote this book. And finally I dedicate this book to my brother, Zach, who wont get to read it but who would have been the first to finish.

Contents

Preface

While working as a digital library technologist at the University of Florida, I was often faced with challenges in digitizing odd physical formats. Antique maps, miniature books, and three-dimensional objects all posed unique challenges. Typically, I was prepared to make informed judgments and had at my disposal most of the tools necessary to digitize such oddities. As my department began to field more and more requests for audiovisual digitization, it became clear that not all the tools and expertise that I had in imaging were applicable. I tasked myself with assembling new arrays of equipment and creating unique workflows and processes from scratch. Without the support of my colleagues and a smattering of Internet resources, I would not have been able to succeed in this new venture. What was missing from my toolkit, though, was a single guidebook relevant to digitizing and managing audiovisual resources specific to persons in the library world. Such a guide would have helped to stabilize those first shaky steps and elucidate the then-mysterious trials of audiovisual digitization.

Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources: A Practical Guide for Librarians takes a practical approach to informing librarians, or allied professionals in various library sectors, on how to take a measured, efficient, and informed approach to audiovisual digitization projects and programs. As is the case with most literature on the subject of audiovisual engineering and digitization, this book does not cover every facet of the fieldand there are manybut it does lay a solid foundation for building a much larger silo of information. This guide can be used to direct the planning, implementation, and continued support of an audiovisual digitization project, but it does not assume deep foreknowledge of the subject, nor does it demand total absorption from one concept to the next.

Digitization projects require skills and input from all kinds of information professionals, not just librarians. With this in mind, it would be wise to share the contents of this book with all persons involved in a project regardless of their professions. Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources takes readers from collections assessment before digitization all the way to figuring out what to do once material has been converted. Processes, workflows, tables, and technology capsules are located throughout, offering readers digestible snippets of information easily decontextualized and applicable in a variety of scenarios. By the end of the book, readers should be familiar with the following:

• The makeup of the audiovisual collection, physically and content-wise
• The differences between analog and digital formats
• Crafting a collection development policy
• Determining an audience for digital projects
• Planning and copyright
• Working with digitization vendors
• Starting in-house digitization from scratch
• Selecting presentation and repository technologies

Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources is composed of eight chapters that lead readers from the most basic concepts in audiovisual digitization to higher-level discussions of purpose and intent. Chapter 1, The Basics of Managing Digital Audiovisual Resources, introduces the basic concepts that a person must grasp to begin a digitization project of any size. These concepts include understanding collections, users, and products, which will inform most other decisions later in a project. Chapter 2, What Do You Have? Evaluating Collections, instructs readers on how to determine what makes their collections special. File formats, material content, and other aspects of collection description are addressed in detail.